Development Audit

14 Feb Strategic Planning for Fundraising: Start with the Goal!

Posted at 05:52h in Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Someone wise once told me that every once in a while, instead of trying to climb faster or smarter or more efficiently, it’s important to step back and make sure your ladder is still leaning on the right wall. I’ve written about this topic before...

07 Feb Stop Shooting Yourself in the Foot: Three Common Practices that Undermine Fundraising

Posted at 04:46h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Uncategorized 1 Comment

This weeks’ post is about shooting yourself in the foot. And in each case, the cause is related to an overreaction to a complaint. Worse, sometimes the person complaining is someone internal to the organization and who therefore should know better....

10 Jan How Many Individuals Gave Money in 2016?

Posted at 05:45h in Development Audit, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Here’s what I want to know: How many different individuals gave you money last year? It seems like such a simple question, but I have had more trouble getting clear answers than I ever would have suspected. How you count and what you count obviously...

03 Jan And that brings us ‘round to Do, oh, oh, oh……

Posted at 06:23h in Communication, Development Audit, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Start again. January of another year. 2016 is over. History. Fa, sol, la, ti, Done. And January brings us ‘round again to Do. 2017 yawns before us. It could be anything. What will it be for you? January is a good time for reflection. Where have we been? How...

13 Dec Agents of Change

Posted at 05:55h in Board Development, Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

At Rally this year, I finally got to present the Development Committee Makeover workshop. The point of the workshop was to show, using before and after scripts, how Development Committees could address their work in a much more productive way by limiting their discussion to...

29 Nov Are You Ready for December?

Posted at 05:32h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Staff Development, Uncategorized 2 Comments

From your solicitations to your newsletters, to your updates and thank you letters, the importance of communicating warmth, openness, and a sense of momentum is magnified in December. People want to know that their gifts made a difference and were noticed by you....

22 Nov Development Planning from Scratch – Mind the Gap

Posted at 05:49h in Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Back in August I started a series of posts about planning for development entitled“ Development Planning from Scratch.” With this morning’s post, I’ve come to the end of the thread. It assumes that you have started with a clear fundraising goal needed by the program,...

15 Nov Development Planning from Scratch – New Donors

Posted at 03:56h in Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Every year, about 1/4 of your members are brand new and nearly 1/2 are in their first 3 years of membership. If you want your membership to grow, you need to attract more new members than you're losing every year....

01 Nov Are you Ready for Some Turkey?

Posted at 05:15h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Are you ready for November? Are you getting the most out of the magic three months when 50-70% of all your gifts for the year will be committed? Here’s what I’m thinking about. What are YOU thinking about?...

25 Oct Comes the (Electronic) Revolution

Posted at 06:16h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 6 Comments

Dr. Stan Temple was a board member with whom I worked closely at both The Nature Conservancy and Sand County Foundation. He shared with me that once upon a time, his doctoral students did all their research work in the Library. Today, virtually no one...