First Thing Tuesday

12 Nov How to Start a Major Gift Program in 2020 – The January Donor Planning Meeting

Posted at 10:05h in Donor Cultivation, Donor Stewardship, Fundraising Planning, Major Gift Fundraising 1 Comment

By David Allen, Development for Conservation Major gift development isn’t hard. It’s a discipline. And it’s scalable. So just start. Let movement create momentum and let momentum create habit. It starts in January, and it could start for you in January 2020. You can do this for ten donors. You can...

05 Nov Race Does Not Appear to Affect Giving Amounts (and Other Short Items)

Posted at 07:52h in Diversity, Membership 0 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation I have three short offerings this week, beginning with this new study: A study released in March by the IUPUI Women’s Philanthropy Institute and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy feels important to me, and I think you’ll feel the same...

29 Oct Keep Sending the Appeal to Lapsed Members?

Posted at 06:04h in Fall Fundraising, Fundraising Letters 2 Comments

Or - Ask your favorite Fundraising Consultant By David Allen, Development for Conservation From My In-Box This Week: I enjoyed your presentation at Rally (despite the fire alarm). And I have a question for you: A fundraising coach once told me that if someone has received our annual appeal...

22 Oct Rally Reflections 2019

Posted at 07:57h in Rally Conference 4 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation With the 2019 Rally (the national land conservation conference) now firmly in our rearview mirror, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to deliver training content that makes a difference. And I mean “for the organization” more so than “for...

15 Oct Stop Recognizing Donors by Giving Level?

Posted at 11:03h in Donor Recognition, Major Gift Fundraising 3 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I am a real fan of the blogger Vu Le and his Nonprofit AF blog. Le’s writing is fresh, humorous, (usually) well thought out, and provocative and covers the entire...

08 Oct How’s That Gen-X Plan Coming?

Posted at 09:58h in Fundraising Planning, Year-End Fundraising 1 Comment

By David Allen, Development for Conservation Two quick thoughts for you this week – I’m running short on time – it being the season for fundraising and all. The first is this: We’re all in on Boomers. They are on our Boards. They represent the majority of...

01 Oct Fundraising Planning 101

Posted at 06:56h in Fundraising Planning 0 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation For many organizations, Fall is the time for planning and budgeting (which doesn’t really work out so well for fundraisers who need to be busy raising money!). The default seems to be starting with assumptions about what WE did last...

24 Sep The Hidden Costs of Fundraising Events

Posted at 09:18h in Fundraising Events 2 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation Over the years, I have worked with more than a few land trusts that are significantly dependent on revenue from a large, annual fundraising event – including one conservancy that was getting more than half of its annual unrestricted revenue...

17 Sep I Don’t Have Enough Time!

Posted at 05:52h in Fundraising Letters, Year-End Fundraising 2 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation I don’t have enough time! There are two problems with taking that statement on its face. The first is that it is almost never literally true – there is usually plenty of time. We’re just using it to do other things. A...

10 Sep Chasing Lost Donors

Posted at 05:42h in Donor Cultivation, Major Gift Fundraising 2 Comments

By David Allen, Development for Conservation Several weeks ago, I posted an imaginary conversation with “Well-Meaning Tom” about a person who had made a gift of land to a land trust and subsequently hadn’t given anything at all. (See It’s OK to Ask.) In fact, I...