Prospects

Probably not as much as you might think. But… a little bit. This article covers how major donor prospects are fundamentally the same as other prospects. After all, first and foremost, they’re people. And people want to feel good...

There are a number of charities out there that tend to target high-net worth philanthropists, and these philanthropists have the opportunity to play a big role due to the fact that they willingly give in large amounts...

True story. Earlier in my fundraising career, I was working in Virginia and putting a trip to Boston together to visit some donors and prospects we had there. I still remember one particular telephone conversation like it was yesterday. I want you to read it and think of three things I did wrong...

Let’s take a second to talk about the term “peer-to-peer fundraising.” It can be a confusing topic to many of us—mainly because the many nonprofits that do not engage in peer-to-peer fundraising don't know what it is, don’t know how to start or think their nonprofit lacks the resources to begin a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, as we found in our recently released “2017 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Study...

In my experience, the most frequent types of planned gifts an organization should market are bequests, charitable gift annuities, stocks and charitable IRA rollovers. I also suggest that you investigate life insurance, as many individuals have existing insurance policies with cash value that you can immediately use...

If you want to prove a point, nothing is better than a survey. You can, as you likely know, get any result you want by positioning the questions carefully. Today, it’s easy for anyone to put together and send out a survey using tools like SurveyMonkey...

The Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards, an international nonprofit that is dedicated to establishing and promoting professional licensure standard for landscape architects, had faced the challenges of needing to be laser-focused on its mission and to boost efficiency...

The 2017 calendar year has been a very interesting year for me. It seems that I have contacted more prospects and made a larger number of asks than in recent memory. That said, I have also received greater numbers of refusals from an array of individuals, corporations and foundations...

Many fundraisers can point to specific successes that are a result of doing research and applying the findings to create a new program or refine an existing strategy. While surveys are still used for many research efforts, I had an opportunity to probe 21st century research for nonprofits with Dave Goetz, president of CZ Strategy, a marketing firm that helps organizations make sense of their data and then implement messaging and communication changes based on the findings...

When you think about special fundraising events, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Let me guess, it’s probably the type of event: walk, run, dance-a-thon, shaving off your hair… These types of events are called peer-to-peer fundraising events...