Use these mid winter months to GROW, not slow, your organizations philanthropy
Most nonprofits experience a significant lull in donations and donor activity in the months of January and February. The post year end doldrums. Donors are slow to give, having distributed their 2010 charitable contributions during the ebullience of the holiday season. Consumers are recovering from gift purchases. The weather makes for hermits, with snow, ice […]
On Hiring a Consultant
You’re experiencing problems in your organization. Maybe you’re losing donors. Maybe your board is not working together, not working at all, or maybe you’ve lost board members. Perhaps you are experiencing high turnover of staff. Or maybe you don’t think you are getting as much out of your staff as you think you should. Or […]
Data Rich $$$
In philanthropy management, data is the key to godliness. And accurate, complete and usable data is the food of Gods. When I began in fundraising…many years ago…our data on donors was kept on index cards. Yes, little white cards, or color coded, depending on your offices level of sophistication. We kept demographic data: name, address, career related information […]
The revolution in ‘fundraising’ EVENTS – how not to raise money
Nonprofit fundraising has become known to the common masses for its ‘fundraising’ events and its sale activities. Talk to any layperson about being in ‘fundraising’ and they respond “Oh, you must be good at planning events!” or “I was never good at selling cookies”. Events are commonly misunderstood. Possibly the misunderstanding comes from the saturation […]
Philanthropy as business
Too often we are drawn to think about philanthropy and charities in terms of a softer, kinder model, less business focused. Because the product is not widgets, financial gains or consumables, but human caring, it is tempting to believe the business of philanthropy is just as soft and touchy/feelie. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not […]