If your aim is to be a high-quality, effective leader, ask your questions early. Be genuinely curious. Gather information. Listen to understand perspectives and positions. Empathize with different experiences. Learn what you don’t know. And then, use what you’ve learned from others and their realities to offer solutions. Waiting until after a solution is offered…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
The Donors We Inherit
Every advancement team inherits most of its donors. You may be new to your role, or you may have been at your institution for years. But the bulk of the donors you will engage have a giving history with your institution that precedes you. Percentage wise, a few of these inherited donors are exceptionally generous…
Becoming Better With Major Gifts
One reason it’s difficult to teach someone how to be a better major gifts professional is because it’s not about teaching specific words or phrases to use during an ask. It’s not about teaching a particular process or formula to follow in order to prepare for asking a prospect for a major gift. It’s not…
Pulling Donors and Donors Pushing
At the two extremes of the Gift Initiation Continuum, our work can be described as either pulling donors along with our institution’s vision and priorities. Or, having donors push their priorities and interests onto us. We can either initiate a gift by proactively sharing a winsome vision for the future with donors and inviting them…
The Strategy Or The Board
In poker, the “board” is the context of the community cards (the cards dealt face-up in the middle of the table and available for any player to use in putting together her hand) during any given hand. A “dry board,” for instance, occurs when the community cards do not have much connection or relationship with…
Asking Your Way To Becoming Distinctive
Our daughter is in the final stages of her college search and selection process. She has participated in virtual events, on campus events, Zoom calls, email exchanges, and other communications with a number of colleges and universities. As she is narrowing her list, our family is now visiting a few of these wonderful institutions for…
Listening To The Critic
Listening to the critic can help you get better. That special event reception was too short, perhaps. Or, that annual report did contain too few pictures that emphasize diversity. Or, our phonathon callers probably could be more engaging. But, there are times when listening to the critic is wrong-headed. When the critic sends back your…
The 3 Commitments
If your aim is to secure fundraising success for tomorrow, there are 3 commitments you should make today: 1. The Commitment to Encounter – in our hyper-linked, liked, and shared digital world, it is easy to believe in an illusion of human connection, in a misimpression of relationship, in a counterfeit version of knowing others….
Conforming To A Standard
There are 3 standards advancement programs can be measured against: The Standard of Averages – this compares your program results to an aggregate of other institutions which may (or may not) be similar to your institution and advancement program; The Standard of Specific Institutions – this compares your program results to a set of specifically…
And Now What?
Driving on a highway recently, I saw this sign: As I continued to speed down the roadway, I wondered what I was supposed to do in response to this new information that I, apparently, was entering a “blasting zone.” What did that mean for me? Was I in danger? Should I get off at the…