9 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s conference season in land trust world, and I have been thrilled at being back in person! After several years of trying to do conferences over ZOOM, I am grateful that we are back in 3D. In one of...
2 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few weeks ago, I was asked to prepare a presentation on how best to raise money for stewardship, and last week, I posted the majority of the answers I offered: Raising Money for Stewardship – Part 1. Essentially,...
25 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Question of the month: Any recommendations on how to raise money for stewardship? As a matter of fact, yes. So happy you asked! The best time to raise money for stewardship is coincidentally with raising money for everything else related...
18 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few years ago, a Board member complained to me that the land trust wasn’t growing. “We have the same 250 donors we had ten years ago,” he said. I thought that was unlikely. This Board member was concerned about...
11 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Here’s a quick reminder about writing appeal letters: Nobody reads appeal letters. Writing for someone who will read it completely misses the point. People scan, skip, and skim. If they can’t get the message by scanning, skipping, and...
4 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Just about every organization I am working with is dealing with the DEI question. Conservation is too white, too male, too educated, too elite. How can we get our boards to look more like our communities? For nearly...
28 March 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Several years ago before COVID, I developed a Fundraising 101 workshop and presented it at one of the land trust conferences. It was intended for people who either are brand new to fundraising or just want to learn...
21 March 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Quick – you’re off to meet with a donor and you can take one and only one prop with you. What do you take? Answer: A map. People love maps, and they love them because maps help place conservation projects...
14 March 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Happy PI Day!! One of the complaints I hear fairly often is that we didn’t do as well as we had hoped because the mail didn’t go out on time. The appeal didn’t go out on time. The renewals...
7 March 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Does your land trust have a Development Committee? A Board committee whose job it is to oversee organizational fundraising? What does it do? How is it organized? This post is about one way of thinking through these questions. I believe...