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.
5 March 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation One of the more common entry points for me when working with new organizations is a Development Audit (or Assessment). The audit looks critically at everything an organization is doing to raise money. One of the standard features of...
27 February 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I once worked with an organization that had more board committees than board members. Just related to fundraising and communications, the organization had a Development Committee, a Corporate Relations Committee, a Fundraising Committee, a Membership Committee, a Newsletter...
20 February 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last week and this, I am drawing a distinction between the form and content of two types of fundraising letters: renewals and appeals. Last week’s post focused on writing letters to people who gave you money last year...
13 February 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Those of you who have followed me or followed this blog over the years will recognize that I am a disciple of the “longer letters raise more money” cult. I’m planning to go off on the topic again...
6 February 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Some ten years ago or so, the keynote speaker for Rally was Andy Goodman and his topic was story-telling. His basic message was that we all need to be in the group of people who communicate all the...
30 January 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation One day, back in my TNC days, a donor walked in and told us that he was taking his company public and that he wanted to make a million-dollar gift. He was not unknown to us. He had...
23 January 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation As I mentioned last week (See On Metrics, Data, Information, Science, and How We Use Them – Part 1), we spend a good deal of time counting stuff without ever really changing what we are doing based on...
16 January 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Several years ago, I put together a workshop for Rally on Metrics. Fundraising Metrics, that is. I was and continue to be interested in learning more about what we measure in fundraising and how we use that information...
9 January 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Every year, I dig back through my files and throw out most of my paper from seven years ago. This year, it was 2016’s turn for the shredder. And every year, I come across some piece I had forgotten...
2 January 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Happy New Year! Time to start again. January of another year. This is a blog that I post every year right after New Year’s Day. I modify it slightly, and I add to it from time to time, but basically,...