How do you create the most effective messages to acquire donors?  Whether it is direct mail, an e-blast, or phonathon script, how do you construct the key phrases designed to encourage your prospects to become donors? From my experience, many organizations use the “WUTLY” approach (We Used This Last Year).  They tweak a phrase here [...]

Over the years I’ve collected some less-than-inspiring statements and sayings from a variety of leaders and organizations.  In most instances, all of the folks and organizations were well intentioned.  But, in each instance they used phrases – either verbally or in correspondence – which turned off donors. Below are some of those phrases, along with [...]

I’m pretty sure there are more than, “two kinds of people in the world,” as the old saying goes.  However, a lot of folk in development and leadership positions in non-profits can be divided up into two groups:  the do-ers and the be-ers. “Do-ers” are those individual who achieve results.  They want to do something. [...]

phi-lead’thro-pist n. – an unusually effective leader in the field of philanthropy. In my last blog entry I wrote about the integration of leadership and philanthropy, accenting several studies which suggested characteristics of effective leaders.  Based on those characteristics, I invite you to think with me about the traits that characterize phileadthropists – those effective [...]

Today, Doug Mason, a colleague at GGTS, and I led a webinar focused on enhancing the effectiveness of higher education foundation boards.  A major theme during the 90 minute session was the need to establish clear giving expectations with prospective board members beginning during the board recruitment process. A participant asked a good question:  what [...]

At the turn of the New Year, one of my priorities was to make The Far Edge of Promise a bit more user friendly.  My goal was to keep the site clean but add some ease with which people could sign up for the blog and navigate.   Well, we have a new site!!  Take a [...]

It’s December 30, do you know how your end-of-the-year fundraising will fair?  With just over 5% of all giving being done now via the internet (and this number is growing dramatically), it is becoming more important to gauge the effectiveness of your online end-of-year strategies. Especially today. According to Convio and the Chronicle of Philanthropy, [...]

In their insightful book, The Millionaire Next Door, authors Stanley and Danko paint a picture of the “typical” millionaire – they live in older middle-class neighborhoods, drive late model vehicles, dress nicely but don’t follow trends, and embrace lifestyle frugality at every turn.  In other words, these folks don’t necessarily stand out from the crowd [...]