News and Blog
The Perfect Pair: Endowment and Immediate-Use Gifts
I noticed that a consistent leadership annual fund donor had stopped giving through the annual fund and instead had pledged to fund an endowment. He had the financial resources to continue his annual fund support as well, but he hadn’t, and I wondered why. Imagine my...
What’s Not to Like?
Talking about the Annual Fund “They don’t like the annual fund.” More than one frontline fundraiser has told me that about a donor. I want to understand what that means, so I ask for more information. What is it that they don’t like? Are they uncomfortable with …...
Lessons from the Vasa
A friend recently returned from Sweden and shared pictures from her visit to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. It’s a wonderful museum that features a recovered 17th-century warship, along with collections and insights into life in the 1600s. It made me think back to my...
You Can’t Win the Race If You Are Looking Out of the Boat
After a brief stint on the crew team in college, I ended up serving as a rowing coach and coxswain for a local rowing club in my hometown for a little over a decade. Being the little person jammed into the “back” seat is about more than just yelling stuff, which is...
Lessons Learned about Fundraising in the Pandemic
My last trip to see a client onsite was February 28, 2020. After I flew home, a friend who is a virologist gave me some masks, wipes, and advice to buy three weeks of groceries “just in case.” So I did. (If he’d told me to buy toilet paper, I’d have said he was a...
Taking Control of Your Fundraising: The Power of Feasibility-Based Goals
How nice would it be to set a fundraising dollar goal that you had confidence in? Around now, many programs are developing goals for the coming fiscal year. I’ll be the first to say that fundraisers are a fundamentally optimistic community by nature – it’s part of...
So Many Reasons Not to Give
It’s amazing that we raise as much money as we do, given the many reasons why people should not give. Read on to see the very special solicitation letter I created for my first April post.
“It’s Not You, It’s Me”
Seinfeld character George Costanza claimed to have coined the phrase “It’s not you, it’s me.” He found that it came in handy when explaining why he wanted to break up with the person he was dating, hoping to make it easier on the soon-to-be ex by putting the blame...
Keeping the “Fun” in “Fundraising”
Provides a link to a Spotify playlist of annual giving-themed tunes.
Gifts for Today and Tomorrow–Annual and Planned Giving
At first glance, Annual Giving and Planned Giving may appear to be polar opposites. Annual Gifts are for immediate use, can (and do) come in all sizes, and are often pooled together with the gifts from other community members to maximize their impact. Planned Gifts...