A Blast From the Past: How to Lose Your Major Donors (May 2008)

If you have the mind-set of many nonprofit fundraisers, however, changing Uncle Jeff’s Greaseburgers No. 3 would be your top priority. You’d hurry down to the restaurant, remodel it, take down the signs, create a more expensive menu and convert the parking lot into a sculpture garden.

Crazy? Yes. But that’s what a lot of fundraisers do: They hand-pick the donors who are most responsive to their fundraising programs — and put them in a radically different program. And it’s probably costing them significant revenue.