I’ve been enjoying The Cooper Review, the satirical blog of Sarah Cooper that features weekly original articles, videos and cartoons on workplace humor. I happened to catch one of the cartoons in a recent Medium post called “9 Cartoons To Help You Avoid Any Work.” It really spoke to me about our culture of overwork,…
I was recently talking to Susan, a development director for a regional nonprofit, and she was lamenting that she had another gala to put together. Even though this gala takes an enormous amount of time and effort from the staff, the executive director and the board want to keep it going because it brings in almost half of their revenue each year. Susan wasn’t upset about all the time and effort it took to pull it off each year, but the fact that the revenue generated by the event was really in transactional gifts, not mission-oriented gifts...
The development world is acutely aware that some people will never give. Naturally, we assume these non-donors are of no value to our organization. The reality, though, is that we’ve just presented them with a stimulus that does not match their expectation to take the desired action we request. They may never respond well to being asked for money, but we might be able to come up with something that would work better—if we could get past the idea that philanthropy is a sector without a product...
We work in a world of transition. Each of us has gone through a number of job changes in our nonprofit careers. If we have served in a management role, we have also seen a number of employee transitions. A fact of life in our profession is that employees will come and go. And if not handled properly, these transitions can hurt your organization's donor retention...
We all want to expand the work we are doing so we can make progress on our missions. But we need strategies, budgets and programs to make fundraising succeed. Simply saying “because I say so” isn’t enough. What can you do if you are facing unrealistic expectations?...
Recently, we argued that the once-sleepy world of corporate philanthropy is getting a lot more sophisticated as funders sharpen their priorities and "fuse traditional grantmaking with market-based approaches in ways that traditional foundations either can’t or won’t do." We also noted how corporate philanthropy was getting more tightly yoked to the quest for higher profits. Changes…
In late 2016, the New Economy Initiative, which is the largest philanthropic funder of regional economic development in the country, announced that it would be distributing half a million dollars to 32 small businesses around Southeastern Michigan. Two winners received $100,000, while 30 others got $10,000 each. The awards came out of the group’s third…
I can’t believe 2017 is already here! Are you ready for it? Is your fundraising ready for it? How will you be increasing fundraising revenue and strengthening donor relationships this year? Learn what smart fundraisers will be doing—and download a free 2017 fundraising and marketing calendar!...
It’s one thing to come up with a great idea that may serve a need within the community. It’s quite another to build a sustainable nonprofit organization that will grow and thrive well into the future. Local standouts in the nonprofit sector say a sound strategy, a dedicated staff, a healthy infrastructure, educated board members…
Donations to the Committee to Protect Journalists surged after actress Meryl Streep used her Golden Globes acceptance speech to urge people to support the organization, Money Magazine reported Monday. In her lifetime achievement award speech, Streep urged the audience to donate to the group as a means to hold President-elect Donald Trump accountable. "Our founders enshrined the…
