This BLOG is intended to help conservation organizations and land trusts pursue excellence in all aspects of their conservation endeavors. I welcome your comments and feedback to these posts.
17 December 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Many land trusts have Board Development Committees that either focus on planning outreach events or serve as oversight committees for the Development staff. Neither is particularly helpful in raising money. Development Committees could address their work in a...
10 December 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Twenty-one days left in 2024 – three weeks. Take out weekend days (6) and Christmas Day and you’re left with just 14. How will YOU use them? Regular First Thing Tuesday readers will know that I strongly encourage fundraisers NOT...
3 December 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few years ago, Land Trust Alliance hired me to write the Guidance Documents for the revised Standard 5 on Fundraising, and it included a section on Privacy. In anticipation of a fair amount of mail and email...
26 November 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation “I don’t want to ask my friends for money because then they will come to me asking for money for their causes.” This is a very common fear many volunteers and Board directors experience related to raising money. It’s...
19 November 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last week on Friday, I participated in part two of a medical study designed to test the use of several different kinds of ultrasound to image blood vessels in the neck (carotid artery). The researchers were looking for...
12 November 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you send a follow-up letter to the people not responding to the appeal, you might get closer to your goal. We can’t do that. Oh? Why? Too expensive. Can’t afford it. It’s not in the budget. [Quizzical Huh? Face] When was the...
29 October 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation You’ve been working on getting your fundraising gala organized for what – like nine months now? And it’s finally over. You can relax now, right? Unfortunately, not so fast. There’s still work to do, and you’ll do it if...
22 October 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If we could change our collective thinking in just one way, we would all raise more money – and not by just a little bit. That shift in thinking goes like this: Donors give because they want to. It sounds simple...
15 October 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Bob, why don’t you ask for money in your letters? It’s more efficient to ask everyone for the same amount. Or not to really ask at all, leaving the amount given entirely up to the donor to determine. Even though...
8 October 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Whether we understand and acknowledge it or not, we all have an interesting relationship with neuro-psychology – and especially neurolinguistics, and neurolinguistic programming. These terms describe the possibility that human beings react to certain decision-making triggers that can...