Giving is Good
At what communication frequency do you most comfortably operate? Do you resonate most on the email frequency? Or maybe it is the face-to-face frequency? Or the phone frequency? Or the text frequency? Or the social media frequency? Or possibly there are still a few out there who resonate most with the touch-intensive letter frequency. Most…
Tetelestai is a wonderfully rich Greek word. Somewhat poorly translated it means, “It is finished!” As part of my work as a consultant I conduct vice presidential-level searches for institutions. A first-hand observation I would make after looking at thousands of resumes – many people leave positions too quickly. Different studies place the average tenure…
Recently, my wife and I celebrated 10 years of marriage with a long weekend in NYC. It was a fun and memorable trip. One of the memories we both will treasure was the night we saw “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway. The show was fantastic. But even more, one of…
Mashable recently ran a helpful short piece on why email bacon is effective while spam is a nuisance. Bacon, of course, is the email that we sign-up to receive. It’s the Groupon coupons, the Facebook updates, and, yes, the Jason’s Blog feed. Spam, on the other hand, is all of the unsolicited email junk from…
When we reform something we make it better. We correct. We amend. We revise. When we transform something we change it altogether. We reconstruct. We metamorphose. We revolutionize. We talk far more about transforming than we do about reforming. For instance, we say our institutions provide a transformational education experience. We tell our Boards that we…
To counteract the impact that age is having on my metabolism, I started running last year. The past year’s worth of running has taught me a lot. For example: It’s rather easy to get injured running. Toenails can get mangled. Knees can ache. Ankles can twist. The simple act of running in a straight line…
The Far Edge of Promise has as a core fundraising philosophy the concept of knowing donors as personally as possible. This concept is simple, tried-and-true, exceptionally powerful, and leads to meaningful gifts from gratified donors. It also is rarely implemented well. For instance, most institutions can answer the following question about each of their top…
Recently, I wrote about the importance of having the right person ask the right prospect. Understanding and implementing this concept will greatly enhance your fundraising outcomes with individual prospects. However, to increase your overall fundraising success, there is a broader concept that must be mastered: Developing Evangelists. Evangelists are those key people who regularly encourage…
Recently at a CASE conference, I heard a presentation in which the following statement about performance metrics for MGOs was made: If you create and track MGO metrics for visits, moves, and proposals (asks), you don’t need a metric for dollars raised. The gift income will be a natural consequence of the activity of the…
On Saturday night, my 6-year old daughter and I attended my first Daddy-Daughter Dance. It was a fantastic event and we both had a blast. Fun music, some finger foods, and about 125 dads who were giving their all on the dance floor for their little girls. And I mean, the dads were really dancing….