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.
19 January 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’ve been thinking about motivation. Why do donors give? Why will donors say YES? We spend WAAAY too much time imagining people saying NO to the point that we are terrified of that possibility. What would happen if we...
15 January 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation The unwelcome news arrived in an email on Tuesday afternoon: Joselin Matkins, an accomplished land trust Executive Director from Idaho, took her own life on Friday, January 8th. She was 42 years old. Land trust director found deceased I had to...
12 January 2021 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Have you challenged yourself for 2021? Lose 5 pounds, paint the house, learn Spanish. What about organizational challenges? Secure an Americorps Volunteer, achieve accreditation. How about start a major gift program? Nationally, more than 80% of charitable giving comes from individuals....
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Happy New Year! Time to start again. January of another year. 2020 is over. (Thank Goodness!) Probably wasn’t what you thought it was going to be last year at this time. (There’s an understatement!) But now, it’s finally over. History. Fa, sol, la, ti,...
22 December 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Tomorrow is the 30th of December. Which means that today is the day for an annual reminder that all fundraisers should be available all week this week for the people you serve. Sorry about that. Let’s say that I’m a...
22 December 2020 Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves...
15 December 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Double your Giving Tuesday gift! Celebrate Giving Tuesday The importance of one day in land conservation 3 Reasons to #SaveTheBay on #GivingTuesday - TODAY! In uncertain times, the Alliance meets the need Give Today - Support Leaders of Tomorrow! Final hours to give back...
8 December 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation One of the workshops I have most enjoyed doing for the last several years was called Development Committee Makeover. The point of the workshop was to show, using before and after scripts, how Development Committees could address their...
1 December 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Just about everyone I know is sending out an appeal letter this week or next. You too? It’s that time of year. This has already been a surprisingly good year for fundraising, and we are pinning hopes of keeping it...
24 November 2020 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Magazine editor Larry Smith has been collecting people’s six-word stories about their lives since 2006. Reportedly, the idea was born at a Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family and was based on an anecdote attributed to Ernest Hemingway:...