To create board members who are fully prepared to make the strategic, critical, and wise decisions we ask of them at every meeting, my idea is to create a Scavenger Hunt – one that will take a year and a Guide to complete. Create a...
When I start to describe a major gift development program to clients who do not have an active program already, I often use a pipeline analogy as follows. Imagine there are four “chambers” in a pipeline, labeled D, C, B, and A. You should be...
People who donate time and not money are wonderful volunteers. People who donate money and not time are wonderful donors. We need wonderful board members to do both....
Your major donor cultivation work is arguably the most important work of your year. Make sure you create space on the calendar to do it well. 1) Assign donor responsibility to board members. Let them choose their own donors within reason, but make sure...
In fundraising for land conservation, we often say that “the land sells itself.” By this we simply mean that if you can get a potential donor out on the land to see, smell, touch – feel – for themselves, often that’s all you need. This...
Fundraiser’s Almanac: January Happy New Year! For 2015, I am creating a week-by-week guide to organizing a fundraising program. My ambition is to provide strategic ideas for approaching your work more so than providing some kind of overlay to what you might be doing already. Some of...
Next week is Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference in Providence, Rhode Island. Anita O’Gara and I will team up to present The Surprising Secrets of Direct Mail Success on Friday. Peter McKeever and I will present A Board for All Seasons, which we like...
I encourage all board members to regularly deliver their elevator speech to the entire board, as a form of ritualized practice. Practicing is just good "practice" anyway, but hearing what others say can help you refine and hone your own message. Delivering such a speech...
At a designated board meeting, s/he reports formally on the Standard, noting all the practices and policies underneath it, and offering an opinion as to the degree to which the organization is currently compliant. S/he offers recommendations for improvement or wording changes as appropriate. Any...