Major Gifts
How to effectively Communicate and Persuade in a Nonprofit Environment?
You have seen it written many place before: fundraising is, at its core, a profession based on communication. We work hard everyday to help people understand our values, our mission, and our task. More than just communicating, though, we seek to persuade. Not just to help people understand our mission but to convince them to…
Read MoreBuilding a Strong Solicitation Team
Details are important in every industry, but especially so in fundraising. Every conceivable aspect of how to raise money has been placed in the balance and weighed against the alternatives. This is most evident in the manner in which solicitations are performed. One of the first rules of fundraising is that people give to people.…
Read MoreChoosing a Stellar Campaign Leader
Dedicated volunteers are worth their weight in gold to your charitable organization. These high-level volunteers, including your campaign leader, provide credibility and undertake the essential relationship-building that helps attract friends, supporters, and financial resources to your organization. In a successful capital campaign, the importance of committed, high-performing volunteer leaders simply cannot be overstated. In fact,…
Read MoreThe Fundraising Rule of Thirds
The fundraising industry has a lot of rules of thumb that development professionals apply to the situations we encounter. What we have to avoid is leaning too heavily on these rules in an effort to make a difficult job easy. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “rule of thumb” as a “roughly practical method.” That is…
Read MoreBoard Development in a Campaign Setting
A successful capital campaign often affects not just the financial position of the group, but also other areas. Your organization’s relationships with others can grow as a result of a successful campaign due to its board development, which can undergo a significant transition throughout a capital campaign. The Board’s Responsibilities There are a number of…
Read MoreFundraising Campaign Success: Making the Calls
Everyone starts their campaigns with high hopes for success; no one designs their campaign with failure in mind. So why do as many as 40% of capital campaigns fail? The number one reason why campaigns fail to reach their goals and their potential is that they simply did not make enough calls. They did not…
Read MoreA Couple of Heartwarming Fundraising Stories
Fundraising can become such a mechanical process, in which we focus on rating prospects, writing proposals and scheduling logistics. This is never truer than in the midst of a capital campaign, when the pace of activity must be very high and everyone is focused on the bottom line of the campaign’s financial goal. In these…
Read MoreBeyond the Bake Sale
One of the major recurring issues faced by non-profit organizations is the need to fund the annual budget. Highly successful organizations have a reliable source to which they can look to provide these funds. Most of us, however, must spend considerable time with our hands out. This article discusses two ways to alleviate the reliance…
Read More