If you are a full-time development person, 90% of your time should fall into this category. And if you're an executive director, anticipate about 50% of your time. These are ideal numbers, but we understand that this may look slightly different based on your organization.

Though carving out time to fundraise is crucial, reevaluating where you're exerting your efforts in other places can make or break your fundraising strategy. Being too involved in planning committees or getting pigeon-holed into taking on activities that are taking up too much time in your fundraising efforts can be a huge disservice to your efforts. This is especially true for Executive Directors that get swept into doing other things that are not just running the organization to spending half their time on fundraising. Be especially protective of your Executive Director's fundraising time because, at the end of the day, that is who major donors want to build a relationship with.