Browsing the archives for the Uncategorized category
When we attend conferences, we are often encouraged to “take home 3 good ideas and implement them.” If we do that, we are told, the conference will have been of high value. Focusing on the content to gather up 3 good ideas is fine for the short term. If the presenters and the content are [...]
Who do you attract to your Board? “The heavy hitters,” I heard recently when I asked this question. ”These are people of influence and affluence.” Great! To our Boards we attract leaders from business, the clergy, political players, and other people of social and financial importance. And then, if we aren’t careful, we take [...]
As much as we may wish not to admit, meetings matter. The types and number of meetings you hold is a key component of your development program’s infrastructure. Too many meetings and the team doesn’t have enough time to visit with donors. Too few meetings, or meetings with no understood purpose, and a team, within [...]
A few years back I had the good fortune to meet Bruce Heilman in a University of Tennessee graduate course. Bruce was president of the University of Richmond from 1971 – 1986 and is credited with elevating that institution to one of national prominence. I won’t go into the story here but what he accomplished [...]
Our friends in the marketing world long ago came up with the notion of the Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Simply put, the USP is the impelling reason why a customer would choose one product over another. It is that “thing” that gives a company’s product or service a distinct advantage over the competition. It may be [...]
You’ve heard the saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” (Habit 2 of Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”). With all respect to Covey. . . I think this isn’t completely right. Here’s why: What is it that we plan that ever ends? I mean really ends? Stopped. Completed. No more. Finished. Finito. A successful [...]
Many of the subscribers to my blog have attended Academic Impressions conferences. I know this because I’ve met many of you through AI events! For those unfamiliar, Academic Impressions is a professional development content company focused on higher education professionals. But, even if you serve another type of non-profit, they offer outstanding conference and webcast content [...]
Why do donors make major gifts to organization X and not organization Z? If our organization isn’t receiving as many major gifts as we would like, we may tend to believe it is because other organizations are bigger, have larger budgets, have more contacts, are more well-known, or are just plain lucky. The truth, though, [...]
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 [...]
