1 September 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Numbers are just numbers. Five, 23, 478. Meaningless. We use numbers all the time, expecting them to convey importance. Four species, 42 acres, 55 years old, 300 members. But they don’t. Or at least they don’t convey any more importance than...
25 August 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I think we make a mistake when we focus our attention, and that of our donors, on the purchase price. For what it’s worth, it’s probably based on a misguided sense that we need to show ourselves to be...
18 August 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m working on refining a Fundraising Planning Seminar for land trusts in Colorado, and I created a Five-Step process. Actually, it’s a process that has five steps assuming you are already clear about the goals! (See also Start with...
11 August 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s Election Day in Wisconsin – the Partisan Primary. We’ll be voting for our party’s candidates for everything from Congressional Representative to State Senator to County Clerk of Deeds. So, I’m off early to work the polls. So, I’ll need...
4 August 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few years ago in mid-November, a client asked me whether they could just use the same appeal letter they used last year. That appeal letter had done reasonably well and had surpassed the fundraising results from previous...
28 July 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’ve spent a great deal of time on this blog opining about getting back to fundraising fundamentals. Chasing shiny new objects has its place, but not at the expense of doing the things we know are fundamentally sound. But...
21 July 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s hard to believe, but we’re going to blink and find ourselves in August. And the blur that is the Fall each year for fundraisers will be upon us. Are you ready? How will your fundraising plan for Fall 2020...
14 July 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Among the many hats I wore for a time at The Nature Conservancy was that of Volunteer Coordinator. And frankly, I wasn’t very good at it. It always seemed that it took more time to teach and supervise...
7 July 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Planning 101: Take a close and honest look at where you are right now. Visualize where you want to be. Brainstorm the various possible ways of getting there. Prioritize and choose a course of action. Suggest metrics and...
30 June 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Vitaliy Katsenelson is a philosopher-investor who writes an interesting blog on life, classical music, and the fundamentals of investing. He recently offered a metaphor for what’s going on that is based on the game of chess. (The Fischer...