Lawrence Henze

The more you know about your lapsed donors — their characteristics, interests and relationships to your organization — the better prepared you are to recapture these donors or, more importantly, prevent them from lapsing in the first place. Prevention is perhaps the strongest strategy in addressing lapsed-donor issues. Consider the following when developing your donor-retention strategy:

According to Giving USA 2007, charitable bequests totaled an estimated $22.91 billion in 2006. As in recent years, these charitable bequests made up less than 8 percent of the estimated total giving that year. But research shows that one in three individuals would be willing to consider having a charity named in his or her will. These findings support the belief that organizations need to focus on upgrading donor consideration into donor action, especially for planned gifts. What does this mean for you? Whether you are beginning a new program or hoping to invigorate an existing planned-giving effort, you are far more likely to

As nonprofits of every stripe delve into bigger and better campaigns, they rely more heavily on major gifts to meet their fundraising goals. Even in down economic times, organizations must keep their major-gifts campaigns healthy. The key, no matter what the economy, is a simple return to basics. Some points to remember: 1. KEEP UP YOUR ANNUAL FUND. Studies show that a vast majority of nonprofits with successful major-gifts programs also have strong annual-giving efforts. After all, major-gifts donors usually have a long history of annual giving before they move up. 2. DON’T OVERLOOK MID-LEVEL MAJOR GIFTS. Donors start to think of