Strategic Planning

Tedious, unimpactful, busywork is enough to burn anyone out in any industry. Sadly, it comes with the territory for any career, job or project. Sometimes, before you can do the work you love, you have to take care of certain responsibilities, whether we like it or not. In the nonprofit world, that problem is exacerbated. Why?...

As development professionals, we come across many misconceptions about our profession and the nonprofit sector that dilute the power of philanthropy. By casting fundraisers in a negative light, myths prevent giving and deter qualified people from joining our industry as professional fundraisers...

This week was all about the fundraising ladies. Andrea Kihlstedt shares a story of a gift solicitation gone wrong and lessons learned from it; Marilyn Donnellan gives us five guidelines for a simplified nonprofit strategic planning process; and Tammy Zonker discusses the five donor love languages...

When it comes to a nonprofit organization’s mission, relationships are important. It is imperative for nonprofits to use everything at their disposal to reach their mission’s goals. It’s a known fact that technology is constantly evolving. It’s easy to think of technology and relationships as two separate entities, but what if we melded the two together to achieve “the bigger picture”?…

Getting your fundraising program to deliver the ongoing revenue your organization needs to fulfill its important mission is often about focusing on better rather than more. As we work to generate the much-needed revenue, we often get lost in the rush to simply do more of what we’re already doing. That probably gives us some results, but at what cost?...

For many nonprofits, fundraising energy becomes sluggish as the temperatures rise. It may not be prime event season, donors may be too busy for a visit, mailing an appeal letter might be put off until fall, and online efforts take a back seat to vacation and “summer hours...

June to-do lists of most nonprofits are always focused on the financial preparations for the upcoming fiscal year. Yet, many still remain unprepared for the possibility of a future audit. To prevent being blindsided in the future, it would be beneficial for nonprofits to move some of their attention from this fiscal year to re-evaluating their organization’s workflow and infrastructure...

Fundraising is all about relationships: The depth and quality of relationships between donors and the institution—the organization’s staff. It is also all about numbers. You must have a certain number of donors at specific levels to meet your goal (unless you have one donor driving the project, but then you will most likely eventually have to worry about sustainability)…

I am a sucker for those ads that feature dogs and other four-legged creatures in cages. The organizations that I contribute to on a regular basis include the following: ASPCA, The Humane Society, Farm Sanctuary, AARF and PAWS...

Dialogue with your donors, clients or prospects begins with good data; we all know that one tenet of direct mail—garbage in and out. When we go to the mailbox, a treasure trove of information on fun, as well as vital information, awaits us. Some good, some bad and at most, lame or even useless...