Fundraiser Education

When I embarked on my own in fundraising consulting I had only one client that I served as a sole practitioner. I soon realized that I was missing the synergy of a team. Collaboration is important. We all have different skills. So, as we developed our team, we also looked for redundancy. We didn’t want just one person with a unique set of skills. We wanted backup...

With the presidential election fewer than eight months away, fundraisers, once again, are faced with the uncertainty of whether political giving this year will impact contributions to their respective organizations. It’s only natural for nonprofit executives and fundraisers to be nervous about how the 2016 presidential campaign will impact contributions to their organizations...

Stop for a moment, go to a quiet place and focus on the problem your organization is dealing with. It could be homelessness, drug addiction, abuse of people or animals, the effects of humankind on the environment—whatever it is, focus on it...

Want to find a way to inspire your board to be a bigger part of your fundraising team? A social, peer-driven fundraising campaign can be a great way to get your board involved, grow your list, recruit new donors and raise money through a campaign that gets people excited. By leveraging your board members, who…

Imagine this. You’re in a meeting with a donor. So you’ve done the hardest part already: you got the meeting. This donor really wanted to meet with you, and she actually invited you to her home. You’re in her kitchen, drinking tea and getting to know each other. You find out what made her interested in your…

Providing quality services. Raising funds. Promoting public awareness. Regardless of your nonprofit’s core mission, tasks like these are never far from your ever-growing list of things to do. But there’s one more thing you need to add to your list if you haven’t already, and that’s obtaining federal trademark registration for your name...

Recently, we were preparing a collection of stories to share with a campaign steering committee—profound stories of mission impact that moved the heart, and stressed the importance and urgency of the fundraising campaign’s end results...

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to love Yogi Berra. Originator of many popular "Yogisms," including “When you come to a fork in the road, take it” and "It's déjà vu all over again,” Berra was known as much for his malapropisms as his MLB career. One of my newsletter subscribers reminded me of my favorite "Yogism" just the other day. Her organization has considered enrolling in a big-ticket, sustainable fundraising coaching program...

What donors really want to see is hope. You see, this world can feel pretty hopeless at times. There is media surrounding us that is extremely negative. Social media always is pouncing on someone’s mistakes—it can get pretty depressing. So, to be able to provide a message of hope to donors who have been supporting you is not only closing the loop on their gifts, but it’s giving them a bit of fresh air. I wonder how you are doing giving your donors hope...

Every day, your organization has numerous interactions with people across all channels. The experience of that interaction determines at least 50 percent of your supporter’s decision whether to interact with you again. So what is your organization doing to monitor and act on those experiences and ensure supporters actually support?...