What makes a campaign successful? “It depends,” is a well-established, go-to answer for consultants, but that doesn’t mean it is an altogether unhelpful response. From leadership, to donor engagement, to giving history at the institution, successful campaigns do, in fact, “depend,” on numerous important variables. One variable, though not often discussed, is exceptionally predictive of…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
Causes vs. Symptoms
I’ve been running now for about 10 years (actually, I jog, but that sounds 1980ish). Over those years, I’ve only experienced two injuries that were painful enough to sideline me this activity that I’ve grown to love. One of those injuries occurred about 8 years ago. It was a sharp pain on the outer side…
3 Ways Social Technologies Are Failing Development Efforts
I’ll start this post by professing that I am neither a technological luddite nor hypocrite. I value and gladly utilize technology – in all its forms. Heck, I’m communicating with you via a distributed, social technology that makes our large world wonderfully and magically small. Technologies, especially social technologies, such as social media, wikis, blogs,…
The Gift and The Giver
It’s easy to focus on “the gift.” What is the amount we are seeking? For what purpose? Over what period of time? We talk about the gift in strategy sessions, when we ask for it, and when we receive it – especially when we receive one of significance! We write proposals that answer the questions…
3 Questions To Help Avoid “Ask Fever”
Within the U.S. space industry, the term “go fever,” refers to the general idea that engineering teams sometimes rush to get a project completed or a program implemented without taking the appropriate time to assess problems or concerns. “Go fever,” was identified as a contributing factor in both the Space Shuttle Challenger (1986) and Space…
Inputs and Outcomes
In the April 1, 2017 edition of The NonProfit Times, Mark Hrywna writes about the challenges and opportunities large nonprofit organizations face in keeping employees engaged and feeling valued. In the article, Hrywna quotes Harry Johns, the President and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association as follows: “The thing that’s most critical is engaging people in…
Who Are You Making Comfortable?
We’ve all been in a social setting – perhaps a theatre prior to a performance – when a voice comes over the public address system and calmly states, “In the unlikely event of an emergency. . .” Or, if you board a airplane, you will certainly hear the phrase, “In the unlikely event of a…
Hiring the 25%
One of the least-discussed, but germane mysteries of our advancement profession is the fact that too many gift officers shy away from asking prospective donors for specific gifts. I’m not suggesting that gift officers are not receiving gifts. But just about every institution I’ve worked with has someone (or more than 1) on the team…
What They Will Do
Far too often I witness strategy discussions about major gift donors and prospects that leap too quickly to observations focused on what a particular donor “will do,” in terms of his or her gift amount. The conversation plays out something like this. The Associate Vice President (or whoever supervises the Major Gift Officer) asks in…
Using Your Database to Invite, Report, and Steward
The most fundamental and effective organizing strategies when using your database (certainly not the only organizing strategies!): Inviting Donors and Prospects to Give – you will be most effective in inviting donors and prospects to give when you organize your database by giving history. In other words, to be the most effective and efficient in…