It can feel productive to jump straight into tactics. A volunteer might ask, “What you want me to do?” A colleague might suggest, “What if we raised our sponsorship amounts for our gala this year?” A boss might opine, “You might think about adding another giving day to the calendar.” Tactics get us moving. Tactics…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
What We Say vs. What We Say
Major gift officers are taught that their role is to guide donors in making gifts that align with their personal passions and values. Experienced gift officers will share stories of helping donors give in ways that are meaningful to them as an exemplar of effective major gifts work. This is what we say about our…
Motivations
In advancement, the most effective professional plans, implements, and follows-up with a motivation to guide the audience through a meaningful and joyful experience of giving and/or volunteerism. The fairly effective professional plans, implements, and follows-up with a motivation to respond and react to the audience. Whatever the audience wants dictates their work. The ineffective professional…
On Proposing
We talk a lot about asking in advancement. Asking for the gift. Asking for their feedback. Asking for their advice. Asking for their service. We talk far less about how to effectively and consistently get to point of asking. When we propose a potential gift, or propose a donor strategy, or propose a volunteer role…
Saving Time
In its many iterations, A.I. will save all of us time. That’s what the promise is, anyway. But, when have technology enhancements actually saved us time? Sure, I can now send a “letter” via email and it arrives almost instantly to a location around the world. Just a generation ago, that same letter might takes…
Gardening Or Manufacturing
A backyard garden can produce delicious tomatoes one year and then struggle to produce any at all the next. A multi-national manufacturer, on the other hand, can produce the same product line year after year with a high level of precision. With our talk of “pipelines,” “moves management,” and “engagement scores,” we sometimes trick ourselves…
What Are We Teaching Them?
If we seek to increase the overall number of donors, it makes sense to focus on increasing the number of first-time donors. To increase the number of first-time donors, we might choose to employ a token gift strategy. For example, we might offer branded socks or a t-shirt or some other tchotchke as a quid…
The Simple Reasons Why Donors Give
A few weeks ago, Sandy Weill, former Citigroup Chairman, and current Weill Family Foundation Chair, joined the folks on Squawk Box (CNBC) to announce a $50 million gift to the Weill Cornell Medical College. Squawk Box host Becky Quick, asked him, “why are you making the gift?” Without pausing he responded with 3 reasons: Longevity…
Wrong vs. Bounded
In some instances, we simply hold wrong beliefs. For example, we might believe that donors are motivated to give primarily when they see a direct and defined return on their support. We know this to be wrong, because research has shown repeatedly that donors give primarily when their personal values align with the cause or…
Brand Sentiment
The U.S. Stock Market can be intimidating. It can be hard to understand what it is and how it works, especially in times like these. The people who seem to know – financial talk show hosts and reporters, for example – tend to communicate in a different language. They regularly use words like, “puts,” and…