If there is one thing we can expect in fundraising, it’s the unexpected. We’re sure it’s a winner, but the donors don’t respond to an e-appeal or direct mail. The worst drought in history ends on the night of the gala. The website goes down right as we announce a big fundraising campaign...
The campaign was stalled, and a friend called for advice. A large national consulting firm had developed a campaign plan and early counsel. Soon after its engagement ended, the campaign seemed to stall...
The business partner/client relationship does not have the best reputation. From the vendor perspective, this YouTube video pretty much sums up what the worst relationship can look like from the business-partner perspective. This is not fiction...
If you’re like me, you didn’t start out intending to be a fundraiser. I stumbled into fundraising more than 16 years ago when I transitioned from working for a regional grant-making foundation to my first development director job—and it was love at first sight. I loved my job. And I’d finally found my passion! But after two short years, I walked out the door. Why did I leave? And what can you learn from my departure from what remains, to this day, one of my favorite jobs?...
I was recently a guest panelist for a fundraising conference in Washington, D.C. The topic was how to hire and retain great major gift officers (MGOs). It’s a great subject. The room was packed, and it was the last session on a gorgeous afternoon, so you know it was important to people. One of the first questions that the moderator asked me was, "What is the single most reason an MGO leaves a position for another one?"
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?...
There’s an old joke about a minister who preaches the same sermon three weeks in a row. When confronted about it, he replies, "When you start doing what this sermon teaches, I’ll move on to another topic."...
"There is donor fatigue," one of the community’s top philanthropists shared in a recent feasibility study interview. Donor fatigue is a term often used. Is it real? It means a donor feels tired, worn out by requests from organizations. Are there causes? Yes, usually poor fundraising that is not donor focused...
Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising is built on the backs of multitudes of volunteer fundraisers. And the hardest part of P2P fundraising is finding people willing to lend their backs to the effort, also called acquisition. Acquisition is difficult. It’s hard because we often invite the wrong people to our P2P parties, in the wrong ways. At Turnkey, we classify events into two awkwardly named siblings: retail attractive and retail unattractive...
In part one of this article, we looked at how nonprofit marketing, fundraising and sales are synonymous. Sadly, they too often have been siloed—resulting in inconsistent messaging, confused donors and money left on the table. Let’s get practical. It’s been crystal clear since the explosion of media and messaging post digital revolution that if you still are thinking outbound marketing, you’re a dinosaur...
