Creative

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...

Most of us can identify with this experience: Agreeing to help out with a project or an organization, ending up more involved than we intended and vowing to say “no” to future requests. And yet, here I am, year after year, running tickets for Hot Times, Holy Enchilada and the other games of chance. The truth is, I fell prey to a technique we subscribe to at Turnkey to help our clients raise more money for their various missions...

Feeding America has 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs and is continuing to grow. Its dedication to ending hunger in the U.S. has led them to their next initiative: MealConnect. In partnership with Google.org, General Mills and Walmart Foundation, Feeding America created a technology platform that makes it easier...

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”?…

An organization founded by film lovers uses direct mail to expand its community and fund its mission.

With today’s ever-changing landscape, fundraisers who want to be successful also need to be great marketers—and keep up-to-speed with the latest trends, strategies and platforms….

Everything I knew and read about strategic planning said that it took a lot of time and money. I struggled every day to figure out how to get everything done with very limited resources. All the books I read and all the classes I attended bombarded me with copious information and theory. How could I narrow it down and make it work for me in my small nonprofit?...

There are a lot of disaster stories out there; some are just plain sad, and some didn’t even make the mailstream. One such sad story began with the creative, and the clients decided that they wanted to have a singing microchip sing a popular song about their product...

The words you use on your donation page are powerful. And there’s a danger in assuming your donor understands why they should give to you just because they land on your donation page. By adding copy to your page, you can articulate those reasons clearly and increase your donations...

We are huge proponents of video—carefully planned video with a clear objective. In most campaigns that are focused on major gifts, we are not big fans of a fundraising video, unless there is a reason that prospective donors can’t see impact of the client’s work firsthand...