Most advancement leaders list their basic goals in two ways: dollars raised and/or number of donors. Sure, there are other advancement goals – event attendance or social media metrics are examples that immediately come to mind. But, for most advancement leaders, their primary, most fundamental gauge of effectiveness emerges from how many dollars were raised…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
What Else Could We Be Doing?
For most everyone in higher education advancement, the spring and summer seasons are the time for annual goal setting, strategy setting, and plan making. If your team is like most, one of the questions asked during these days of planning is, “what else could we be doing?” The idea behind the question is that most…
Who Are We Educating?
“If 10% of our donor database gives over 90% of our total dollars raised, why fuss with annual giving at all? Why not just engage with the 10% who have both the wealth and a spirit of generosity?” I once had a university president who was looking to cut costs ask me this question. I…
“I Need Something Specific”
Gift officers will regularly say, “I need something specific to ask donors to give to.” When they use the word specific, they usually mean they want a tangible way to show “how” the institution will use the gift. For instance: A gift for a specific priority, program, or initiative – like a department or college…
What Matters Most
Recently, I facilitated an afternoon meeting of global business leaders, successful entrepreneurs, and branding experts. It was a small, invite-only group of about 15. Each of these individuals were not only super-successful in various publicly-traded and private businesses and organizations, they also were exceptionally generous. Most in the room had made $1 million+ gifts with…
Speed and Pausing
It can easy to believe that talking about our work pace and including the attributes of quickness, speed, and busyness can make us sound important. “How fast can you get that back to me?” “I’m really busy and can’t get back to you right now.” “I’m working as hard and as quickly as I can!”…
Advice Seeking
What if the real significance of people asking for advice, or counsel, recommendations, or feedback, or perspective, is not in finding a solution or answer to a problem, or in the learning that can occur, or in the value of the advice given more generally? Sure, we can seek new ideas and novel perspectives from…
Is ‘Why People Give?’ The Question We Should Be Asking?
When it comes to the field of philanthropy, there probably isn’t a more ubiquitous research question than, “why do people give?” This question (or a variation of it) has fueled dissertation topics, been the focus of sponsored research, and has generated talking points for countless articles and presentations for decades. To their credit, many advancement…
The Participant vs. The Designer
A fundamental difference between the unexceptional and the exceptional gift officer is how they view their donor visits. The unexceptional gift officer is thrilled to have the donor visit. After the donor visit, he will talk at great length about how “warm” or “positive” the visit was. He will report that the donor will “definitely…
Creating an Assistance Theme to Engage More Donors
One of the most helpful donor rapport building strategies for gift officers to employ is to utilize an “assistance theme.” The psychology of an assistance theme is pretty straightforward. We know that humans, generally, want to feel useful or want to be helpful if they can. Certainly donors have shown evidence through their giving that…