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.
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...
30 June 2026 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Project Prospecti I ended last week’s post with a request: Let’s crowdsource this: If you have examples of standardized project data sheets, or prospecti, that I can publish on my Resources page as examples, please forward them to me, and...
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...
He tells her that he could not imagine a future in which young people would not have access to such a place. That he was so glad she was helping protect it. That it was time for him to make a difference. He asks her...
2 June 2026 By David Allen, Development for Conservation The following is a post I published in 2018. I have reposted variations on this theme every year since. This week, I am out fishing in eastern Oregon, so it seems timely to republish the original. In 2017,...
The traditional solution is direct mail. Lots of folks believe direct mail is dead. The truth is that it’s less and less effective while still being head and shoulders better than anything else. Maybe twenty or thirty years ago, a “decent” direct mail return was...
We are part of a community of people – thousands strong – who are productively engaged in permanently protecting conservation land across the country – even across the world. Beating back the FODs (Forces of Darkness). And there are little wins everywhere. And in some...
Equivalency language should be legitimate, and that means it probably shouldn’t be used for levels of membership. Assigning equivalency to an ask string of $35, $100, $250, $500 and Other will ALWAYS be forced and gimmicky, and it will come across that way. ...
No one gives us extra credit for NOT asking. We are all deluged every day by nonprofit requests in the mail, in email, and on social media. How many of those requests were from our organization? Four? Ten? It doesn’t matter. The point is the...