Mindset Direct

On May 19, FundRaising Success will host its second annual virtual conference and expo: Engaging, Enlightening, Empowering Donors. Did we mention it's FREE? Each week until then, we'll be publishing bios of our featured speakers. Today: Kristin McCurry.

On May 19, FundRaising Success will host its second annual virtual conference and expo: Engaging, Enlightening, Empowering Donors. Did we mention it's FREE? Each week until then, we'll be publishing bios of our featured speakers. Today: Angie Moore.

When the Haiti earthquake hit back in January, the outcry and response were swift and plentiful. In this new era of the iPhone and other mobile devices, the biggest buzz in the fundraising sector was generated from the mobile-giving explosion following the disaster. But the biggest takeaway for fundraisers — all of them, not just disaster-relief organizations — is that donors have certain, higher expectations these days, and your organization must meet them.

Wow! More than 1,600 of your colleagues already have signed up for FundRaising Success' Virtual Conference & Expo, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 20. If that's not enough of a reason to get you to join them, here are 12 more!

On Thursday, May 20, FundRaising Success will offer its very first, daylong virtual conference and exhibition, "Engaging, Enlightening, Empowering Donors." It's seven hours of sessions dedicated to offering you the latest and most effective fundraising strategies, tips and tactics for your organization, presented by some of the most respected fundraising professionals in the sector.

How do you end a fundraising conference on a note that will keep people around for the final session? Not an easy task, but one the DMA Nonprofit Federation seems to have accomplished. The last session of the 2008 Washington Nonprofit Conference, which took place in Washington, D.C., last week, was fairly well attended. It helped that there were prizes to be had, but the big draw was the promise of a session that wrapped up all the key points of the previous two days worth of sessions. In all, five panelists were on board for the rehash. Dana Weinstein, director of membership at

The mid-level program at Catholic Relief Services, a large, international-relief organization, was several years old, yet not strategically directed — nor was it meeting projected goals. In working with the organization, at MINDset Direct we recognized the need to re-engineer the existing mid-level donor program and began working to develop high-value donor strategies appropriate for the program. What we uncovered were four major areas of opportunity within the program that needed to be addressed: appropriate audience selection; a balancing of the mixture of solicitation and cultivation efforts, including the creation of efforts targeted specifically for the mid-level audiences; the standardization of donor migration;

In most mid-size to large nonprofit organizations, there are two distinct areas from which revenue is generated from individual donors. The names vary: Membership hands off to development; direct marketing supports major gifts; marketing feeds donors to advancement. In each situation, one group is dedicated to generating broad-based support via a bevy of direct-response techniques. Another very separate group raises large or major gifts utilizing relationship-based techniques. The impact of this structure is, in most cases, a siloed system that doesn’t make it easy for staff to transition donors — and a jarring experience for the donors themselves.

Today’s parents are busier than ever. We know they juggle jobs and PTA meetings, dog walking, laundry, chaperoning and play dates. So, how do you get your cause onto this congested radar? Appeal to the one thing all parents have in common: kids.

[Editor’s Note: This is the first in a quarterly series of stories that we’re calling “The Leadership Series,” where leaders in the fundraising sector speak to big-picture issues that fundraisers need to think about over and above the day-to-day details of their jobs.]