1 August 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Have you ever tried to fold a square of paper into an origami crane? If so, you can appreciate a study published in 2011 by Michael Norton of Harvard Business School. In the study, subjects were asked to fold...
25 July 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If I had to pick just one issue holding organizations back from raising more money, it would be this: Board members and senior staff don’t know the donors and donors don’t know the organizational leadership. Donors will feel more...
18 July 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation WARNING: The contents of this post have a high geek factor and may be harmful to your sense of world order. For all the harping I do about treating all the numbers in your communications as suspect (See All...
11 July 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Step outside of your organizational role and pretend, for a moment, that you are a donor. You care about the land trust and you care about the mission of conservation. You also care about other things – like...
4 July 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Happy Independence Day! I toyed with the idea that I should perhaps skip this week, or post on Wednesday instead. And I decided that since it was ready to go, I should just post it anyway. Can’t have...
27 June 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you have remembered _____ Land Trust in your will, please let us know so that we can say Thank You during your lifetime. This is so easy. It makes a good PS: note. It makes a good line...
20 June 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s better. Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s worthless. And just because we CAN do something doesn’t mean we should. I juggle about 25 clients in a year, including coaching clients. I...
13 June 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation July is just a few short weeks away – Yikes! – Are you ready? What’s on your list for July? Annual Meetings? Summer field trips? Donor visits? Here’s what I’m thinking about. Plan the Fall Appeal – If you follow...
6 June 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m still reviewing far too many fundraising letters that fail the most basic test of asking for money. They dance around the idea by asking someone to “be generous” or “give a little bit more” or “renew again...
30 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I have four Development Audits in various phases of completion right now. My work seems to run like that – no Audits at all for six months and then four all on top of each other. One of the...