Fundraiser Education

While I do believe too many fundraisers are underpaid relative to their skill sets and performance, I have a hunch it’s not the real chief culprit for fundraiser dissatisfaction. What is?...

I spend a great deal of time thinking about potential donors. I believe research is one of the keys to success in fundraising. My excitement comes when I engage with people and ask for a gift. The greatest percentage of a fundraising person’s time, unfortunately, is not exciting...

It’s no secret that nonprofits have an alarmingly high employee-turnover rate. Why are there new faces around the office so regularly? Many have brushed it off as “burnout,” but what does that really include? Tech Impact took a closer look at the causes of nonprofit turnover in this infographic...

The entire nonprofit community—in the U.S. at any rate—is obsessed with “major gifts.” You know the ones. Those gifts, which are of such size, that create big waves as they wash up on the beach of the nonprofit...

DonorsChoose.org, the nonprofit organization dedicated to funding children’s educational needs, launched its Student Life Essentials Program earlier this year. Prior to the launch, DonorsChoose conducted a survey that included 2,000 teachers who were from high-poverty schools throughout the nation...

Generating compelling success stories won’t happen by magic. In order to get the stories, you need to help your staff understand the importance of stories in the organization’s marketing and fundraising efforts and to feel comfortable asking clients for their stories...

Every few years, my husband and I venture out for some springtime skiing—when the skies are bluer, the temperatures are higher and the crowds are thinner. As I catch my breath from a day on the slopes, I’m reminded that spring skiing has some similarities with fundraising...

Seeing some of the conversation in the media, to me, reflected a lot of common misconceptions and misunderstandings about the role nonprofits play in our society. And so we did a piece of analysis to kind of take advantage of all this attention and hope we could provide some education, and to show, for example, some of the differences between the two institutions...

Some of the world's most influential billionaire philanthropists plan to launch a powerful digital platform to harness the avalanche of data sent from satellites each day—and make it freely available for humanitarian and environmental causes. Bill and Melinda Gates—who are also custodians of legendary investor Warren Buffet's billions— have joined forces with Pierre Omidyar, founder…

Conventional wisdom says that when people support nonprofits, “it’s all about the mission.” Nonprofit CEOs and other C-suite executives say this a lot. Their supporters are connected to a cure for cancer, global warming, humane treatment of animals, etc. And when you ask constituents why they do what they do for nonprofits, this is exactly what they will say. It’s all about the kids, homeless animals, clean air...