"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...
You probably remember the photo of the body of a little Syrian boy, washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015. It's a hard photo to look at; he looks like he's sleeping, in that sprawling, completely relaxed way that toddlers sleep. But he's not asleep. This photo galvanized (sort of) humanitarian response to…
We all want to expand the work we are doing so we can make progress on our missions. But we need strategies, budgets and programs to make fundraising succeed. Simply saying “because I say so” isn’t enough. What can you do if you are facing unrealistic expectations?...
Last blog, we discussed keeping score and how people want to be on a winning team in part four of this fundraising and football series. This week, in the final installment, we’re covering three more things fundraisers can learn from the game. 9. You must keep focused. There is a lot of noise in the…
Would you like to be a better writer? Would you like to be a more effective public speaker? Would you like to engage donors in conversations that are more meaningful? I have some good news for you. Being a more successful communicator is easier than you think. Here is just one simple thing you can…
