Fundraiser Education

Venture capital firms certainly have no shortage of cash to invest in startups. PitchBook released its 2017 PE and VC Fundraising report today for North America and Europe. Through July, $27.5 billion has been raised across 165 firms as venture fundraising is on pace to exceed $40 billion for the fourth consecutive year. It’s also…

The nonprofit space is a great area to be in. While fundraisers and professionals in the nonprofit sector continue to face the challenges on a day-to-day basis, they are surrounded by uplifting people who are passionate as they are about their mission and cause...

As climate change pushes U.S. cities to build protections against stronger storms and more frequent floods, the Rockefeller Foundation is helping cities with a novel kind of financing, one that transfers some of the risk of innovative projects from cities to investors. The foundation, established with John D. Rockefeller’s oil wealth, announced Wednesday it will…

We watched in horror as Charlottesville, Va., erupted into violence this past week. Otis graduated from the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1979. There, he met the Dalai Lama, he met students of diverse backgrounds, he played basketball on a diverse team and he became a Buddhist…

This past weekend, our country endured and witnessed another act of violence that will make its mark in history. The “Unite the Right” rally was a gathering of far-right groups in Charlottesville, Va. And unless you’ve been shielded from the media the past couple days, you’re pretty aware of the grisly details of the event...

“Fundraising is both a science and an art,” says M. Gasby Brown of Bridge Philanthropic Consulting, one of the nation’s foremost fundraising firms. “It is great to give strategy,” adds her partner, Dwayne Ashley, “but an organization needs money coming in the door. If you don’t drive that result, nothing else matters.” Before Brown and…

At the recent Bridge Conference, I enjoyed several wonderful sustainer sessions. During one of those, someone asked about the automatic sustainer upgrade process some nonprofits are apparently using. My hair immediately started standing up straight! What happened to being donor-centric?...

Most Millennials consider themselves social activists and want to make the world a better place, but our current culture of “clicktivism” leads to relatively little impact and blurs the line between boots-on-the-ground cause-based work and idle browsing. And, while the Internet and social media have catalyzed extraordinary movements like the Obama Campaign and electing LGBT…

Your organization has no cute kids, puppies or people that you regularly serve. But you keep hearing that you’re supposed to share those “mission moments” about real people to engage your community. How does sharing powerful stories work for you?...

Because I am talking about my work-related bucket list, my goal would be to achieve items on this list before I retire from this field. Because I am a senior professional, the window to obtain each item on my list is growing smaller with the passing of time. Let’s look at my list and see if I have achieved any of these special things and which ones are left to mark off the bucket list...