Face-to-face Fundraising

When your focus is on a donor’s potential capacity rather than their passion, you’re making assumptions. When your focus is on their job title or the neighborhood they live in rather than their commitment, you’re making assumptions. When your focus is on the color of their skin or their age or gender, you’re making assumptions...

You must understand you have a unique personality and traits. Like dating, everyone is different and all of us relate differently to the staff, volunteers, prospects, donors and others we meet. Some will connect to us and some will not connect to us. In all cases, you need to be professional, honest, ethical, institutionally driven, have high expectations and persevere...

Peer-to-Peer fundraising is a great way to engage your donors and get them to participate in some healthy, happy, fun physical activity. We are currently surrounded by a world promoting fitness and wellness. Just look around: From fitness tracker watches (FitBit, Apple Watch) to food tracking apps (MyFitnessPal, My Macros+) to the numerous amount of “#fitspos” out there popping up like dandelions—all of these things keep you motivated to stay healthy and find any excuse to engage in physical activity, right?...

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...

The nonprofit world is all about time, talent and treasure. We all seek ways to engage others in our organizations, so we can build relationships with them. What we hope to get is a family member and, eventually, the whole family as part of your network. If you can orchestrate a way to capture one ‘s attention, the possibilities for further engagement are endless...

I know that some major donors have given extremely large gifts over the phone, or even in a direct-mail appeal. I’m sure you have heard those stories. But, it’s rare. Donors want you to sit down with them and ask for a significant investment. If you are at a point where it’s time to challenge your donors, the only way to get over that hump is to look a donor in the eye and ask for that gift...

Imagine if you could make great presentations. I’m not talking about merely good speeches. Instead, I’m speaking of truly memorable, meaningful, influential presentations at staff meetings, board meetings, professional conferences and gatherings of prospects and donors. Would taking your presentations to the next level help you more effectively guide your staff, inform your board, teach…

The modern world has allowed us to connect like never before. The Internet and social media have made it possible to reach people with any message you want to share. Everyone can now have an audience. However, you don’t just want any audience. You don’t want to be yet another voice in a loud and…

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to love Yogi Berra. Originator of many popular "Yogisms," including “When you come to a fork in the road, take it” and "It's déjà vu all over again,” Berra was known as much for his malapropisms as his MLB career. One of my newsletter subscribers reminded me of my favorite "Yogism" just the other day. Her organization has considered enrolling in a big-ticket, sustainable fundraising coaching program...

Throughout the 2016 campaign, two candidates have lapped the field when it comes to throwing fundraisers—former Gov. Jeb Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And for two politicians with a complicated history of both distancing and embracing their family names, Clinton and Bush now are calling on kin to help them raise cash…