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...
10 January 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you graduated from college, you know that the Alumni Association from your alma mater started calling you and writing you about ten minutes later. And in return for your annual gift, you get a copy of the...
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...
12 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” It’s been on my mind because I’ve been doing a whole series of Development Audits – comprehensive...
5 April 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In a by-the-book communications plan, you would define a small set of audiences with whom you want to communicate, identify the medium or media to which they are known to respond, identify the messages you wish to get...
16 November 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In Wisconsin, one of the coveted event venues is the Governor’s mansion. Non-profits from all over the state, but especially from Madison, compete for open calendar slots. And more than one organization has had their event pulled in...
5 October 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m working on a Rally Workshop with two fabulous colleagues. The workshop is called Using Donor Software to Help Raise More Money, and it will be virtually presented this afternoon. (Please make plans to join us!) Along the way,...
17 August 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Consider the following two paragraphs: The Conservancy celebrated the opening of its 9th nature preserve on Saturday with a brief ceremony and ribbon-cutting. At 264 acres, the Sykes Ridge Preserve is now the Conservancy’s largest preserve. It is home...
10 August 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you are a Board member of a land trust or any other nonprofit, this post is directed at you. If you are on staff, please send it to your Board members. In my workshops and seminars and even...
27 July 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation We are environmental organizations! We need to STOP sending so much stuff to our donors. They feel overwhelmed! Especially in the mail. Think about this: the average American household receives 2,000 pieces of “junk” mail every year! If we...