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…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
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…
A Bigger Share of a Bigger Pie – Reactions to Giving USA Data
So, the 2009 Giving USA data has been released and some people aren’t happy. What does Giving USA report? Adjusted for inflation, year-over-year giving in 2009 declined by 3.2%. Not surprisingly, there was a decline. But, here is what has some people confused and even upset: Giving from individuals – which make up 75% of…
Lead Out of Control
The most common question I get regarding performance-based metrics is, “what should we be counting?” Is it visits? moves? phone calls? dollars raised? number of proposals submitted? etc. And while I can make a well-reasoned argument as to why a particular set of metrics will be more powerful in predicting success than another, I can…
An Arm’s Reach Away
Science has educated us on the term “in vitro” – which means to conduct work not in a living, whole organism but in a controlled, sterile environment. “In vitro” became part of our lexicon because of its use in reproductive science. The so-called test tube babies. On the other hand, we have heard less…
What if. . .
What if. . . instead of spending the time, energy, money, and effort on developing the “right messages” and the “best marketing practices” for our organizations we focused on becoming a more helpful resource to those we aim to serve. What if. . . instead of “telling and selling” our donors, we listened to their…
10 Characteristics of Authentic Development Pros
We all know the negative typecasts we struggle against: Development professionals are posers. Development professionals are paid to party and play golf. Development professionals don’t really do anything. And, of course, there are some development professionals who, unfortunately, fit these typecasts (although none who read this blog I feel sure!). But most development pros are…