Many advancement teams have a primary culture of receiving gifts. In general, these teams spend the bulk of their time, energy, and resources after gifts have been made. They are really good at responding, thanking, stewarding, and showing gratitude. Some advancement teams have a primary culture of inviting gifts. These teams spend more time, energy,…
Category: Nonprofit
Why Consistent Giving Is So Difficult
According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, the average nonprofit donor retention rate (or, the percentage of your donors who gave last year who also will give to your institution this year), is about 45%. Advancement leaders have lamented this “below 50%” data point for years. In response, all kinds of analyses and solutions have been…
Extending Conversations
Invite the gift when the prospect poses a question like, “What do you all need to make this happen?” Turn the conversation toward your campaign priorities when the prospect asks, “What are you all working on today?” “Could you see yourself providing a leadership gift for this project?” is a fantastic response when a major…
2 Types of Meetings
Collaborative Meetings. These meetings are designed to brainstorm together, to collectively create, to “bounce ideas off of each other.” The purpose of these meetings is to involve others in the idea formation process. Responsive Meetings. These meetings are designed to react to a proposal, to refine an idea, to improve a plan. The purpose of…
Leading Volunteers
What’s the reason our institution utilizes volunteers? What’s the point? The purpose? If we expect our volunteers to provide the definitive answers to these questions, we may want to re-think our role. As advancement professionals who engage volunteers, our first duty is to understand clearly why they are being asked to volunteer. Our second duty…
The 3 Most Critical Steps To Create Lasting Change
If your goal is to make your advancement program more effective. If your goal is to make your program more professional. If your goal is to raise significantly more money than you’ve done previously. If your goal is to engage your volunteers in activities they’ve never done before. If your goal is to create any…
Tribes or Ecosystems
Brand tribes have been a buzz concept in marketing circles for a few years now. From a marketing perspective, tribes – or customer communities made up of like-minded people who gather together based on shared interests and brands and the values those brands project – represent an opportunity to efficiently engage and motivate a large…
The Big Gift vs. The Best Gifts
We can be convinced that the solution to our problems must be in receiving the “big gift” from our wealthiest donor prospect. Maybe for your institution that’s $25 million. Maybe it’s $10 million. Maybe its $1 million. For a time about 20 years ago, the idea of the “mega gift” and the people with the…
The Agenda and The Work
“We can’t get our Board/Advisory Council/Volunteer Group to focus on consistently helping us with fundraising and giving.” I hear this complaint regularly from advancement leaders. And, then, I review the previous meeting agendas for the group and find: Too much reporting from institutional leaders, instead of time for question-asking and discussion; Too much quantitative data…
More and Less
Everyone expects “more.” Each year, our annual fund goal increases. Our new campaign will be the biggest ever. The goal for the number of donors next year will be more than this year’s goal. Getting to “more,” though, often means focusing on less. If our annual fund goal is increasing, who are the small subset…