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.
What’s the story you want to tell donors? Chances are getting them in the air could help. Maybe you fly over protected areas and areas that are not protected yet. Maybe you see how protecting and restoring one tract can help connect other protected areas....
Instead, try this as a mantra: “Thank before you bank.” I have always believed that an official acknowledgement of receipt can be different from the more personal expression of gratitude. And the receipt should be sent immediately – certainly within 48 hours if not the...
But there’s actually a fourth type of gift decision, transactional gift decisions. Transactional gifts are gifts in which what is being given is very closely tied to what the donor receives in return. The most obvious example is merchandise. I give you $15. I get...
People give money because they want to see something done. Strategic Planning is an opportunity to go ask them directly what they like about what you’re doing; what’s important to them. Including them in the process is a wonderful way to engage them in the...
You may be hurting your organization is unseen ways by allowing financial illiteracy to go unchallenged on the Board. Donors make big giving decisions based on gut, and they will have fed their gut on months and years of little impressions. This post is about...
In a perfect world, non-profits would enjoy consistent and stable community support. Individual donors might make a first gift, a second gift (first renewal), multiple unrestricted gifts on some sort of predictable schedule, episodic major gifts restricted to support specific programs or projects, and a...
Someone wise once told me that every once in a while, instead of trying to climb faster or smarter or more efficiently, it’s important to step back and make sure your ladder is still leaning on the right wall. I’ve written about this topic before...
This weeks’ post is about shooting yourself in the foot. And in each case, the cause is related to an overreaction to a complaint. Worse, sometimes the person complaining is someone internal to the organization and who therefore should know better....
We talk sometimes in solicitation training about “No” not necessarily meaning “Not Ever.” It might mean not now. It might mean I don’t have enough information, or I don’t yet have the level of trust I would need to have to make that kind of...
Donor by donor, each by each, consider and draft an interaction plan for each prospect. It’s tedious and time-consuming, and the more donors you begin to seriously cultivate, the more tedious the process becomes. I suggest taking two weeks out of each January and slogging...