23 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation All Board members need to be involved in fundraising. Not all Board members need to be involved in asking. Perhaps as much as 90% of fundraising is building relationships with donors – without asking. Pretty words that are arguably...
2 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few weeks ago, I was asked to prepare a presentation on how best to raise money for stewardship, and last week, I posted the majority of the answers I offered: Raising Money for Stewardship – Part 1. Essentially,...
21 March 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Quick – you’re off to meet with a donor and you can take one and only one prop with you. What do you take? Answer: A map. People love maps, and they love them because maps help place conservation projects...
28 February 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In the conservation community, and for land trusts in particular, the work is “in perpetuity” – forever. So, if our work will never end, neither can our organizations. They must be perpetual as well. And because none of...
21 February 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Recently I attended a webinar presented by Tom Ahern. Ahern is a well-known figure in nonprofit direct response fundraising and has written several books related to communicating with donors: Turning Doubters Into Donors, How to Write Fundraising Materials...
20 December 2022 “To be a conservationist is to be an eternal optimist. Pessimism serves no purpose, not when you are trying to change the world.” Jan Deblieu, Meant to Be Wild I think the same is true for fundraisers - that eternal optimism is a requirement; that pessimism...
29 November 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Let’s get real. Strategic Planning isn’t hard. In fact, it’s pretty straightforward. You and I could bang out a serviceable Strategic Plan on a Friday afternoon and still make it to happy hour on time. But between now and...
8 November 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation When your blog title is "First Thing Tuesday," you always end up publishing on Election Day. And so it is today. And I work as a pollworker today, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to...
1 November 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation OK – so let’s talk about donor fatigue. And two things we need to acknowledge head-on. First, donor fatigue is real. It’s defined as the situation where donors either reduce or stop donating due to “feelings of indifference or...
25 October 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation (This essay was originally posted in October 2018. I have updated it for posting today. I still find it relevant with all the recent attention I have paid to Legacy Bequest Matching Campaigns.) Back in 2018, Jeff Brooks, Future...