6 June 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m still reviewing far too many fundraising letters that fail the most basic test of asking for money. They dance around the idea by asking someone to “be generous” or “give a little bit more” or “renew again...
11 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Here’s a quick reminder about writing appeal letters: Nobody reads appeal letters. Writing for someone who will read it completely misses the point. People scan, skip, and skim. If they can’t get the message by scanning, skipping, and...
16 August 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Every so often I get significant pushback from readers either questioning or taking exception to something I have written. I love it when it happens. It causes me to re-examine something I may believe so matter-of-factly that I...
26 July 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s a little hard to believe, but there are very few things that can go completely wrong when asking for money. Assuming that the person you are asking has heard about the organization. Assuming that the organization is...
2 No0vember 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’ve heard from many land trusts around the country that 2020 was a banner year in several respects, at least from a fundraising perspective. In fact this is true for many other land conservation / Nature-related organizations, too. ...
28 September 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation There are two case arguments that have never been particularly successful in raising money. The first is the Field of Dreams argument: If we build it, they will come. In this argument, the idea is that people will...
24 August 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s been years since I last tested different ask amounts, and I’m not in a position this year to test them now. Maybe this post will inspire someone to do so this year and share their results. What is...
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...