Strategic Planning

Too Much of a Good Thing: When Communications Go Awry
August 18, 2016 at 8:08 am

The problem with the ease of communicating these days is, well, we talk too much! And too often, we aren’t really communicating with people who really want to engage in that particular conversation at that particular time. Before you move into the busy last four months of the year, take time to consider your donor audience...

Nonprofit Horror Story: The Last-Minute Fundraising Appeal
August 16, 2016 at 10:06 am

I can remember the day just like it was yesterday—that dreaded moment when my director of development approached me and said: “We need you to get an appeal out. And it should have gone out last week.” To provide context, I was a mere two weeks into my job and had been pulled off task so frequently that I still had no idea what this particular organization had done in terms of past grants...

Want to Optimize Your Fundraising? Here's How to Get Started
August 9, 2016 at 9:54 am

I grabbed drinks with a friend the other day. She runs an arts organization and is perpetually in a scramble to raise enough money. I call this dance the charity hustle. By its very nature, fundraising likely always will be a challenging and uncertain endeavor. But there are ways to take some of the guesswork…

Why You Shouldn’t Care About the Largest Foundations in Your Region
August 2, 2016 at 9:28 am

A mega-grant from a mega-foundation always seems like the answer to your prayers, right? Not quite. The truth is, foundation giving plays a smaller role than you probably think. In fact, in terms of the entire philanthropic pie, foundation funding accounts for a mere 16 percent...

Are You Ready for Your Year-End Appeal?
July 12, 2016 at 10:12 am

You may think fall is a long way off. We just celebrated Independence Day in the U.S., and temperatures are creeping into the 90s. Don’t let that deceive you. September will be here before you know it. Fall is a busy time, especially if you’re doing a year-end appeal. Many nonprofits rely on their year-end…

8 Signs of a Great Nonprofit Strategy
May 17, 2016 at 9:37 am

When I work with clients on strategy, one of my greatest responsibilities is to shift their thinking so they can look at things in new ways, step up to a higher plane and think big. Boards of directors and staff alike usually are too mired in today’s challenges to envision a dramatically improved future, let…

The Question Every Fundraising Professional Needs to Be Able to Answer
May 11, 2016 at 10:07 am

Strategic planning is a passion of mine. It is energizing and rewarding to provide the tools and resources for a client to determine his or her future. My first foray into strategic planning was when I was leading a capital campaign that would hit goal and had the ability to overachieve it by far...

Strategic Philanthropy: The Shift in Donor Behavior That's Shaking Up the Nonprofit Sector
May 9, 2016 at 12:12 pm

Donor behavior is becoming less transactional in nature as donors now act as philanthropists in more sophisticated and strategic ways. Donors are narrowing the number of causes they support, donating more to those causes, and doing so with an expectation of engagement and 
accountability we once saw only from a select few. Donors of all shapes, sizes and types have become strategic philanthropists...

How I Screwed Up Our Marketing (and What You Can Learn From It)
April 26, 2016 at 10:23 am

As a promotion at recent fundraising conferences, my team had the idea to give away pedometers to the more than 4,000 fundraisers in attendance. If they walked 33,000 steps at the conference, and sent a picture confirming their totals, we’d make a $25 donation to their nonprofits. I thought this would become the Ice Bucket Challenge of fundraising conferences. It did not...

Should You Drop Social Media From Your Fundraising Strategy?
April 19, 2016 at 9:11 am

Social media may be good at raising awareness, but—contrary to the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge—it may not be so great at getting people to donate to an organization. This was one of the significant findings of a new study published in Sociological Science. The research found that while social media campaigns may attract…