It’s December 30, do you know how your end-of-the-year fundraising will fair? With just over 5% of all giving being done now via the internet (and this number is growing dramatically), it is becoming more important to gauge the effectiveness of your online end-of-year strategies. Especially today. According to Convio and the Chronicle of Philanthropy,…
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Tiger Should Remind Us
Tiger Woods has had rough few weeks. His situation should remind all leaders of a few principles. These are: Your “work” can not be separated from your “personal life” – No matter how good you are in your professional life, your private conduct will impact your success. By definition, being a leader means that others…
The Effective Leader Next Door
In their insightful book, The Millionaire Next Door, authors Stanley and Danko paint a picture of the “typical” millionaire – they live in older middle-class neighborhoods, drive late model vehicles, dress nicely but don’t follow trends, and embrace lifestyle frugality at every turn. In other words, these folks don’t necessarily stand out from the crowd…
The Gift Isosceles Trapezoid
The standard gift pyramid looks something like this: However, when development leaders sort through their database they often find their gift “pyramid” looking more like an “hourglass”: As this graphic suggests, many major gift pipelines are not as robust at the middle gift levels. Why is this the case? Two reasons: First, the annual fund…
The Sample of 1
Making development strategy decisions based on a sample of 1 is not always a bad idea. For instance, if you are developing strategies for major gift prospects and you have a good sense based on past interactions that a local bank executive will respond favorably to an ask for both scholarships and capital dollars, then…
The 3-Rung Ladder
I see the following all the time: Leaders have two clear pictures in their minds. The first picture depicts the position of the organization/division/ department/etc. as it currently stands. Most leaders know how well they are doing compared to annual goals and budget. This is the day-t0-day, ‘on the ground’ picture which shows today’s reality….
On Being Thankful
Tomorrow is the national day for each of us to pause and count our blessings. If possible, most will include family, friends, and health in that count. This year I am including my work – and I encourage you too as well. Each of us works for an educational, healthcare, or other non-profit which has…
Part II – Measuring Success The Buffett Way
As promised in an earlier blog on Warren Buffett, this is the second entry in a series designed to question how development professionals (and others such as CEOs and Boards) should evaluate development effectiveness. Warren Buffett uses a specific set of principles to evaluate successful businesses. Can the investment methodology of the world’s greatest investor inform…
Lessons from Buffett
There is always something to learn from those who are the best in their fields. I just finished reading Robert Hagstrom’s, “The Essential Buffett: Timeless Principles for the New Economy.” It didn’t disappoint. I walked away with a better understanding of the thinking process of one of the best investor’s of all time and found…
The Real Value of a Campaign Feasibility Study
For most organizations, there are two questions which encourage the use of a Campaign Feasibility Study – “how much can we raise?” and “in what period of time can we expect to raise it?” However, for most non-profit organizations there are far more important and compelling reasons to choose to conduct a Campaign Feasibility Study….