Fundraiser Education

Roughly 87 percent of fundraising emails from political candidates are ridiculous—ridiculous as in hugely melodramatic, making up random fundraising targets (we are only $1,538.32 away from our midnight goal!), and doing just about anything underhanded or gimmicky to get you to pony up a couple bucks. And yet, these candidates almost never get called out…

A perennial question in fundraising shops between now and the end of January will be, “Did we make the numbers for 2015?” Regardless of the answer, there are several questions that are far more important for the future of your organization, and there’s no better time than in these closing days of 2015 to ask…

Using online channels such as social media is a vital part of any year-end fundraising strategy, as online giving peaks at the end of the year, especially on Dec. 30 and 31. So how can you leverage your social media channels to make the most of your donors tendency to procrastinate until the end of…

Mia and spoke last week regarding her organization’s donor acquisition program for 2016. Mia is the development director for an environmental organization in the Northwest. As she reviewed her plans, two words kept ringing in my head: “advocacy” and “fundraising.” What struck me was how she seemed to be conflating the two...

Like many of your donors, I hope, I have been actively doing some year-end giving. That included mailing gifts to 19 organizations that had responded to my article earlier this year, offering to make a donation to the organizations of the first 10 people who responded. (I just couldn’t stop at 10.) ...

This has been my first ‘year-end’ with Shift and it’s been … fun. Nothing like starting your business in the busiest time of the year—when the pressure is highest to deliver results, on time. But with the majority of the craziness behind me, I’ve been able to catch up on some of my favorite blogs,…

Effective altruism is all about maximizing the impact of philanthropy. It supports the idea that one should give to the nonprofits that are able to statistically prove they are most effective. At first pass, it felt weird to me. Upon closer inspection, I recognize that effective altruism is a laudable concept, but a flawed one. Here's why...

Yesterday, Forbes released the 2015 edition of its annual "Largest U.S. Charities" report, which features the top 50 nonprofits by 2014 private donations (rather than government funding and other revenue sources) The full list is worth a look, but if you don't have time to poke around, don't worry. We did it for you! Here's a deeper look at the stats, trends and interesting tidbits on today's biggest charities...

Keith is a fundraiser for a nonprofit that focuses on rescuing at-risk youth. As an organization founded and led by Millennials, this organization is the future in many ways. Keith’s frustration wasn’t slow revenue growth. He’s tuned into the healthy revenue gains he’s achieving. What’s generating his frustration is the “uneven” response he’s getting from his donors...

You plan and strategize, check everything (at least) twice, and follow your schedule to the minute, but mistakes happen. There’s a typo; the mailer misses your drop date; the data is wrong; the insert is overlooked; the salutation says, “Dear [Name];” the link to the landing page is broken; or any number of other possible “oops!” moments. You can be sure that sometime in 2016, you will experience some problem in your fundraising program. So be prepared, and keep these things in mind...