My son’s high school basketball team regularly finds themselves at our house. They come over after practice. They come over to watch film. They come over between school ending and their game that night. They are around a lot. We enjoy having the them in our home – even with the noise, the mess, and…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
The Past, The Others, The Future, And Today
If we want to be less productive, achieve fewer meaningful results, and invite frustration, anxiety, and fear into our work as advancement leaders, we can simply allow one of the following perceptions to captivate us: The Past – the perception of our advancement program’s past is rarely accurate, but is almost always presented as unquestionable…
Letter From Birmingham Jail
Around the time of each Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday in the U.S., I pause to re-read, “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” written by King to Christian and Jewish clergy in April of 1963. I encourage you to read it if you haven’t recently. It only takes me 10 minutes and I’m not a super-fast reader….
The Best Idea Fairytale
Raising more money isn’t a function of “finding the next, best new idea.” Creating more trust with your alumni base won’t occur because you spent a half day in a brainstorming session to identify how best to communicate with them. Your next campaign won’t be successful because you came up with the most imaginative, viral…
Caring Before Calling
It’s helpful to know why we are reaching out to a donor or prospective donor prior to the call, email, letter, or note. Are we calling to secure a gift commitment? Calling to set up a visit? Calling to invite them to an event? Calling as a follow-up to a past visit? Or, are we…
“How Much Money Did You Raise?”
Easily, one of the most unhelpful questions to ask someone in development, especially during a position interview. In many instances: The money received today was actually raised months, years, even decades ago; Even if the money received today was raised today, there were, most likely, other people and diverse motivations encouraging the donor to give;…
Hope
Hope gets a bad wrap. It’s viewed as tentative. Easy. Even foolish. Anyone can hope. To be viewed as strategic or consequential, we are told to: create written plans with measurable goals, or else we are just wishing; speak of lofty aspirations with timelines, or else we aren’t serious; build gantt charts with individual assignments,…
Donor Stewardship
It’s not about benefits, access, trinkets, or tchotchkes. It’s not even about impact, reports, recognition, or gratitude. It’s about the donor’s feelings. Before deciding to implement any particular donor stewardship activity or initiative, simply ask yourself this question: “If I were the donor on the receiving end of this experience, how would I feel about…
3 Simple Advancement Resolutions for 2024
Here are 3 simple advancement resolutions for the New Year, which, if implemented consistently, are guaranteed to make 2024 one of the best years you and your team have experienced. Invite more people. Consistently invite more people to volunteer, to give their advice, to offer their feedback, to visit with you, to attend an event,…
Redefining Generosity
We often view generosity as an ideal human quality – a virtue attainable only by a privileged, wealthy few. Being generous is seen as a behavioral exception that people aren’t able to choose until and unless certain advantageous life circumstances coexist. For instance, people will say: “I’d give if I made more money,” or “I’ll…