How would you spend an income of a million dollars a year? I want you to think about this so that you can better understand donors to your organization. Let’s pretend you have a job that pays $1,000,000 a year. You’ve been making this amount for several years, so presumably you already have the...
Read more →Every time I teach fundraising, whether it is to staff members of nonprofits or to a board of directors, it comes up, always the same question: “What about the recession?” Well, what about it? How does the recession impact fundraising? I’ve been fundraising professionally since the 1980′s. I’ve lost count of how many recessions...
Read more →I received an interesting question from a woman in Camarillo, CA who wants to switch from being employed to self-employment. She asked me “What’s your vision?” Here’s my answer: “As for my vision, I realized a long time ago that I am not a social worker, I am not a lawyer, and I am...
Read more →There once was an organization — one that I won’t name — that had a public relations problem. They were viewed in a negative light by many people. However, they had others who were tremendous supporters. Their solution was a coordinated nationwide campaign of Letters to the Editor for local newspapers. I’ll explain what...
Read more →Here’s a good fundraising email. If the links don’t work, you can contact SEED directly and get on their list for emails. This is used with their permission. The subject line was “Meet Durrell ’06 graduate of SEED.” I think it’s a good email because it personalizes what the school does and how it...
Read more →What’s the difference between making appointments with your donors and hiring someone to make those appointments for you? Let me tell you some exact numbers. I use a professional appointment scheduler to schedule appointments for my nonprofit clients with their donors. Now, admittedly, they could do this themselves. Or, frankly, I could do this....
Read more →Let’s say I were to say to you, “Your hand is green.” What would you do? I imagine you would mildly say, “No, it isn’t.” Or you might inquire why I think your hand is green. You might brush it off as an odd statement. However, if I said your hand is green, you...
Read more →There was a song by The Carpenters in the 1970′s where they sang, “Close to You.” (It goes, “Why do birds/suddenly appear, every time/you are near? Just like me/they long to be/close to you.”) I was thinking of that today, humming it in my head, while I was thinking about the likeliness of any particular...
Read more →A lot of organizations are really struggling to raise money right now. If that’s you, here’s what I would do: First, sit down with your donor list, prioritized by the amount that your donors have given in the last three years. Your #1 donor should be at the top, followed by the person who...
Read more →Today I’m going to write about using the Benevon system of fundraising. If you’re not familiar with it, I suggest you first go to their website at www.benevon.com and view their 17-minute video about their system. I really like the Benevon system of fundraising. It’s got a lot of strong points. There are some...
Read more →It’s the end of December, when a lot of people make their year-end gifts. Many organizations are sending out their final emails, hoping to get those last-minute donations. I’ve been looking at email subject lines, seeing what people send me. After all, a subject line determines whether your email is opened or deleted. You...
Read more →A lot of us have heard “Donors should be thanked seven times for their gift!” But what does that mean? And how do you thank someone seven times? Here are some of the ways you can thank a donor. There are more than seven, but you can pick and choose. 1. Pick up the...
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