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.
Capital fundraising for conservation projects differs from that for many other organizations with relatively well-defined natural constituencies, like schools and disease charities. Unless the goal is wildly optimistic for the local community, a conservation organization’s capacity to raise money will be related to internal factors...
I regularly hear two things related to follow-up appeal letters. The first is that “we can’t send a follow-up because we can’t afford it. It’s not in the budget.” When I think about this too long, my head hurts. If you send an appeal letter...
When they decide to give to conservation work, does your land trust come to mind? (Mentally available) And can they easily find an envelope, QR code, or website donation page? (Physically available) This is why we talk about including plain response envelopes in newsletters and...
The average age of a conservation donor is between 66 and 67. This isn’t a guess. I’ve been tracking data from land trust organizations all over the country for about ten years, and it’s been consistently in that range for at least that long....
One person can do a lot – especially getting out mail and preparing grant proposals. But it’s going to take more than just one person to build enough donor relationships to support an organization....
If a majority of the “public” have forgotten that there were once swampy shorelines, cathedral forests, prairies with more than 340 species of plants in them, and stream water clean enough to drink without filtering – if these things were never part of their collective...
Donors who feel like they are inside – that the fire is their fire as much as anyone else’s – will give more and over a longer period of time. Donors who feel like they are faceless and indistinct may leave quietly in the dark...
It’s June 30. You know everything you need to know right now about who you will solicit at year-end. You know who they are, how much they gave last year, and how much you will ask them to give this year – those you will...
The conversation got me thinking. The story is compelling. The project is real. And it’s easy to imagine a donor seeing him or herself making a difference. Why can’t we answer? Why haven’t we anticipated the question? Answer to both: Because we aren’t thinking in...
This is major gift fundraising. It’s the most important fundraising we can do, and it’s not even close. In a perfect world, we would be treating every one of our donors as major gift prospects – individually cultivating their interest and matching them with opportunities...