14 December 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Tomorrow is the 15th of December. Which means that today is the day for an annual reminder that all fundraisers should be available all week this week for the people you serve. Hopefully, this is all review! Sorry about...
7 December 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last week, I started a post on capital campaigns, because I have been hearing from land trusts exploring capital campaigns for projects ill-suited for campaigns – specifically to raise money for operating endowment, stewardship endowment, land protection “opportunity”...
30 November 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Before I start on today’s post, I have a request. I will get Giving Tuesday emails all day as I’m sure you will. I am interested in the subject lines. What are people using to get/draw attention? I...
23 November 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last year’s post from Thanksgiving week referenced Larry Smith’s Op-Ed from the NY Times asking readers to use the six-word form to make sense of 2020. The six-word story form idea was reportedly born at Mr. Smith’s Thanksgiving...
16 November 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In Wisconsin, one of the coveted event venues is the Governor’s mansion. Non-profits from all over the state, but especially from Madison, compete for open calendar slots. And more than one organization has had their event pulled in...
9 November 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I was informed last year that one of my clients had raised $6,000 from Giving Tuesday, which turned out to be 20% or so more than in 2019. Woohoo! Given the work they put into it, I estimated...
2 No0vember 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’ve heard from many land trusts around the country that 2020 was a banner year in several respects, at least from a fundraising perspective. In fact this is true for many other land conservation / Nature-related organizations, too. ...
26 October 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In the past twelve years, I’ve worked with more than 100 land trusts across the country. To be honest most of them are struggling with very similar issues. And they need very similar things. You’d think I’d get bored. Nope. Everywhere...
19 October 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In an ideal world, an organization would hire development staff in the Fall – in October or November. This is true regardless of whether the staff person was a new member of an existing team or whether it...
12 October 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Note: Most of this post was originally published in 2015. One July, my board chair came to me with a request that I “forecast” where we would end up on December 31st in each of our revenue targets. He...