12 September 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Perfect weather. Great food. The largest gathering of land trust staff and Board directors ever. How was your Rally? I always recommend measuring conference experiences by finding one idea that you can bring back and make a difference right...
5 September 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s Rally week! And I hope that you will find a way to visit me at my table and/or attend my Fundraising 101 workshop. See you in Portland! Instead of writing something fresh, I’m going to reprise a theme...
29 August 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation So what is your retention rate? Count the number of unique households who gave money in 2021. And count the number of THOSE households who gave money again in 2022. Divide the 2022 number by the 2021 number and...
22 August 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I was amused recently by another Vu Le blog post. It was written in response to an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (Why I Stopped Donating to Your Organization), written from the perspective of a donor, in...
15 August 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’ve got Board directors on my mind this morning. I’m working with several groups experiencing cultural issues related to Board versus staff roles. This is tough stuff, and it bears dragging it out in the open. Organizations do not...
8 August 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you think about it, you will ask every person connected with your land trust to make a gift between now and year’s end. HOW that happens and WHEN that happens are still changeable. SOME people will be...
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...