First Thing Tuesday

15 Nov Development Planning from Scratch – New Donors

Posted at 03:56h in Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Every year, about 1/4 of your members are brand new and nearly 1/2 are in their first 3 years of membership. If you want your membership to grow, you need to attract more new members than you're losing every year....

08 Nov Development Planning from Scratch – Current Donors

Posted at 02:16h in Communication, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 1 Comment

If I was planning a membership program from scratch, I would start with a membership drive in the Spring months and an end-of-the-year appeal letter in the Fall. Everyone would get at least two letters – one asking them to renew their membership and one...

01 Nov Are you Ready for Some Turkey?

Posted at 05:15h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Are you ready for November? Are you getting the most out of the magic three months when 50-70% of all your gifts for the year will be committed? Here’s what I’m thinking about. What are YOU thinking about?...

25 Oct Comes the (Electronic) Revolution

Posted at 06:16h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 6 Comments

Dr. Stan Temple was a board member with whom I worked closely at both The Nature Conservancy and Sand County Foundation. He shared with me that once upon a time, his doctoral students did all their research work in the Library. Today, virtually no one...

18 Oct Development Planning from Scratch – Foundation Funders

Posted at 04:30h in Development Audit, Featured, Foundations, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

There are several important things to keep in mind when writing grants proposals to foundations...

11 Oct Development Planning from Scratch – Corporate Funders

Posted at 06:01h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Foundations, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

I doubt there is any donor segment more confusing to plan for than corporate/business. It’s confusing because of the stories we make up about why particular companies SHOULD give us money. It’s confusing because of United Way. ...

04 Oct Development Planning from Scratch – Corporate and Foundation versus Individual Donors

Posted at 05:46h in Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Foundations, Plans and Budgets, Uncategorized 1 Comment

The planning idea behind segmenting is that you identify separate groups for separate consideration such that they are then removed completely from the larger prospect group. This is an important consideration because it forces you to plan in a way that is donor-centric instead of...

27 Sep October Already?

Posted at 05:36h in Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Your whole fundraising year comes down to the next four months. Are you ready? Here’s what I’m thinking about in October. For a significant number of organizations, donors giving at least $1,000 as their membership gift account for less than 10% of the donor base...

20 Sep Gift Acceptance Policy

Posted at 03:31h in Board Development, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments

If a donor wanted to give you any stock, or other items, such as a car or truck, a piece of furniture, jewelry, or art - do you know what to do? What about gifts of Life Insurance or land that has little or no...

13 Sep Development Planning from Scratch – Annual Giving Leaders

Posted at 06:16h in Board Development, Communication, Development Audit, Donor Cultivation, Featured, Membership, Plans and Budgets, Staff Development, Uncategorized 0 Comments