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.
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...
30 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I have four Development Audits in various phases of completion right now. My work seems to run like that – no Audits at all for six months and then four all on top of each other. One of the...
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...
16 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation There’s a spot in Nebraska on top of a little rise where you can see grass all the way to the horizon in every direction. What you can’t see is any sign of human life. No roads. No...
9 May 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation It’s conference season in land trust world, and I have been thrilled at being back in person! After several years of trying to do conferences over ZOOM, I am grateful that we are back in 3D. In one of...
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,...
25 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Question of the month: Any recommendations on how to raise money for stewardship? As a matter of fact, yes. So happy you asked! The best time to raise money for stewardship is coincidentally with raising money for everything else related...
18 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation A few years ago, a Board member complained to me that the land trust wasn’t growing. “We have the same 250 donors we had ten years ago,” he said. I thought that was unlikely. This Board member was concerned about...
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...
4 April 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Just about every organization I am working with is dealing with the DEI question. Conservation is too white, too male, too educated, too elite. How can we get our boards to look more like our communities? For nearly...