Have you heard the news? The long drought in giving brought on by the Great Recession is over. Happy days are here again for America’s… Read More »If the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, why is my organization still dry?
If you’ve sat through years of really bad stewardship sermons, you’ve likely been urged to “give until it hurts.” But now we learn that the… Read More »Yes, Virginia, there is a generosity gene.
A commentary on the Gospel of Luke wasn’t where I expected to find affirmation of a key essential of fundraising as ministry, specifically the importance… Read More »Finding fundraising as ministry in Luke’s Gospel
“I have difficulty warming up to receiving cold calls.” It’s been a couple of weeks since a reader posted this 9-word comment and I’ve yet… Read More »To see ourselves through donors’ eyes
In today’s mail, I received a frantic letter from a ministry where just a year ago, the board was patting itself on the back about… Read More »When we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
Not that I anticipate needing an obituary soon. But when the time comes, I can’t imagine a lovelier tribute than what the The Agitator guys had… Read More »I found my obituary
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.
Read More »4 strategies for turning year-end stress into fundraising success
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
When looking for proof texts in support of their craft, fundraisers of faith know they can depend on the Apostle Paul. The Old Testament prophets,… Read More »The very reason for fundraising as ministry
News flash. The morale of nonprofit fundraisers in America is rock-bottom low, and for good reason. The majority of development folks toil in settings where… Read More »A ministry response to the challenges of nonprofit fundraising