Fundraising's freshest thinkers take on the sector's toughest topics

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

One of the transparency things that I think is really important is that every nonprofit should put their 990s on their website, in the About Us section. Very few people are probably going to look at it, but it’s public data anyway, so it’s not serving you to not have it accessible from your website. And then the other thing is having the key people that will talk to the media and maybe other people, too, ready to tell the narrative: OK, these are the numbers; why are they this way? Why did we just spend $80 million in direct-mail fundraising? Is it because you make really weird decisions on your fundraising goals, or is it because you’re doing something strategically over the next three years?