“Thanks for the lunch invitation. I appreciating you visiting with me,” the donor said. Before the gift officer could respond, the donor reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a check for $3,000. “And before I forget, I wanted to make sure I gave this to you,” he said. The gift was larger than…
Month: September 2016
The Value of Influence in a Post-Expertise World
One of the by-products of our digitally-connected age is the waning value of expertise. The growing understanding today is that the everyone’s right to express an opinion is synonymous with the notion that everyone’s opinion is equally informed. Medical doctors and research scientists have been publicly second-guessed by celebrities with influence but no medical training…
“How Many?” versus “How Deeply?”
For many institutions, the concept of “advancement performance metrics” can be boiled down to a collection of quantifiable goals that represent some number more than last year’s. For instance, you may have a metric for an increased number of $1,000 donors. Or, you may have a metric for an increased number of “moves,” or “visits”…
Early Exigencies
When do you feel the need to act most urgently during the gift giving process? Perhaps this sounds like an odd question. It may, though, be an important one for you and your team. I have experienced many development professionals who become especially urgent during the stewardship phase of the gift giving cycle. Once the…