NonProfit Pro

For the ultimate intense experience in fundraising, try tackling a capital campaign. Even if you have a campaign or two under your belt, it always pays to go participate in a capital campaign course as a refresher in the field.

It used to be that nonprofits shied away from prioritizing their brands. After 15 years of running MSDS, however, I've noticed that nonprofits are becoming more aware of the link between a brand's strategic value and organizational impact.

One reason for this shift, I suspect, is that competition—for funding, people's attention, human capital—has gotten stiffer. And nowhere is that more apparent than online. When a nonprofit's website is underwhelming, it is not only out there for the world to see, it also sends the wrong message and undercuts the organization's mission.

The announcement Tuesday that Barack Obama will build his presidential library in Chicago did more than excite the South Side of the city. It also kicked off what's likely to become a fundraising frenzy.

Even if Obama doesn't raise any money himself—as he pledged not to do while in office—independent analysts fear that fundraising on his behalf still might create conflicts of interest in his final two years in the White House.

"Is this a problem? Absolutely," said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.

In 2013 and 2014, nearly three-fourths of the employees of Western Union made a donation to the Western Union Foundation, helping the company reach a milestone of $100 million in grants to over 2,700 nonprofits in 135 countries since 2001.

Many companies large and small approve of employee charitable giving, and even incentivize it in some cases by matching grants and other instruments for supporting the charitable causes that employees themselves want. As in some workplace-giving campaigns in the past, there's probably some element of corporate peer and supervisor pressure for employees to hit charitable giving goals...

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced an initial commitment of up to $75 million to launch a network of child health and disease surveillance sites in developing countries.

The grant will enable the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) Network to gather better data, more quickly, about how, where and why children are getting sick and dying. The network of disease surveillance sites in areas with high childhood mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia also could be repurposed quickly in the event of a disease outbreak, as was the case last year in Nigeria...

Quick quiz: What is Red Nose Day?

Most Americans probably don't have a clue—yet.

If you're British, it's almost guaranteed you know Red Nose Day is a fundraising extravaganza organized by Comic Relief that takes over the U.K. every two years. Millions of school kids, regular folks and celebrities act a bit bonkers and hit one another up for donations in the weeks leading up to a night of comedy and moving documentaries on BBC One.

All that tomfoolery has generated over a billion pounds to support disadvantaged people in the U.K. and Africa over the last 30 years.

Far too often, nonprofit leaders adopt a scarcity mentality. There's never enough. There's more competition for philanthropic dollars subdividing a fixed pie. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Good Scout, Austin, Texas, released the results of a new study examining American shoppers' feelings about donating to charity at the register. The findings of the "Change at the Checkout Report" illustrate specific consumer preferences, sentiment and motivations.

There is a lot of discussion in the nonprofit sector about Millennials (a.k.a. Gen Y) and Baby Boomers and a growing interest in Gen Z, a.k.a. #Philanthrokids, but almost no analysis of Generation X (aged 35 to 50 years). As the first generation to donate online and the generation that pioneered web design, email, blogging and online advocacy, ignoring Gen X is a big mistake.

As Gen X rebounds from the Great Recession, Gen Xers are entering their peak giving years and nonprofit fundraisers would be wise to pay more attention to how they give and why.

Some donors make gift decisions themselves and some make them involving their family. Some involve advisors and friends. So know who those advisors are—attorneys, accountants and others who are in a position to influence the gift.