International Fundraising

First Comprehensive Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Initiative Launched in Africa
February 22, 2017 at 9:22 am

The President Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama of the Republic of Botswana, the Honorable Minister Dorcas Makgato of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers and Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital through public-private partnerships with the governments of Botswana, Uganda…

Donor Compliance: How My Experience Inspired a Fundraising Epiphany
February 15, 2017 at 9:54 am

Gaining donor compliance is not new work. Nonprofits that recognize that our job is gaining donor compliance—that is a new idea. This idea is that we must embrace fully if we are to compete with other human hardships, faux fundraisers, radical hate groups and smarmy politicians of all kinds...

China Unveils List of Activities Permitted for Foreign Nonprofits
December 22, 2016 at 8:30 am

After months of uncertainty for foreign nonprofits, China released a list of activities the groups will be allowed to pursue under a controversial new law, with a surprising number of activities falling in potentially sensitive areas such as legal services. Chinese President Xi Jinping has waged a fierce campaign against foreign influences in the country,…

How a Small Nonprofit Raised $380K Through International Crowdfunding
June 3, 2016 at 10:03 am

The Internet has changed the way we communicate, effectively rendering distance obsolete. Everyone and everything is a click away, opening new avenues for international fundraising. One of those avenues is crowdfunding, which can provide a solid secondary revenue stream for organizations of all sizes. Just ask Arlington Academy of Hope, a small nonprofit based in Arlington, Va...

International Fundraising: Getting Started in the Big World of Global Giving
May 12, 2016 at 10:35 am

All told, 1.4 billion people worldwide donated money in 2014, more than six times the amount of Americans who donated. This is not a knock on U.S. giving. It’s a reminder that the 
donor pool is much larger than many charities realize. International 
donors are a viable and underserved fundraising market, a vast pool of untapped resources. How do you tap into it?...

Soccer Superstar Lionel Messi Donates Shoes, Enrages Entire Country
April 15, 2016 at 9:52 am

Lionel Messi is one of the world's best-known sports figures and one of the most famous people on the planet. So when the soccer star donated his cleats to an Arab television station, to later be auctioned for charity, it seemed like a nice gesture. Autographed Messi gear fetches big bucks online, so it's reasonable to assume it'd do the same for charity. Little did Messi know, his gift would cause an international incident...

Charitable Giving Up Around World, Study Finds
November 11, 2015 at 9:09 am

A growing proportion of the world's population is giving money or time to charity, a new report from the Charities Aid Foundation finds. Based on surveys conducted by Gallup in 145 countries, the 2015 edition of the World Giving Index reports that 1.4 billion people made a gift to charity in 2014—a global participation level…

Somebody Launched a Crowdfunding Campaign for Greece's 1.6 Billion Euro Debt
July 1, 2015 at 7:00 am

Go big or go home, right? That seems to be the mantra at the Greek Bailout Fund page on crowdfunding site Indiegogo. The campaign, started by a 29-year-old Brit named Thom Feeney, popped up two days ago, seemingly as a good-natured (if tongue-in-cheek) way to lend a hand to Greece, which yesterday announced it was unable to make its scheduled 1.8-billion-euro International Monetary Fund loan payment. "All this dithering over Greece is getting boring," reads the campaign's mission statement.

What You Must Know (and a Few Things You Probably Don't) as an International Fundraiser
February 18, 2014

Global Fundraising: How the World is Changing the Rules of Philanthropy” by Penelope Cagney and Bernard Ross takes a continent-by-continent overview of philanthropy and fundraising, showcasing techniques and trends, opportunities and obstacles, and features authors with specific knowledge of each market or trend. Although “Global Fundraising” is organized also to highlight several major themes, there are some that resonated quite strongly with my own experience and observations of the international fundraising landscape. These are, in my view, among the most important things that any international fundraiser or nonprofit leader should know …