Grooming the Next Generation of Donors: An Interview With Miami Jewish Health Systems' Blaise Mercadante

FS: How did you come up with the innovative ideas — homecoming gala, performances, etc. — to get a younger generation of donors to sustain fundraising?
BM: For starters, we pulled together lay leadership who understand the need to reach out to a broader community and hire professionals in event planning who know what’s hot. In reaching outside our core base, we connected with those who don’t know us and also tapped other sources of “new blood” — for instance, our vendor partners, many of whom are considerably younger and can provide insight into that group’s perspective. Lastly, we had the will and the confidence to produce something radical. Many not-for-profits are afraid of offending anyone at anytime, which keeps them firmly in the comfortable and boring middle. Sometimes you have to lay it all on the line and just go with an idea. We did. It worked spectacularly.