Each new year begins with a world of possibilities! With that in mind, it’s time to establish a fundraising plan for the year. Here are three tips to help your nonprofit have its best fundraising year ever.

Remember and Celebrate

One of the most important things we can do as fundraisers is to stop and celebrate. Invite your team, volunteers, leadership and donors to join in the celebration of the impact your organization will make because of the generosity of your donors. Before you jump into the year, take the time to reflect and celebrate your organization’s hard work and previous success.

Analyze and Evaluate

Measure and analyze your fundraising results to help your organization be more effective with communication, appeals and overall fundraising strategies. Commit to continual improvement by using simple indicators to evaluate the return on investment for each of your appeals. For example, review email open rates to test your most successful messages, average gift size and retention rate. Then, set goals to surpass these benchmarks.

Create and Innovate

It’s easy to rerun the same fundraising strategies that you utilized last year. But why repeat when you can improve? You’ve spent the time to evaluate what works and what doesn’t. Now, it’s time to make changes to your plans, especially by introducing new methods, messages, events and other strategies to achieve your fundraising goals.

Now that you’ve taken the time to celebrate, evaluate your plans and create innovative strategies for the year—month by month—make plans to intentionally communicate with donors and prospects. “New” isn’t always better, but everything can be improved.

Be sure to share the vision, strategies and fundraising activities calendar with your team. Invite their feedback and adjust accordingly. This isn’t your plan, but the team’s plan for a great year. With shared ownership, everyone wins.