22 Nov AHA Moments from the 2011 Land Trust Alliance Rally
I thoroughly enjoyed your seminar at the recent Rally and wanted to share with you an "AHA" moment that I have had since returning from Milwaukee. ...
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.
15 Nov Thinking About the Best Board Chair
The point is that the Board Development Committee should be looking at least 7-10 years out. What kind of person do we need to cultivate (or get to know) NOW, so they are ready to come onto the Board in 2-3 years - so they...
08 Nov Anonymity isn’t Necessarily Friendly
Nonetheless, anonymity rarely serves the organization, and that is increasingly true as the value of the gift grows. Anonymity, in the case study above, robbed the organization of the donor confidence that comes when 75% of the money for a particular project has been raised....
01 Nov Is your lapsed member letter getting a response rate that is too good?
On the one hand, 15 percent is a terrific response and much better than the 1 percent response typical of direct mail recruitment. On the other hand, many of these same members might have responded earlier if they had been asked....
25 Oct Taming the Social Media Monster
Consider starting with a single, time-limited campaign that’s very specific. This is pretty good advice. Tie your blog, Facebook posts, and/or tweets to a single topic (phenological events for example, or a work party or other volunteer event) over a specific, limited period of time....
18 Oct Are we there yet?
Here’s the bottom line: There are far more people are willing to make gifts than there are Board members willing to ask. You will hurt your organization more quickly by failing to ask than by asking for too much. ...
11 Oct Donor Loyalty Programs
Several clients have asked me recently about establishing donor clubs based on cumulative giving. In general I recommend against it, unless the organization already has a well-established system for recognizing annual donors....
04 Oct Are You Communicating Wins?
At the very moment in history when government leaders are turning to non-profit organizations to pick up the slack from defunded programs, foundation giving is declining, corporate support is flat, and ten percent of individual philanthropists say they will quit giving altogether until the economy...
27 Sep Recycling: How Many Renewal Letters Should We Send?
The following post is an updated version of a post I wrote in September 2009 The answer to this question is “As many as it takes”. Part of the job in fundraising is to build a strong, broad base for your fundraising by recruiting and retaining basic...
20 Sep Recruit Advocates; Be a Storyteller
A couple of things jump out of Read’s article for me. The question of how to recruit advocates instead of “merely donors” is interesting and speaks to the need for fundraising to be seen as relationship-building. ...