Browsing the archives for the Uncategorized category
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 [...]
I have been thinking for a long while about the shared characteristics between effective leaders and effective development professionals. In fact, last summer I expressed a few early thoughts on the topic. Below are observations of effective leadership characteristics from 4 separate research teams. As you read each characteristic, think about how each applies to [...]
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, [...]
Tiger Woods has had rough few weeks. His situation should remind all leaders of a few principles. These are: Your “work” can not be separated from your “personal life” – No matter how good you are in your professional life, your private conduct will impact your success. By definition, being a leader means that others [...]
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 [...]
The standard gift pyramid looks something like this: However, when development leaders sort through their database they often find their gift “pyramid” looking more like an “hourglass”: As this graphic suggests, many major gift pipelines are not as robust at the middle gift levels. Why is this the case? Two reasons: First, the annual fund [...]
Making development strategy decisions based on a sample of 1 is not always a bad idea. For instance, if you are developing strategies for major gift prospects and you have a good sense based on past interactions that a local bank executive will respond favorably to an ask for both scholarships and capital dollars, then [...]
