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.
I’ve never been a fan of gift memberships or member-get-a-member campaigns, because the renewal rate on these types of memberships is so dismal – 10 percent is about as good as you could hope for. So I had my usual skepticism in full display the...
The first quarter of each calendar year is the best time to run your annual Board campaign. Doing so: opens the door for quarterly or monthly pledges, making larger gifts possible, assures 100% participation early in the year, establishes the “moral authority” for Board members asking other donors...
I’ve been writing about year-end tasks that seemingly always need to be done, but also seem to quickly fall off the table in favor of more urgent activities. Things like taking time to thank the donors who make your organization’s work possible, reviewing 2009 giving...
In my last few posts, I’ve written about year-end tasks – making sure your donors feel appreciated and doing some first-level analysis of your giving data to better understand the trends within your own organization. Here’s another bit of January housework: Cleaning. Phyllis Diller was famously...
Last week, I posted about making sure your end-of year donors get thanked in a personal way – this being one of the most important, and most pleasant, of fundraising tasks. Do you have a New Year’s resolution? If you’re like most, getting your Board...
In my house, as in most, the day after Christmas can be a low day on the emotional scale. The brightly papered boxes under the tree that only a few days ago could have been anything are now known. Every once in a while we...
If you’re like most non-profit fundraisers, you are looking forward to opening the mail the first few days in January. You may even be busy right now getting that last appeal out to help your members make a decision in your favor during the last...
I ran into yet another land trust the other day that does not keep donor files (paper files). This is a HUGE mistake, and if you’re a land trust in this position, one that you will want to correct right away. WHY? Because perpetuity is a long...
October and November are budgeting months for many of us: the annual exercise of trying to match our sense of mission urgency and programmatic ambition with available resources. If your organization is like most, this year presents some special challenges – and opportunities – because it’s...
by David Allen, Development for Conservation I received a great comment from Alexia Sabor at Wisconsin Wetlands on the post a couple of weeks ago about how many renewal letters to send. I wrote that renewals and appeals should ideally be separated by four months. She...