Fundraiser Education

Loss aversion can cause you to make bad decisions in order to preserve the status quo, which you perceive as a more positive condition than the unknown. But biases compete. The optimism bias can help you by crowding out loss aversion, helping you make necessary changes. But optimism bias can hurt you, too, by leading you to make high-risk decisions...

When it comes to using technology to solve humanity's problems, so much more can be done. That's how Chase Adam feels about it anyway. “It's crazy that there are huge engineering teams figuring out how we can add a different filter to our photos, but there are so few people using the Internet and technology…

We now are faced with the last eight weeks of the year, the time when we are “make or break” for our fundraising year. Even if our fiscal year ends at another time, the calendar year-end drives a lot of donations. The following are some ways to that can help you focus your fundraising efforts these last eight weeks of 2015...

Lori, the executive director of a social-service agency, shared with me her frustrations with the “flat” performance of the agency’s fundraising. There haven’t been any revenue cliffs or disasters. But no growth, either. She related the agency’s overall fundraising plan to me. It sounded solid. So why has its fundraising revenue been treading water for more than five years?...

As nonprofits gear up to promote Giving Tuesday—the post-Thanksgiving fundraising day—they usually highlight it as a counterpoint to the consumerism of the Black Friday shopping extravaganza. But that doesn’t mean it’s smart to ignore all the lessons that successful retailers have learned after years of promoting holiday sales. Among them: A sense of urgency is…

In a decision that will affect fundraising efforts for THON 2016, the Penn State Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon has canceled the third canning weekend of the season. One of the two main reasons for the cancellation is the inability to ensure volunteer travel safety. The second reason is “forced fundraising,” a term coming from a…

I’m often asked about the intersection of technology and corporate philanthropy. What are the innovations on the horizon, and how is technology evolving to meet the demands that employees have for giving back? The Future of Online Giving Let’s take corporate giving, for starters. Up until very recently, employees had become accustomed to clunky technology…

When Carol Nash retired four years ago from Dimensions Healthcare System in Maryland after a long career in nursing, she had no inkling that she would soon be working harder than she ever did before. But Nash, 70, is fine with that. “I burn with a passion for what I am doing,” she said. “If…

The American Red Cross experienced a 32 percent drop in donations over the past year amid growing competition from newer nonprofits. The organization’s rank among the nation’s best-supported nonprofits fell from ninth to 21st place in an annual survey released Thursday by The Chronicle of Philanthropy—its lowest position since the survey began in 1991. The…

Groups that solicit and manage donor-advised funds continue to crowd into the upper ranks of America’s biggest charities, according to new Chronicle of Philanthropy data. The United Way hangs on to the No. 1 spot in the Chronicle’s latest Philanthropy 400, the annual list of the U.S. nonprofits that raise the most in private support.…