Professional Fundraising
Making Direct Mail Work
It’s easy to waste a lot of money very quickly with direct mail. The cost of the “package” as well as postage costs can soon exceed the income and benefits of any program. Here are 14 questions that may help focus your direct mail and make the effort successful for you and your organization.
Read MoreMajor Gift Solicitation
As fundraising professionals, we all want to get the biggest gifts for our client organizations. We want a major gift from every potential donor. The only way to accomplish major gift solicitation is by working daily to improve our listening and speaking skills and by practicing for each approach. Training and Preparation Solicitor training is…
Read MoreMajor Gift Fundraising with Fraternity Alumni
What really motivates donors? The Omega chapter of Alpha Beta Theta is clearly worthy of support, but brothers won’t give simply because the Fraternity is worthy, they will give because of their own needs. For every donor, there are personal rewards associated with making a gift. Your job is to help the potential donor explore…
Read MoreHands on Means Hands Down (Victory, That Is!)
It has become increasingly clear to me with each capital campaign I am involved with, that the single most important determining factor in the magnitude of success is the level and intensity of involvement by principals of the organization—both professional staff and volunteers. That is, I find a direct correlation between the level of success…
Read MoreA New Age for Grant Writing
In recent years, the feverish pitch in the search for funds has created a dangerous behavior called “grant getting.” Finding monies through grants has led many a fund seeker to shortcut the proposal process by “cutting and pasting” words and phrases on a grant application without regard to where the information came from. The focus…
Read MoreGolf Tournament as a Fund Raising Special Event
Often this question is the most important one to answer. Should we do a fund raising golf benefit tournament, and if so, why? The only good reason is to make money for the charity. There are ancillary reasons, such as “friend-raising” or the identification of new prospects, and the esprit de corps that is created…
Read MoreGo for the Gold: Ask for What You Want
The old adage “go for the gold” is particularly appropriate now, as the world gears up for the next Olympics. Athletes from all over the world are training for their opportunity to go for the gold and show that they are the best. For many of them, it will be their only Olympiad; their only…
Read More“Giving Them What They Want”—from Broadway to Social Media
In the musical “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” two con-artists, Lawrence and Andre, sing this ironic song about how they can get what they want simply by giving the people they want it from, exactly what THEY want (check out a clip from this song at http://goo.gl/pe908F ). We’re not trying to encourage you to steal from…
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