At a recent board meeting for a national association focused on collecting immense data for the charity sector, the discussion drifted to DAFs (donor advised funds). The consensus prediction was that within the next five years the top five charities in the United States, and possibly the world, based upon [...]
One of my favorite volunteer activities in the nonprofit sector is serving on the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s Growth in Giving Steering Committee. The face-to-face meetings and conference calls are always insightful and thought provoking. This is especially true when those insights are cutting edge and timely in nature. This week’s [...]
Tom Ahern, a dear friend and Bloomerang’s Communications Coach recently released a free downloadable eBook that can literally change your charity’s donor communications forever. More importantly, for many nonprofit organizations the level of funding for your mission could be increased significantly based upon the knowledge gained and the best practices [...]
As Labor Day approaches in the United States, you will read about and be invited to many webinars helping you and your fundraising team prepare your year-end appeals. In addition, there will just as much stating you need to prepare for your Giving Tuesday appeal(s). However, very seldom (if ever) [...]
This outstanding article mentioned in the title and linked to below outlines most of the reasons every nonprofit board member should consider before even thinking about going to the next board meeting. Honestly, if everyone read the article found here, at least a few people would resign from a nonprofit board [...]
Ever since my very first Professional Fundraising Conference in 1983, where I met Jerry Panas for the first time, until just last year, Jerry was a fixture at nearly every single one! It was so easy to spot him. Why? He was always the person nearly everyone else went to [...]
It's a little known fact that planned giving has one of the highest ROIs (return on investment) of any fundraising activity, contributing to the fact that pursuing gifts from wills and trusts is rarely a key mission funding practice among the average American nonprofit. Why is this the case? In [...]
Crowdfunding is a bold, new and sometimes surprising, if not dangerous, world when it comes to donor relations, fees, receiving funds and other aspects of the process. Few fundraisers who have embraced it knew exactly what they were getting into when utilizing a crowdfunding provider. The 26 questions listed below [...]
The last three decades of providing the best in nonprofit donor database systems has enabled detailed insights into just about every system selection process possible. Those selection processes have included two inch thick requests for proposals to spreadsheets with hundreds of columns/rows to massive demonstration scripts resulting in day long [...]
"Fundraising is the only profession you can join without knowing a thing." So observes Professor Adrian Sargeant, founder of the Philanthropy Centre. And it's not the new fundraiser's fault, either. Charities that hire untrained fundraisers and then expect great results are to blame. Dr. Sargeant has been passionate for 25 [...]
One of the key steps and perhaps the most important one of the Bloomerang Consultative Sales Process is our Needs Analysis. Within this crucial step we explore every objective the nonprofit has for their CRM/record keeping/communication system as well reviewing all functions needed and problems to be solved. Often we [...]
I have been proud to be a part of the Fundraising Effectiveness Project every since its inception more than a decade ago. In case you are not familiar with FEP, a little background might be in order to help you realize just how important the four comparison metrics noted below [...]