19 July 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s a common lament. All-volunteer organizations looking to hire their first staff position. Much larger organizations feeling everything would balance out if they just had that administrative position, or another land steward, or a Fundraising Manager, or … Well...
28 June 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s a conundrum as old as the oldest land trust out there. How do you raise money for projects that haven’t happened yet? And when they do happen, how do you raise money fast enough to close without...
21 June 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few weeks ago, Vu Le posted an excellent piece on his blog Consultants, are you actually making the sector worse? Here are some questions to ask yourselves – Nonprofit AF about questions consultants should ask themselves through...
29 March 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If there is one word in land trust language that would benefit the most from tighter definition, it’s probably the word “outreach.” We have Outreach Committees, Directors of Membership and Outreach, Outreach Strategies, Outreach Events, and so on. I’m...
18 January 2022 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m getting a number of requests for help fundraising from land trusts who need to build their stewardship endowments. Some of this is undoubtedly related to land trust accreditation, which has brought both new awareness and new urgency...
21 December 2021 “Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” Robin Wall...
14 September 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation There was a moment in time when I thought writing appeals letters would be a substantial part of my consulting work. I felt like I was good at it, and my letters seemed to hold their own and...
7 September 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Development for Conservation is on vacation this week and next, so I have repurposed a couple of posts that have gotten the most interest in recent years. This one was originally posted in August of 2017. It seems...
31 August 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation In 2019, I received an appeal letter from a client. The letter was two pages, 12 pt. type, black text on white paper, and illustrated with two attractive photographs. As a fundraising letter, it probably did well in...
3 August 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A funny thing happened on my way to post First Thing Tuesday this week… I guess it was bound to happen eventually, but in 12 years, it hadn’t yet – until this week. I traveled all day on Sunday and...