13 May 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Statistically, more than half the people who have a last will and testament at all will make changes to it within five years of their death. Will the land trust get written in or written out? Will the...
6 May 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Several years ago, I worked with a land trust whose Board met monthly and whose Executive Committee also met monthly in between Board meetings. One of the problems they had was recruitment (go figure) and that the Chair...
29 April 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Linsday Linsday comes off the preserve trail with her family. She surveys their flushed faces happy chatter from being outside these last few hours. The bald eagle siting was truly awesome and inspiring. The weather was perfect. And there...
22 April 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation My topic today is donor files, but I want to start by acknowledging that today is Earth Day. I don’t know about you, but it feels to me that our work protecting land and caring for Nature is...
15 April 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you have an organizational goal of reaching 1,000 donors but don’t know how to get there, this post is for you. Some of it you will already know. Some of it will be intuitively obvious. And some...
8 April 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’ve been thinking about Board Development Committees a lot lately. The word “development” in the fundraising context is short for “donor development,” meaning building relationships with organizational donors. It’s one of the core functions of non-profit governance work...
1 April 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Today is not normally a day for taking things too seriously, but I need to share with you something actually quite serious. It turns out I’ve been wrong. All along. I meant well, and it seemed right – it made sense...
25 March 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Joe just made a one-time gift toward a land acquisition project. Patrina just bought a couple of tickets to the Gala. Raine gave $100 in memory of an elderly neighbor who just passed away. The family is directing gifts to...
18 March 2025 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Dear Board Director: Does your organization have a Conflict-of-Interest Policy? Do you – specifically you – know what it says and how and when to use it? Is it signed by every Board Director every year? Have you seen evidence that...
11 March 2025 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I have come to believe that $100 is pocket change, more or less. It’s a very common withdrawal amount from an ATM for those of us still using cash at all. $250 is not pocket change. It’s a threshold...