Accountability

All of us have to start the process of establishing a relationship with someone at ground zero. And yet, the essence of fundraising and development is engagement. Meeting people and prospects is truly an art. With prospects, you must take excellent notes after each personal visit. Create a strategy for each session, and show you remember the prospect and the meetings at a deeper level...

An NFL team is a massive philanthropic boost to its surrounding communities, providing grants, fundraising partnerships and support for critical community outreach programs. But what happens when an NFL team leaves town? With the Rams set to relocate to Los Angeles, charities in and around St. Louis will soon find out...

GuideStar has given its 2.4 million nonprofit profiles a refresh. Starting today, gone are the static pie charts and other design elements that often served as preliminary snapshots for grant makers and others seeking information. They have been replaced with interactive data visualizations that illustrate charities’ revenue and expenses over many years and others that…

Over the last couple weeks, I've listened to major gift officers on why they haven’t done what they said they were going to do with their caseloads. All of their reasons have to do with losing focus on what their primary jobs are: creating and building meaningful relationships with donors...

Today we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The man embodied many things, but perhaps among his most notable identifiers was that he was a man of remarkable vision. Vision is crucial to inspiring others to give, volunteer and participate. However, many nonprofit leaders spend countless hours writing a compelling vision statement,…

A New Hampshire nonprofit is making the unusual decision to turn down tens of thousands of dollars in federal aid. Keith Howard, the executive director of the Liberty House in Manchester, N.H., a transitional house that helps homeless veterans, said he is choosing not to seek a nearly $40,000 grant from HUD (Housing and Urban Development)…

A few years back, I was facilitating a board retreat, where it quickly became clear to me that the majority of the board members were unwilling to participate in fundraising or even open to the idea of fundraising. The First Question Is Key In all my years of working with boards, I had never encountered…

Do your best to plant seeds and live in the moment. You hope all of your efforts with prospects, volunteers, board, administration and others ultimately will bear fruit during your tenure. The simple fact is many times results have a different timetable. Keep working hard and understand dreams are being created that you will never see to enjoy...

The Second Mile filed a petition last week to dissolve itself and give its remaining $800,000 in assets to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State University assistant football coach who in 2012 was convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse of 10 different boys and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison, founded the 39-year-old nonprofit based in Bellefonte, Pa. Sandusky also supported the nonprofit as an active fundraiser...

A USA Today report found that 29 colleges and universities spent a combined average of $2.5 million a year on large-format graphics to decorate athletics facilities. The schools say they help with recruiting of players and donors. Critics say they're a waste of funds better spent elsewhere. But what do facility graphics really mean for these schools' bottom lines?...