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.
Renewal rate is a metric evaluation of your program. Pick a date on the calendar – the exact date shouldn’t matter as long as you are consistent. (I have always chosen January 9 to allow gifts intended for 12/31 to be fully counted.) Count how...
Donations of furniture, office equipment, vehicles, printing, and services (especially legal and accounting) can be a Godsend. They can also make life difficult in some unforeseen ways. You should have a system in place for cultivating, soliciting, and acknowledging such “non-cash” gifts and gift donors....
The second risk is that everything AI produces should be reviewed, edited, and refined before sending it out. Taking the products from 75%-95%. You are able to review and refine such material precisely BECAUSE you have honed those skills yourself. But If your skills are...
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...