Fundraiser Education
September 4, 2015 at 9:20 am
Summer’s over and the busiest fundraising season of the year is right around the corner. Are you ready? To help you get a jumpstart on your campaign planning, we’ve put together a checklist of things you can do now to ensure a blockbuster end-of-year fundraising appeal. 1) Start with the big picture. What are your…
September 4, 2015 at 8:29 am
Your chief development officer wants to tap into the endurance market. The CDO's expectation of this new event is colored by your organization’s experience with your existing peer-to-peer events. But, there is a missing variable. It is “market relationship” versus “social relationship.” Retail-attractive events yield market relationships for the most part. Retail-unattractive events (walks, for example) yield social relationships...
September 3, 2015 at 11:07 am
Have a fundraising challenge you want to crack? Weary of doing the same old, same old yet hoping for different outcomes? Do you want the over-the-top results that come from superior strategy? Email me with your particular problem, and I’ll arrange a quick consultation offering you a practical solution you can implement. I may even…
September 3, 2015 at 9:52 am
Arguably, your fundraising appeal is one of the most important parts of your nonprofit crowdfunding campaign. It’s the heart of your cause. The meat and potatoes of your mission. The crucial part where you tell supporters what your goal is and why they should care. You know your crowdfunding campaign inside and out. But, you…
September 2, 2015 at 9:45 am
University of California, Berkeley, and its Haas School of Business are launching an online "Philanthropy University" to help folks in the nonprofit realm with finance, fundraising, strategy, leadership and other challenges. A leading Saudi business executive and other unnamed funders are making "a multi-million dollar investment" in the project over the next five years, according…
September 2, 2015 at 9:38 am
Recently I spent a day with a team of passionate fundraisers discussing their fundraising program. The team had strong personal connections to both the organization and the event itself, and many had been working on the program for the majority of their career. In short, this was a dedicated and knowledgeable group. Unfortunately, the program…
September 2, 2015 at 9:31 am
What is your big vision? What is next for your organization? If you could double your contributed income, what would it mean for those you serve? Ideally, this should come from your strategic planning process. A campaign I was leading was about to hit its goal, and we had momentum to raise significantly more funds. When I asked the CEO what was next, there was a blank stare. They had not thought beyond what was a very obvious building need...
September 1, 2015 at 9:53 am
Vu Le of the Rainier Valley Corps, calls out some of the most annoying nonprofit trends, including ignite-style presentations, popularity contest "grants" and the obsession with millennials...
August 28, 2015 at 10:17 am
Last summer, donating to charity momentarily became cooler than, well, almost anything. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge ripped through social media, with users challenging friends and family to either raise money for ALS research or dump an ice-cold bucket of water over their heads. The viral campaign ended up raising an amazing $115 million for…
August 28, 2015 at 9:59 am
Poor Spock. He’s caught between his tidy Vulcan logic and messy human emotion. Most of the time, he relies on Vulcan cool. That wouldn’t work well for fundraising, though. Human beings don’t make purely rational decisions. This isn’t my guess; it’s science. We make decisions in the older part of our brains. They’re based on…
