Donor Relationship Management

When you have a cause that you're passionate about, successfully engaging another to support that effort requires that you understand his or her particular needs, visions and values. Since ours is an urgent and noble cause, we often make the assumption that the potential supporter will feel as passionate as we do. But often they don't.

You finally have the appointment with your major donor. Don't strike out when you finally get in the door. Here are my top six ways to get the most out of a major donor visit.

I often run into fundraisers who somehow get it in their head that their donors only support their organization. Now, I know if they were being honest and really thought about it they would admit this is not true, but emotionally they act like their donors couldn't possibly support other causes. This is a problem. It's the monopoly mentality.

Continuing my follow-up to the NonProfit PRO webinar David Gunn from Salsa Labs and I presented, here are my answers to some of the questions people submitted. As I said last week, often what one person is asking is the unvoiced question of others.

Some donors make gift decisions themselves and some make them involving their family. Some involve advisors and friends. So know who those advisors are—attorneys, accountants and others who are in a position to influence the gift.

With all the modern channels to potential donors, learn the myriad of ways you can grow your list and engage new supporters.

To get a handle on what’s in store for 2015, NonProfit PRO rounded up some of the nonprofit industry’s finest, who were kind enough to share their nonprofit trends for 2015. Here are five trends on donor relations.

It’s easy to say you are becoming donor-centric, but are you measuring your progress?

The discussion around Present Self/Future Self is not new nor hard to understand. But the discipline and insight to realize when we are collecting and/or relying on Present Self information is hard.

The opinions, thoughts and feelings of our prospects, supporters and donors exist whether we seek them or not; 100 percent of the risk lies in ignoring them.