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.
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last week, I wrote about the 300-Member trap – the phenomenon that many organizations face where they have essentially the same number of members each year – about 300 – regardless of what they do to grow. The trap exists because...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m closing in on ten years in the consulting business. Along the way, I have worked with dozens of land trusts, and doing so has afforded me an interesting vertical window into the land trust community. In other words, because I...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation As soon as I learn what the fundraising goal is, my brain kicks into overdrive. OK, we’re going to need three gifts of this amount and 5 gifts of that amount. Sam could do $$$$, and Jill will probably come in...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation One feature of the blog world that I have found academically interesting over the years is the “hits per page.” This is the metric that tells the writer which pages or posts attract the most readers, whether it’s because they...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation I have this image I like a lot. It’s an image of a campfire somewhere on a moonless night. The fire creates light which illuminates everything that is relatively close. It also warms everything relatively close to it. But if you get...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Earlier this year, I posted the results from my annual survey of conservation organizations and their 5-Year Value of Membership. At that point in time, I had data from twenty different organizations, and the median value was $1,100. This means...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation I’m working with several groups right now who are interested in changing their Board’s culture. Specifically, they have Boards who have not been particularly involved in raising money and are interested in encouraging and supporting Board level efforts in this...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Hi! Yeah (Mark, Sue, James, Samantha) said you might be looking for a (treasurer, attorney, Millennial, Timbuktu resident) for your Board. I’m your man! Yeah (he’s, she’s) a great person. And s/he says you are a great organization, too. Of course I’ve...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation You know, right now, every member who will be renewing this year (assuming that you have members who renew every year). You know what they gave last year and when. And you know, or could easily decide, what you will...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last week, I spent a perfectly wonderful two days at the Texas Land Trust Council’s Land Conservation Conference. Wonderful that is until I went outside the hotel expecting 80 degrees and sun and got 39 degrees and rain instead. I...