16 Feb Greater Than Zero
Board members who give money and never show up themselves to volunteer would not be tolerated very long. No one ever questions this. So why do we question it when it comes to giving time and never giving money? ...
Board Members
09 Feb Board Member Fundraising Campaigns
Annual one-on-one interviews with directors is a sign of good leadership. It can open channels of communication, alleviate anxiety, improve organizational comradery and morale, recognize performance, and improve efficiency and effectiveness. ...
29 Sep Board Directors and Events
Board members should be asked to attend events to work. If they wish to buy a table, if they wish to buy tickets, if they wish to sponsor – so be it and thank you very much. But even directors who can’t or don’t pay...
25 Nov Offering Opportunities to Make a Difference
26 November 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation “I don’t want to ask my friends for money because then they will come to me asking for money for their causes.” This is a very common fear many volunteers and Board directors experience related to raising money. It’s...
05 Mar My Time Should Count (I’m an Attorney!)
5 March 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation One of the more common entry points for me when working with new organizations is a Development Audit (or Assessment). The audit looks critically at everything an organization is doing to raise money. One of the standard features of...
27 Feb How Many Fundraising Committees are Really Necessary?
27 February 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I once worked with an organization that had more board committees than board members. Just related to fundraising and communications, the organization had a Development Committee, a Corporate Relations Committee, a Fundraising Committee, a Membership Committee, a Newsletter...
07 Mar A Role for Development Committees
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...
14 Jun A Simple Exercise to Help Board Members Engage in Fundraising
14 June 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Two core fundraising ideas come together in this post. The first is that we raise money from people who already give us money. Marketing efforts to bring in new people frequently cost more money than they raise. The second...
03 May Qualities of Good Board Members
3 May 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Note: Most of this post was originally published in 2017. My workshop was about major gift fundraising (of course), and I had come to the part where Board members need to give themselves first. How can we ask...
19 Apr Communicating with Board Members
19 April 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been writing about communicating with donors. We’re Outreaching; Are We Succeeding? Communicating with “People Who Give Money” Four Common Communications Failures I See Too Frequently And as I explained last week, communication has been on...