Strategic Planning

For more than a decade, the blogosphere has touted the power and promise of social media (this blog included), but there is also a downside to using social media for your nonprofit. Granted, the positives do outweigh the negatives, but it is important to step back occasionally and take a critical look at how social…

Some things are not predictable and “Pokemon Go” falls into that category. Did your organization take advantage of any of the hype? Is your organization prepped to grab lightning in the future?...

Recently, a United Way agency asked our organization to participate in a several-hour-long audit session. While the event was very structured, it also was conversational in approach. It provided a wonderful forum for our organizational members to evaluate how an outside organization perceives us, and for us to test our systems, processes and performance standards...

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled “It’s Not Too Soon to Plan Year-End Fundraising.” While Dec. 31 seems far away (especially if you’ve used up your vacation time for 2016) in fundraising time, it’s just a blink of an eye. To help all of us prepare, I recently chatted with Bill Sayre, president of Merkle Response Group, about the back-end processes for year-end donations—making sure your donations are processed accurately and quickly so you can mail out your thank-you receipts in a timely manner...

The problem with the ease of communicating these days is, well, we talk too much! And too often, we aren’t really communicating with people who really want to engage in that particular conversation at that particular time. Before you move into the busy last four months of the year, take time to consider your donor audience...

I can remember the day just like it was yesterday—that dreaded moment when my director of development approached me and said: “We need you to get an appeal out. And it should have gone out last week.” To provide context, I was a mere two weeks into my job and had been pulled off task so frequently that I still had no idea what this particular organization had done in terms of past grants...

I grabbed drinks with a friend the other day. She runs an arts organization and is perpetually in a scramble to raise enough money. I call this dance the charity hustle. By its very nature, fundraising likely always will be a challenging and uncertain endeavor. But there are ways to take some of the guesswork…

A mega-grant from a mega-foundation always seems like the answer to your prayers, right? Not quite. The truth is, foundation giving plays a smaller role than you probably think. In fact, in terms of the entire philanthropic pie, foundation funding accounts for a mere 16 percent...

You may think fall is a long way off. We just celebrated Independence Day in the U.S., and temperatures are creeping into the 90s. Don’t let that deceive you. September will be here before you know it. Fall is a busy time, especially if you’re doing a year-end appeal. Many nonprofits rely on their year-end…

When I work with clients on strategy, one of my greatest responsibilities is to shift their thinking so they can look at things in new ways, step up to a higher plane and think big. Boards of directors and staff alike usually are too mired in today’s challenges to envision a dramatically improved future, let…