Giving is Good
Think about the following scenario: You log into your yahoo news page and click on a story about someone who has just lost their home. The story is a vivid, personal account of a hardworking woman who lost her good-paying job in the economic downturn and, after 9 months of no job, ended up taking…
If you serve an academic institution, check out my recent interview with Academic Impressions’ Higher Ed Impact. I’m discussing the five most important things department chairs need to know about development work. This is a follow-up to an interview I gave them last year. Development is about education. Sometimes we educate donors, other times we…
Are you an advancement leader at your institution? Do you aspire to move up and become an advancement leader? If so, you will want to attend this upcoming workshop – Leading To Make A Difference. The Workshop is sponsored by GGTS and I’m serving as the keynote speaker. You will want to attend if: You’ve…
In development circles we don’t talk much about trust. We when talk about donors we focus on words like “asking,” “strategies,” “engagement,” or “building relationships” (which, oddly, never seems to involve the concept of trust). But we don’t regularly focus on the need for trust. There are few, if any, conferences focused on “building…
Remember the sound of the dial-up modem? “eeeee-awwwwwww-eeeeeeeeee?” For a major donor I interviewed recently, that sound was music to his ears. During the “dial-up” period of our internet life, you may also recall that new modems with faster and faster speeds were being introduced about every 2 months. Everyone wanted to go faster so…
Recently, I listened as a well-respected higher education advancement leader say that using volunteers in the advancement function was mostly ineffective. Today’s advancement shops, she argued, are staffed with professionals who are well-trained with specific skills making the use of volunteers obsolete. Even during campaigns, her position was that campaign cabinets and other volunteer groups…
Recently, the Harvard Health Blog published a summary of a new study from Arizona State University that looked at how your friends influence the size of your waistline. Turns out that humans are incredibly (and subconsciously) social beings who will “mirror” the behaviors of others naturally. One of the Arizona State researchers gave an example:…
The roles of your governing board or foundation board are not always easy ones to explain. Are the members of these boards simply supposed to be effective stewards of the institution, fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities and protecting the value of the many assets of the institution? Or, are the members supposed to be much more…
Development leaders talk with donors each day about “leaving a legacy.” Typically, this legacy talk involves a major or planned gift. It may involve naming a building or establishing an endowment. We position the gift as transformational for a program, a service, or our entire institution. Our “leaving a legacy” pitch can be very compelling….
Are you asking donors for something? Or, are you inviting donors to participate in something? Asking suggests a power imbalance and that you hold the donor’s giving capacity in high esteem. Inviting suggests a partnership and that you hold the donor in high esteem. Giving has significant benefits for both the giver and the recipient….