Donor Relationship Management

A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak to the Big Bend Association of Fundraising Professionals about anything I wanted to talk about. So I chose to talk about what I’ve learned working and volunteering in the nonprofit sector for the past 30 years. I titled my speech “The Lessons I’ve Learned, Sometimes the…

Our fundraising work allows programs to continue, results to happen and stories to be told because the organization’s mission is being accomplished. One way we may become people who are remembered for years to come is to make sure we are consistently reminding our donors how important leaving us a legacy in their will or trust is to our organizations (and to them). Set in motion bequest gifts with these four steps...

One of the things donors often wonder is whether the “ask” they just heard or received from the major gift officer (MGO) is really true. They’re just not sure that the promise of what will be done with the money is totally factual. When you include the organization's leaders in your process with the donor, the donor feels included in the inner circle of decision-making...

Like you, perhaps, I have felt a sense of frustration over the latest bad news from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project. Bottom line: We, as a fundraising community, are doing a poor job when it comes to retaining donors. But if you are a nonprofit with a budget that won’t stretch to cover techniques like modeling and multiple copy variations based on donor actions and characteristics, there are still things you can do...

Sarah, the executive director of an arts nonprofit, was giving me a detailed review of her organization’s fundraising efforts and results. This is an organization seemingly doing everything right, but its fundraising results seem to defy these positives. What worries Sarah is the lackluster performance from individual donors. Sarah is right to be concerned...

If you want gifts, you must give them. The essence of a relationship is reciprocity: give and take. When you are kind and giving, people want to reciprocate. Yet too often nonprofits put "taking" at the center of their development strategies. Do you ask, “What can we do today for our donors?” Or, do you fall into the camp that asks, “What can our donors do for us?”

There is a big difference between simply knowing something about a person and truly knowing the person. Our ability to know a person requires that we have great familiarity with that individual. It’s through this process that we begin to understand whether a person’s behavior is the result of some episodic impulse or something the individual truly could not stop themselves from doing...

If someone says “talk to the hand” to you, it could simply mean they do not want to hear what you have to say. But is it that simple? In the major-gifts world, when a major donor does not want to talk to you and, in essence, says “talk to the hand” it can mean so many different things...

Calendar or fiscal year, you are only months away from the greatest season to thank donors, cultivate prospective donors and to secure gifts. What are your plans? Are you ready? Is your team ready? How fast are you moving?...

I will never forget what happened to the major gifts officer (MGO) who went into the office of an owner at a very large company in California and asked for a gift. The donor said, “When you have something that has some vision and is in the million-dollar range, come back and see me. What you are proposing today does not interest me.” ...