Recurring Donations

One of the toughest challenges in our sector is getting donors to give time and time again—to get one-time donors to become repeat donors. Perhaps it’s showing donors the impact that the organization is making or having a mission powerful enough for donors to want to be a part of the organization. Perhaps simplifying the…

Giving Tuesday has revolutionized giving days. A movement that started in 2012 by 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation, Giving Tuesday aims to “celebrate and encourage giving during a commercially focused season,” Jessie Salpeter, senior digital account executive for Chapman Cubine and Hussey, said during the DMA Nonprofit Federation Conference...

In my 30 years of involvement with philanthropy professionally, when volunteers and professionals think of fundraising, they almost invariably are thinking of that moment when an “ask” is made. Whether through the mail, email, social media or—the dreaded face-to-face meeting—the act of asking for money sends chills up the spine and tremors of fear through the limbs...

Fifteen years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, local military families face deployments to Afghanistan and dangers of war while organizations that help veterans, whose population here has boomed, face higher demand for services. Meanwhile, leaders say the fundraising power of 9/11 has diminished, leaving those charities to tighten their belts. "The need is going…

Gift cards used as recognition are like wiregrass in my fescue, like a dog’s butt on my favorite pillow, like white zinfandel being the only wine served. There is so much wrong with using gift cards as recognition, and actually as gifts in any regard, that it’s hard to even know where to start chewing on the issue. I always have known it was wrong...

If you’ve paid even the tiniest amount of attention to popular culture in the past decade, you’ve surely noticed that a lot of people really, really love comic books and superheroes. What was once perhaps looked upon as "nerdery" is now embraced as mainstream. And so it stands to reason that comic behemoth Marvel will…

The annual fund campaign is a cornerstone of most nonprofit fundraising strategies. Annual fund campaigns refer to a set of strategies that nonprofits implement to raise the funds needed to cover their operational expenses. Generally, they’re made up of three main components: outreach, fundraising events and direct asks. The unifying thread of these components is…

America's 200 million credit cardholders are better at accruing rewards than spending them. Last year, we failed to redeem about $16 billion worth of loyalty points, one survey showed. Apparently, what motivates us to get cards in the first place isn't the extras on offer. It's the simple convenience of having plastic when we need…

We all love a good crisis. Don’t we? No, you say? What did you do the last time you passed a traffic jam on the opposite side of the expressway? Did you slow down and rubberneck to check it out? What about that fire that you just happened to drive by? Did you park, get out and watch?...

You might have just read this headline and said to yourself: “I can tell this is going to be really boring stuff—I really don’t need to read or do this!” If this is your story, let me tell you a story. I have had two situations in the last few months where the major-gifts officers have refused to do the kind of planning and prioritizing I am suggesting here...