27 April 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I started raising money as a canvasser in Eugene Oregon. It was to be a summer job in 1983, and it turned into a career. It’s safe to say I had no idea what I was getting myself...
1 December 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Just about everyone I know is sending out an appeal letter this week or next. You too? It’s that time of year. This has already been a surprisingly good year for fundraising, and we are pinning hopes of keeping it...
1 September 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Numbers are just numbers. Five, 23, 478. Meaningless. We use numbers all the time, expecting them to convey importance. Four species, 42 acres, 55 years old, 300 members. But they don’t. Or at least they don’t convey any more importance than...
4 August 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few years ago in mid-November, a client asked me whether they could just use the same appeal letter they used last year. That appeal letter had done reasonably well and had surpassed the fundraising results from previous...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’ve had the opportunity to review several appeal letters in recent weeks - comes with the job. And I’m still surprised that so many fail to ask for money. The request is implied, to be sure, but it is not explicit. Somewhere...
Or - Ask your favorite Fundraising Consultant By David Allen, Development for Conservation From My In-Box This Week: I enjoyed your presentation at Rally (despite the fire alarm). And I have a question for you: A fundraising coach once told me that if someone has received our annual appeal...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation I don’t have enough time! There are two problems with taking that statement on its face. The first is that it is almost never literally true – there is usually plenty of time. We’re just using it to do other things. A...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation This week, I want to tell you about Scotland. The first island we visited was just ten miles long and two miles wide. Its name is Colonsay, and it was the ancestral home of the MacPhee clan – as in...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you accept the premise that fundraising through the mail, email, or phone is a science – a behavioral science – then you should be reading a blog called The Agitator. It is written by scientists about the science of...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Earlier this year, I posted the results from my annual survey of conservation organizations and their 5-Year Value of Membership. At that point in time, I had data from twenty different organizations, and the median value was $1,100. This means...