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?...
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!...
In a recent blog, I erroneously described Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who have been described as “psychology’s Lennon and McCartney,” as “two Princeton University psychologists.” Actually, only one of the pair worked at Princeton—Kahneman, who has been there since 1993. Tversky was at Stanford University at the time of his death in 1996. This is all background for an interesting email I got last week from Adam Dickter, a public relations guy...
It is hard to believe that 2017 is almost here. Where did the time go? Many of us had a fiscal year that started in July 2016, so we are at halftime in this fundraising year. Others are just beginning a new calendar year filled with hope and possibilities. Wherever you are in the fundraising calendar continuum, you should take a moment to stop, look and evaluate before you jump without a parachute into 2017...
Last week, we discussed segmenting and being prepared to revise your strategy in part two of this fundraising and football series. This week, we’re covering two more things fundraisers can learn from the game: Football games and campaigns provide a rallying call for the faithful, and everyone has a best role.
If you have ever read about or asked a great player from any sport what inspired him or her, they always talk about a coach that was
As you attend holiday parties, you may have the opportunity to lay the groundwork for meeting with some of your largest donors.
