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Fundraising

4 tips for minimizing risk when selecting a donor management system

Infrastructure. For most folks, the topic is about as exciting as underwear. No one wants to talk about infrastructure, let alone pay for it. But ignore infrastructure, and you doom your best laid plans for fundraising success to failure.

Topping the list of infrastructure essentials – just after budget and staff – is your donor management system. By this I mean something other than a stack of index cards stuffed in a development officer’s shirt pocket or purse. Or more than an excel spreadsheet – as cutting-edge as that technology seemed a few decades back. I’m referring to a software package or web-based product designed specifically to help fundraisers raise more funds.

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Tips for perfecting your thank you

Recent days have brought a flurry of articles through my in-box that praise the power of a simple thank you. An appreciative word is good for business, we’re told. “Thank you” leads to reciprocal generosity. It’s a tough cookie who’s immune to the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks, researchers report.

The take-away for fundraisers? Forget the plaques, the chotskis, and the doo-dads. Instead, double down on thank you and prepare to be amazed.  Read More »Tips for perfecting your thank you

Avoid the trap of “maybe gifts” and mission drift

I heard it again on my last trip out —  a proposal to expand an organization’s mission packaged as a development strategy. “By launching X, we’ll open the organization to a whole new group of donors,” the executive director said with more conviction than evidence.

Never mind that the organization’s strategic plan included nary a hint of the proposed project. The siren song of potential new dollars (hinted at, but not confirmed by the ED) was too much for the cash-anxious board to resist. My bet? A year from now they’ll be singing a sadder (and more realistic) song.Read More »Avoid the trap of “maybe gifts” and mission drift

7 deadly sins of grant seekers

For the faith-based nonprofits with which I work – and in fact, for the majority of small to mid-size 501(c) 3s – foundation-funded grants are a tiny fraction of total gift income. Yet invariably, “write more proposals” is the first suggestion from organizational leaders when money is tight. I spend a lot of time talking board members and executive directors down from their high hopes of grants to the rescue.Read More »7 deadly sins of grant seekers

How to get what you expect (and more) from your fundraising program

Rule 1 for nonprofit CEOs with visions of big gifts dancing in their heads: “Beware shopping for a development director when you are hungry—that is, when your organization is in desperate financial condition.” Rule 2 is like unto the first: “The notion that even a great development director can single-handedly pull an organization out of financial ruin is rarely accurate.”Read More »How to get what you expect (and more) from your fundraising program

4 strategies for turning year-end stress into fundraising success

Were T. S. Eliot a fundraiser and not a poet and assuming a June 30 fiscal year-end (the standard for North American charities), he’d likely name May and June, along with April, as the cruelest time of year. The last leg of the annual race for the gold is the most taxing, always. With the year-end deadline looming large, development staff are stretched to the limit — physically, emotionally, and spiritually — and soul care gets lost in the busyness.

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Move your fundraising beyond the insanity of the same-old, same-old

I gave up CNN or any other of the myriad news channels this past week. Not for Lent, but because the debacle unfolding in Washington, D.C. was simply too painful to watch. I’d like to think that the trauma of the last fiscal cliff experience would have knocked a little compromise (I stopped hoping for sense a long time ago) into our nation’s leaders.

But oh, no. There they went again, this time taking the nation with them over the edge. And here we are, all of us, clinging by our fingernails to the words of pundits who claim the fall won’t be so bad.Read More »Move your fundraising beyond the insanity of the same-old, same-old

Get governance or get off

I feel the pain of nonprofit CEOs and development staff who rail about board members’ reluctance to step up to the fundraising challenge.

I’ve served on the development staffs of three private colleges, including a short stint as a VP for Advancement. For the past 15 years, I’ve provided development counsel to faith-based nonprofits. I’ve authored dozens of articles about the board and fundraising and presented hundreds of workshops on the topic. And, as the member of one nonprofit board after another, I’ve sat through many fundraising pep talks delivered by other consultants.

In short, I’ve experienced this subject from every angle, first-hand. I’m familiar with every argument, every plea.Read More »Get governance or get off