Accountability
June 23, 2017 at 9:21 am
The former head of a D.C. charity meant to benefit Vietnam veterans pleaded guilty to wire fraud after embezzling about $150,000, federal prosecutors said. John Thomas Burch, 75, of Alexandria was the president of the National Vietnam Veterans Foundation until last year, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia said in a statement. He…
June 22, 2017 at 11:07 am
There’s no substitute for the basics, as boring and tedious as they may be. This is true with anything in life, and major gifts development is no exception. The basics are boring, but they’re fundamental to your success...
June 21, 2017 at 11:45 am
There’s an ongoing debate about whether or not fundraising is considered a profession. Majority of fundraisers (if not all) will argue that it is, and then there are some naysayers who will say that it’s not...
June 21, 2017 at 11:20 am
Most people, businesses and charities that have achieved great success emphasize the why over the what and the how. Of course, the what and the how are a lot easier than the why, but if you properly understand and express your why, people who feel similarly will buy from you or donate to you willingly, regularly and for a very long time...
June 21, 2017 at 11:16 am
As development professionals, the level of service and excellence in which your organization delivers its mission impacts us directly. We must be ever-vigilant in observing and being proactive in solving situations...
June 19, 2017 at 10:56 am
Two weeks ago, I was checking my credit card statement and noticed several iTunes charges on it. The charges were going up in value. Believe it or not, I don’t have an iTunes account, so that was an immediate flag. I called the credit card company right away to dispute the charges. They, of course, canceled my card and sent me a new card...
June 16, 2017 at 10:31 am
This week was all about the fundraising ladies. Andrea Kihlstedt shares a story of a gift solicitation gone wrong and lessons learned from it; Marilyn Donnellan gives us five guidelines for a simplified nonprofit strategic planning process; and Tammy Zonker discusses the five donor love languages...
June 15, 2017 at 12:16 pm
When it comes to a nonprofit organization’s mission, relationships are important. It is imperative for nonprofits to use everything at their disposal to reach their mission’s goals. It’s a known fact that technology is constantly evolving. It’s easy to think of technology and relationships as two separate entities, but what if we melded the two together to achieve “the bigger picture”?…
June 14, 2017 at 12:09 pm
In this period of fake news and alternative facts, we might feel a bit weary of hearing a term such as “half-truths.” But there is an anonymous quote that approximates what I mean by a half-truth: “Beware of the half-truth. You may have gotten hold of the wrong half...
June 14, 2017 at 11:44 am
Fundraising is all about relationships: The depth and quality of relationships between donors and the institution—the organization’s staff. It is also all about numbers. You must have a certain number of donors at specific levels to meet your goal (unless you have one donor driving the project, but then you will most likely eventually have to worry about sustainability)…
