Simply put, monthly giving is one way to help your retention metrics grow. It’s certainly not the only way you should be trying to retain more donors, but it certainly helps. And, as most organizations have realized by now, monthly giving is not just for the organizations that can tie their mission to a monthly cost or a service provided, etc...
While many people look forward to the opportunity to start the new year with a clean slate, nonprofit professionals should make sure that they take sufficient time to reflect on what worked—and what did not—over the past year. To that end, I present my top 10 nonprofit resolutions for 2017. Best wishes for a productive year. Make the ask and go get that win...
If you’re like most fundraising professionals, you’re ignoring one high-potential giving option. Sadly, it could be costing your nonprofit organization a fortune. I’m talking about gifts of appreciated securities (e.g., stocks). Just days ago, the Dow broke through the 20,000 level to set a new record close. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 are also…
It’s annual report season, for better or for worse. Often it’s for worse, since many of them are long, boring booklets that put your donors to sleep. You don’t have to do an annual report, but you do need to share accomplishments with your donors. You may opt to nix the annual report and send…
"Free” is one of the powerful words in advertising. But experience has taught us that sometimes the free thing is only worth what we paid for it. So I like to spread the word when resources come to my attention that I think are worth knowing about. Here are a few I’ve encountered recently...
Ty Cobb still holds the Major League Baseball batting average record with a career average of .366. This means that one of the best in the sport had a hit only 36.6 percent of the time he was up to bat. Even though you work for an incredible organization and present worthy causes—some lifesaving and life-changing—for donors to invest in, rejection and stumbling blocks are a part of the life of a fundraising professional...
More donors than you know are feeling that they have become strangers, only valued for what they can give. When my business partner Jeff sent me this letter, I took a little trip in my mind. I went to this lady’s home and sat beside her as she was writing. It was a very sad experience. Take a moment to read what she wrote. I have faithfully reproduced it here with slight edits for clarity...
Hey fundraisers, have you ever had an idea for a direct mail piece, an email subject line, a special event, a premium/freemium or anything else that was so crazy there's no way it should work—only it did? If so, we want to hear from you!...
Success in P2P requires more than simply hosting a cool event and telling participants to go fundraise. It’s an art, as or more nuanced than traditional fundraising methods and perhaps even less understood. So, we’ve called in some help. Here, straight from the experts—the people on the front lines of P2P—are 12 ideas to take your peer-to-peer fundraising to the next level...
It is important to be metrics-driven in fundraising. Yes, fundraising is relationship-based, but it is vital that metrics, including the number of visits and the number of asks, be included in goals and performance reviews. This is not just for accountability—it is a very useful tool of focus for the fundraising professional...
