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 From my In-Box this week: I still get a lot of one-page letters with graphics and donation tear-off sections at the bottom. In fact, I donate to these groups and lean towards this letter because it is short, concise and to...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Among the notable passings in 2018 was one Jerold (Jerry) Panas. Jerry’s was one of the most recognizable names in fundraising. Author of twenty books on fundraising, Panas was also a regular contributor to blogs and magazines about the topic....
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last year at Thanksgiving, I wrote about the differences between gratitude and gratefulness. (See Gratitude and Gratefulness) The word grateful is not necessarily focused on a source. We are grateful for stuff – health, material gifts, sunshine, rest – that is...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation I have spent quite a bit of time recently pounding on the We-Need-To-Be-More-Scientific-In-Our-Fundraising drum. That was a primary message in the Rally workshop on Fundraising Metrics, and I’ve written about it often on this blog. Here’s a concrete example related to...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation In the early 2000's, I had the great privilege of observing a local election held in Zambia. The community, apparently defined as the number of people who could still hear each other when seated under a tree, was conducting its...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Things would be so different if they were not as they are. - Anna Russell Jeff Brooks posted a guest blog by Christiana Stergiou speculating on the unquantifiable – opportunity costs. An “opportunity cost” is the amount of money we leave behind...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation If you’re like me, you won’t be mailing your appeal letters and/or renewals after this week and until after the election. If you’re like me, you will calculate that the national mood will be seriously distracted by the election. I...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation In my groups and workshops, I always ask how many people are First Timers. It gives me a chance to repeat my best advice for newbies: Rally (and any conference) can be overwhelming the first time. Your job then is to...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation Whether we understand and acknowledge it, or not, we all have an interesting relationship with neuroscience, neurolinguistics, and neurolinguistic programming. These terms describe the possibility that how human beings react to certain decision-making triggers can be studied and understood. Many of...
By David Allen, Development for Conservation We know that people give from the heart. We know that their decision to give is an emotional one. And sometimes irrational. Donors may decide what to give and when to give and even where to give to – using their...