Creative

There are many ways to justify having a social presence as a nonprofit (and not too many good reasons not to have one by now). But how do you measure its value to your nonprofit?

With mail continuing to provide the best return on investment of any prospecting medium, and with the power it can have on a housefile, it's a shame to abandon it completely. Even if you can't afford to put a bigger piece (i.e., a catalog) in the mail, there are affordable alternative mailers that can work well if used as part of an integrated marketing strategy.

There's no surefire formula for creating viral content. However, there are a few attributes that most viral things have in 
common. If you follow the eight recommendations below, the material you create is much more likely to be passed along.

We can and should tell donors all these things, often, in as many ways as we can. But we can also show them with involvement devices that say to them, "Your thoughts and ideas, your concerns, and your vision are things of interest to me."

Three fundraising professionals shared 30 ideas for fundraising success at Fund Raising Day in New York. Here are ideas 21-30.

Three fundraising professionals shared 30 ideas for fundraising success at Fund Raising Day in New York. Here are ideas 11-20.

Donors see your envelope first — and maybe last. If there is nothing that captures attention, you’re sunk.

Three fundraising professionals shared 30 ideas for fundraising success at Fund Raising Day in New York. Here are ideas 1-10.

These 12 strategies aren't the only things I'd do to transform my donor-development office. They may not even be the most urgent things I'd do, or even the most important. But they are the things I'd do that I think would have the most lasting impact. They would make the most difference to converting my imaginary donor-development department from the under-funded, misunderstood appendage to the fundraising function that I found on joining the organization into the finely honed, high-
earning core activity that I'd like to leave behind when, in the fullness of time, I move on to pastures new (you have to indulge me a little here, in this fantasy). Anyway, here we go.

Writer-for-hire Rick Grant takes on a lapsed-donor case.