Acquisition

At the recent Bridge Conference, I enjoyed several wonderful sustainer sessions. During one of those, someone asked about the automatic sustainer upgrade process some nonprofits are apparently using. My hair immediately started standing up straight! What happened to being donor-centric?...

Your organization has no cute kids, puppies or people that you regularly serve. But you keep hearing that you’re supposed to share those “mission moments” about real people to engage your community. How does sharing powerful stories work for you?...

Have you started planning how to rock your year-end fundraising? Say what? I can hear you now, “Pam, it’s summer, and I’m going on vacation next week! Stop already.” But hey, the stats don’t lie. Almost a third of all annual giving occurs of December. Twelve percent of all giving happens in the very last…

Have you started planning how to rock your year-end fundraising? Say what? I can hear you now, “Pam, it’s summer, and I’m going on vacation next week! Stop already.” But hey, the stats don’t lie. Almost a third of all annual giving occurs of December. Twelve percent of all giving happens in the very last […]

Every single sentence in your email appeals is critical to your email fundraising success. We learned this through an experiment we conducted with the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Before their grand opening, the George W. Bush Presidential Center was running an acquisition campaign to recruit founding members...

Donations are the lifeline of nonprofit organizations, so it comes as no surprise that the end of the year can be a lucrative time. As potential donors, fueled by the generous spirit of the holidays, look to offload some cash before the end of the fiscal year, some organizations can see almost half of their annual donations come through during this period...

Every industry—ours included—is transitioning into a more mobile-focused mindset. We are entering (if we haven’t already) a device-dependent era. Like it or not, the majority of people are attached to their smartphones, tablets, what-have-you...

What’s a trend that has been popping up on the nonprofit radar as of late? We’ll tell you: personalization. Let’s think realistically—anyone can write a letter or type up an email. The key is not to sound like an automated voice message...

As a strategic planning practitioner, I love the process and the outcomes, but I am saddened when a well-conceived plan just sits on the shelf. From a fundraising perspective, a strategic planning process that engages key constituencies and great minds is a wonderful cultivation opportunity, and the resulting plan should give confidence to donors who might invest in making the plans a reality...

Storytelling has been "hot" for some time now and for good reason. Our human brains are wired for storytelling. We’re automatically open and receptive. So, you’d be foolish not to use this to your advantage when it comes to your nonprofit marketing and fundraising—especially if your goal is to raise money. Storytelling is not difficult once you get the knack of it...