Strategic Planning

Cathy is the executive director of a small, worthy nonprofit focused on the elderly. In the midst of her planning for 2016, she reached out to me with a familiar concern. How do I persuade prospective donors to actually invest in my organization? In fundraising lingo, “How do I convert more prospects into donors?”...

We’ve been hearing about “El Niño” for months, and sandbags, K-rail and umbrellas have been in great demand. For fundraisers, there are possible El Niño “seasons” (deviations from the normal or expected patterns) year-round. We can’t predict them all, so always being ready for the unexpected has to be more than a cliché; it must be our typical operating mode...

You plan and strategize, check everything (at least) twice, and follow your schedule to the minute, but mistakes happen. There’s a typo; the mailer misses your drop date; the data is wrong; the insert is overlooked; the salutation says, “Dear [Name];” the link to the landing page is broken; or any number of other possible “oops!” moments. You can be sure that sometime in 2016, you will experience some problem in your fundraising program. So be prepared, and keep these things in mind...

One of the first things a fundraiser learns is that he or she doesn’t have all the answers. We rely on testing, experience, data and, sometimes, our guts to help us make decisions about how and when to invest our fundraising dollars. However, I’ve found that in the busyness of our work, we don’t always ask the right questions...

Diane is the executive director of a medium-sized nonprofit in the Southwest. In her projections for next year, she has inked in moderate bumps in her fundraising goals. Seems like that’s insufficient for her finance committee. The members of her committee want absolute certainty on the 2016 numbers. You read it right, absolute certainty...

During the holiday season, our mailboxes are overflowing with catalogs, holiday cards—and requests for donations. At this time of year, when people are feeling most generous, nonprofits work hard to raise needed funds. Although important to nonprofit budgets, most year-end giving is transactional rather than transformational. Donors give once—often devoid of strategy—and nonprofits receive a…

You’ve got a little more than a month left before the bells toll announcing the end of 2015. For most fundraisers, that’s a time for balancing efforts—to end the year strong in terms of income, to use up accrued vacation, to be cheerful at the company party and to keep up on work so 2016 fundraising doesn’t fizzle before Valentine’s Day. Here are five ways to stay focused on what matters in these final days of 2015 while still having time for holiday cheer...

Ask yourself this: Do you have a specific plan for how much money you’ll be raising this year? Have you established a reasonable dollar goal for individual giving, for online giving, for grants, for corporate support, for any earned income? Or, are you operating like the senior center and just treading water? Be honest. Do any of these bright ideas sound anything like yours?...

Omnichannel marketing is like kale. You know it's good for you, but that first mouthful goes down hard. Though nimbly traversing across several marketing channels has been widely accepted as crucial for relevant customer engagement, only 11 percent of companies claim to go down that road. Most (55 percent) admit that they have yet to…

When you look at mid-level donors, what do you see? I see great potential for the future, relationships worth investing in and key leaders who can help secure the future of our organization for generations to come. Upgrading donors from the bottom to the middle to the top of the donor pyramid is going to…