During the age of COVID-19, many nonprofits, especially those that have been focused on growth, paused their fundraising strategies to deal with the results of the pandemic. Social distancing guidelines made in-person fundraising nearly impossible to do safely, and the economic downturn limited the philanthropic gifts individuals are willing to [...]
Where Will Your Largest Fundraising Impact NEXT Year Come From? This question was being debated among several of my Bloomerang colleagues last week. This is a common occurrence at Bloomerang, since our entire existence is based upon bringing best practices to life for professional fundraisers. Over the eight years of [...]
Capital campaigns are springboards to increase the impact of your nonprofit. They raise money to move your organization from business as usual to doing more good for more people. They increase your capacity to make a difference in the world by providing special funds to increase your capacity; perhaps with [...]
As we approach the end of 2019, it's the perfect time to create a list of 2020 resolutions to radically improve your fundraising efforts, raise the morale of your team, and improve your knowledge of this marvelous career as professional fundraisers! 2020 will mark the beginning of my 37th year [...]
Each quarter the Fundraising Effectiveness Project releases their latest findings from billions of dollars donated through the participating donor database companies providing anonymous data from the majority of their customers. This allows the philanthropy world to establish metrics in a similar fashion to all of the key industries within the [...]
In the fourth quarter of each year the National Philanthropic Trust releases their annual Donor Advised Funds Report.  This is significant for every nonprofit engaged in fundraising to take notice because donor advised funds or DAFs for short, are truly changing the landscape of major gift fundraising and therefore [...]
Many nonprofit professionals greet nonprofit annual report creation with groaning and moaning. This is because these reports have a bad reputation. These reports considered a time suck and poor use of funding. However, it doesn’t need to be that way! Your nonprofit annual report, when well-crafted, can be a vital [...]
Finding the right CRM for your organization can be a major challenge. Between navigating an overwhelming number of features, prioritizing your organization's needs, and creating purchasing and implementation plans, many nonprofits end up finding themselves lost in the various steps of the process. This just goes to show that there’s [...]
Each quarter the Fundraising Effectiveness Project releases its report based upon the data collected that year. It is one of the only such reports based upon actual data from over 176 million transactions across more than 20,000 nonprofit organizations. Here is the latest report from the 2nd quarter of 2019. [...]
All too often, nonprofits see their donor database as a glorified phonebook. This may be because they're not getting the most out of the software or because the solution in which they've invested doesn't have the expansive functionality the organization needs. When nonprofits invest in the best donor database [...]
It's late June, which in the philanthropy world always means the release of the latest Giving USA report. The report estimates total giving in the United States based upon a multitude of sources. It is the oldest and most referenced barometer on the state of the charitable sector's health. The [...]
Over the last 37 years, I have witnessed thousands of small and medium-sized nonprofits struggle with growing or even sustaining support for absolutely wonderful missions due to lack of any true professional fundraising training. Even worse, the tidbits of knowledge they picked up were often wives tales or really bad [...]