Who do you attract to your Board? “The heavy hitters,” I heard recently when I asked this question. “These are people of influence and affluence.” Great! To our Boards we attract leaders from business, the clergy, political players, and other people of social and financial importance. And then, if we aren’t careful, we take…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
What Is A Gift?
We use the word everyday, but what does it mean? What, really, is a gift? Recently, Seth Godin blogging about Gifts, misunderstood, stated the following: A gift costs the giver something real. It might be cash (enough that we feel the pinch) but more likely it involves a sacrifice or a risk or an emotional…
Who’s In Your Hotel?
In the past few months, I’ve had 2 late night flights cancelled causing me to spend extra nights in cities not of my choosing. In each case, the airline provided me with a hotel voucher. As I checked into each hotel, I asked the front desk attendants if they wanted my loyalty number. It just…
Work Yourself Out of a Job
“Don’t work yourself out of a job!” This was a typical refrain from a world which no longer exists. Some people, though, continue to think and behave as if it does. When work was primarily about mass production – be it producing cars, steel, widgets, or even paving roads – workers routinely exercised “workplace governors”…
Objects or Individuals
Some gift income reports I’ve read use the term, “giving units,” to describe donors. I’ve never much liked that terminology. Too cold and objectifying. Recently I read some fascinating research on community college presidents completed by Matt Thompson, a good friend and thoughtful higher education leader. Matt’s research re-introduced me to the concept of verstehen…
Gratitude Is Not Enough
A regular annual fund donor sends in a gift – a check for $1,000. Your organization promptly produces a gift receipt and sends a letter (either hard copy or electronic) expressing gratitude signed by the appropriate staff person. Is that it? Is that all that happens? Despite all the talk about “engaging donors,” I’m afraid…
The Homeostatic Principle At Work
Homeostatis is the biological principal which suggests that living organisms will maintain a stable, constant condition. And we humans do this well. We see this principle at work in easily-recognized statements such as, “we’ve always done it this way.” Or, “I’m going to do what I’ve always done and let someone else worry about it.”…
Are Millennials All That Different?
Our friends at Achieve and Johnson Grossnickle Associates recently published research on the giving inclinations of Millennials. They surveyed 2,200 of the facebooking and twittering-set between the ages of 20 and 40 (75% were “Millennials”) and asked how they would like to engage with and be solicited by non-profits. So, here are 3 key findings…
The Indispensability of Multi-Year Donor Planning
Let’s say your portfolio has 150 prospects. Most readers of this blog (because they are some of the sharpest development folk out there!) have a plan for how each will be solicited in the coming year. It may be that you plan to solicit 40-60 during face-to-face visits with specific, major gift proposals. Others…
The 3 Meetings
As much as we may wish not to admit, meetings matter. The types and number of meetings you hold is a key component of your development program’s infrastructure. Too many meetings and the team doesn’t have enough time to visit with donors. Too few meetings, or meetings with no understood purpose, and a team, within…