The Wilderness Society

Check out the winners of the 2014 FundRaising Success Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence Website category from Milwaukee Rescue Mission, The Wilderness Society and Union Rescue Mission.

Check out the winners of the 2014 FundRaising Success Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence Email ($10 Million and Over) category from the National Park Foundation and Wilderness Society.

Reviewing the winners across all channels for the 2014 DMAW MAXI Awards, the shared themes were engagement, extraordinary storytelling and relationship building. The stats and snapshot images of the winning Direct Mail, Digital Media, Multichannel and Telemarketing campaigns provided high-level intel of the strategies and tactics.

At the 2014 Washington Nonprofit Conference, three fundraising professionals tackled "Digital Fundraising 101," specifically covering best practices for email, websites, online acquisition, social media, testing, integration, retargeting, responsive design and mobile optimization.

Middle donors provide a rare instance in which making your middle bigger will actually increase the health of your organization.

Donor retention is often overlooked, and because of this, nonprofits aren’t using email as a key retention tool. That likely means more email “asks” this year (donations, event registrants, advocacy actions) and fewer retention emails, like reporting back to donors and building relationships.

The risk this poses is if most emails ask for something, people may start tuning out everything. To make “ask” emails more effective, constituents need to also see results consistently from your organization. They need know that progress is being made and feel the momentum.

In a recent LinkedIn discussion group for fundraisers, many people shared their observations about whether commitment to the mission was essential to a fundraiser’s success. There were two sides: people who believe "it's all about technique" and people who believe that "belief in the mission is essential." I find myself on the “commitment to the mission matters” side of the argument. Technical mastery is important, or course, but it will only get you so far. Here are some of the benefits of being in a job you are passionate about.

"Overall, we saw some very strong but very traditional campaigns — very few major risks or outside-the-box approaches," judge Dane Grams said. "Was this a wise choice? It seems like it was, as most of the results we reviewed were incredibly strong."

Announcing the full list of the 2012 FundRaising Success Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence winners.

Announcing the 2012 Telemarketing Campaign of the Year: The Wilderness Society, along with the Kennedy Center.