When we make our goals, we feel focused and excited. But sometimes, goals can be too intimidating, stopping us from even getting started.  When you have your SMART goals figured out, you can make it a success by piecing it into achievable bits. This method is called chunking. 

Chunking is a way of breaking down your larger goal into more realistic steps. By creating a series of milestones, you can keep your goals reachable and actual get satisfaction from some success, no matter how small.

To start chunking, you need to work backwards from your end goal. Take your SMART goal from Part One of these blogs, and figure out the steps you need to make that possible. 

For example, if your goal is to find more donors, first figure out what that means to you. To make it SMART, you might fill in your answers like:

Specific – I want more monthly donors. 

Measurable – I want to get 6,000 more donors subscribed to my donation platform.

Attainable‍ – I will need to improve my marketing efforts to connect with more donors and get more people talking about our organization. I will have a junior marketing intern help me with social media. I might reach out to an agency to help us with a new website to make donating easier and faster.

Relevant – We need 6,000 more donors to increase our programs. It is vital to our organization.

Time-bound – My goal is to get 6,000 donors by December of this year.

Next, start to break down how that can be accomplished. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions. Your goal is to make it reachable so you don’t get overwhelmed. 

So you want 6,000 more donors. What is a reasonable timeline for that? Do people donate more at one time a year than others? Create whatever timeline feels possible for you and your team:

Q1: 1,000 donors
Q2: 1,000 donors
Q3: 1,500 donors
Q4: 2,500 donors

This feels better because now it’s not 6,000 people you are trying to get right now, it’s 1,000 this quarter. Let’s chunk it more.

Q1: 900 donors
January – 300 new donors
February – 300
March – 300

Q2: 1,100 donors
April
– 300
May – 400
June – 400

Q3: 1,500 donors
July
– 500
August – 500
September – 500

Q4: 2,500 donors
October – 500
November – 1,000
December – 1,000

It seems reasonable to scale it a bit, making the first steps easier at the beginning. Since you are starting out, let’s focus in on January. No chunking is too small. Big goals take small steps.

Q1: 900 donors
January – 300 new donors
Weekly – 75 new donors
Daily – About 9-10 donors per day

Getting 10 donors a day is much more reasonable than looking at 6,000! 

Before you start working towards your goal, there’s one more thing you need to do: identify what you need to make each step happen. Think about what practical steps, knowledge or help you will need.

In this case, you want to get 10 new donors a day. How can you accomplish that? What ways can you create more people getting behind your cause?

This could involve new marketing campaigns, email campaigns, tell-a-friend programs, going to events or conferences with a handout so they remember you, creating a new donation platform, making a new website, and so on. This is where the real marketing planning will come in. But you have a clear goal you are working for, so your marketing plan just makes that more focused and actionable. You can’t just start hustling if you don’t have a good direction. Take the time you need to create an effective plan, then start. If your plan isn’t working, readjust. 

We need ambitious goals to give us fire. We need the chunked steps to make progress and feel accomplished. Keep your eyes on the goal and your feet moving through your small tasks to make your SMART goals become a reality. 

If you ever need help making your organization’s goals come goal, feel free to contact us at Brave Factor. We love this stuff.