“When I buy businesses, it’s the same as investing in philanthropy. I’m looking for somebody who will get the job done and is in synch with my goals. You can have the greatest goals in the world, but if you have the wrong people running it, it isn’t going to work. On the other hand,…
Author: Jason McNeal
I provide leadership, advancement and fundraising consulting services to educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations.
Your Goal: Achieve 65% of the Impossible
Google is taking over. With an incredibly array of products – from Gmail, Google Earth, and cloud-computing Google Docs to the Google phone, Nexus One, to the new social networking offering Google Buzz, the number of ways in which Google now intersects with and impacts our lives is staggering. And to think that just a…
Why Pepsi Will Refresh Nothing
Have you been following the Pepsi Refresh Project? It’s the latest in a line of cause marketing strategies in which Pepsi is planning to pay out $20 million in grants of $5,000, $25,000, $50,000, and $250,000. Submit your idea online and then watch the vote totals go up. If your idea is a popular choice…
Donors As Collectors
Humans collect things. We collect things of value (gold coins, vintage automobiles, rare art and books, etc.), and things that have little value (remember “pet rocks” and beanie babies?). If you’ve ever had the solemn job of cleaning out a loved one’s home after a death, you are reminded, again, that we collect things. It’s…
Involving Other Leaders In Development
Many of the subscribers to my blog have attended Academic Impressions conferences. I know this because I’ve met many of you through AI events! For those unfamiliar, Academic Impressions is a professional development content company focused on higher education professionals. But, even if you serve another type of non-profit, they offer outstanding conference and webcast content…
Micro-Signs
In the social sciences, a microexpression is defined as “a brief, involuntary facial expression” shown when one is trying to conceal or repress an emotion. Microexpressions occur within 1/25th of a second and most people report not being able to identify microexpressions in themselves or others. Simply put, microexpressions are those expressions that verify our true…
Some Donors Need To Be Fired
Below is a recreation of a honest-to-goodness telephone call I had with an alum donor – we’ll call him Mr. Smith – some years ago: Mr. Smith: Hi Jason, I’d like to establish a named endowment. Me: Great! Tell me a bit about what you’re thinking. Mr. Smith: I’d like it to go to scholarships…
The 5 Principles of Encouraging Major Gifts
Why do donors make major gifts to organization X and not organization Z? If our organization isn’t receiving as many major gifts as we would like, we may tend to believe it is because other organizations are bigger, have larger budgets, have more contacts, are more well-known, or are just plain lucky. The truth, though,…
Effective Messages for Donor Acquisition
How do you create the most effective messages to acquire donors? Whether it is direct mail, an e-blast, or phonathon script, how do you construct the key phrases designed to encourage your prospects to become donors? From my experience, many organizations use the “WUTLY” approach (We Used This Last Year). They tweak a phrase here…
5 Phrases That Turn Off Donors
Over the years I’ve collected some less-than-inspiring statements and sayings from a variety of leaders and organizations. In most instances, all of the folks and organizations were well intentioned. But, in each instance they used phrases – either verbally or in correspondence – which turned off donors. Below are some of those phrases, along with…