Why are we reducing our direct mail solicitations from 4 per year to 3? Why are we no long conducting a phonathon to interactively engage donors and invite their gifts? Why are we continuing to plan for the next gala? Why are we no longer printing our magazine and only creating a digital version? Why…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
Asking The Right Questions
This past week Jason’s Blog broke. The specifics don’t matter much (mostly because, while I’m comfortable with technology, I’m definitely not a techie and I still don’t fully understand what happened). Just that the site went down, it was not a simple issue, and I didn’t know how to fix it. So, it was time…
Strolling vs. Scrolling
Humans are built to walk. Our walking ability not only provides us with the mobility to enjoy and govern our physical world in ways most other species can not, it also is a great form of exercise. Simply walking consistently produces a host of wonderful benefits including reducing body fat, enhancing memory, strengthening bones, lowering…
What Should We Do Now?
The economy is in recession. We’ve experienced a natural disaster. Our institution just endured a difficult leadership transition. The latest downturn in the stock markets has hit our community especially hard. What should we do now? Whenever real or perceived crises hit, it is not uncommon for advancement professionals to urgently ask this question. Too…
Telling The Donor Story
Gift officers are notorious for attending Prospect Management meetings and recounting the biographies and histories of the donors to which they are assigned. Over and over again, they tell the stories of what has happened in the past with that donor that sets up the potential for the next gift. What if, instead of focusing…
7 Degrees of Generosity
Here is a Human Generosity Scale I’ve been considering for some time. It’s still in a draft form, but I thought I’d share this version: The model posits that there are 2 types of people who are unwilling to give – the Consciously Ungenerous and the Unconsciously Ungenerous. The difference is that the Consciously Ungenerous…
Should Giving Be Easier?
A mere 25 years ago there wasn’t widespread adoption of email or internet technologies. Texting from mobile devices didn’t become popular until the early 2000s and smart mobile phones weren’t ubiquitous until later that decade. Email, the internet, texting, mobile devices. . . We have experienced tremendous technological advances over the last 25 years. And, as…
2 Types of Advancement Vision
Creating a vision statement for your advancement program is a helpful step in becoming more effective. If the advancement mission statement is focused on our purpose, or what we do, the vision statement is focused on what we are aiming to achieve, or why we are doing what we do. Our vision statement should be…
Just Go Play
My son plays high school basketball. During the fall of 2020, his freshman year, his high school made the difficult decision to cancel most of their season due to the pandemic. Because he would be missing a full year of his high school career, my son went to his coach and asked what drills he…
“Be Gentle. Push Harder”
Not long ago I interviewed a major donor for a faith-based institution. I asked her about her perception of the advancement team’s effectiveness. She was complimentary of the team and then said, “they need to be gentle, and push harder.” As we continued the interview, I asked more about what she meant. She shared that…