God's Love We Deliver

On Sunday, June 24th, hundreds of staff and volunteers from God’s Love We Deliver, along with dedicated and proud team members of Whole Foods Market NYC, will join together at the 43rd Annual Heritage of Pride March.

Christina Johns
senior manager of DRTV and social networking
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

Christina Johns came onto FS' radar last year when she pitched an idea to write about social networking in regard to nonprofit organizations. We were impressed with how 
comfortable she was with a subject that was so new to the sector and one that was causing all kinds of angst among even the most 
daring fundraising pros. She has an impressive and easy grasp of (and genuine passion for) the social-
networking milieu — its possibilities, its limitations and the strategies needed to make it work.

Until November, Lisa Traina had a classic New York glamour job: organizing private parties in the Art Deco opulence of the Rainbow Room. Now she spends 10-hour shifts walking down gritty sidewalks trying to persuade homeless people to go to the Bowery Mission for food and shelter.

God’s Love We Deliver is a New York City-based organization that delivers free meals to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses. It also provides illness-specific nutrition education and counseling to clients, families, care providers and other service organizations, and it offers volunteer opportunities preparing and delivering meals.

Eighty percent of the organization’s annual budget comes from contributions. Here, Chief Development Officer Mady Schuman talks about GLWD’s relationship with corporations, the challenge of being a local organization seeking grants and the key to growing donors with a lifetime commitment to the organization.

Folks who do direct mail fundraising for nonprofit organizations can -- and should -- take a lesson or two from commercial copywriters. Among them is the use of the guarantee. Practically every piece of commercial direct mail carries some kind of guarantee, yet what can a nonprofit letter offer? If the donor doesn’t like what we do with his money, we’ll refund every penny? Hardly. But you can adapt the guarantee to offer another kind of protection that reassures the donor his money is put to good use. One way is to tell how each dollar will be spent -- what

Nonprofits with missions based on religious foundations face special challenges, and the fact that they answer to the Higher Power can work both for an against them.