Randy Hawthorne and I have a lot in common. We both run a blog, a conference and a webinar series for fundraisers, and we both opened up co-working spaces for nonprofits. What I lack is his fashion sense, a print magazine, and a podcast - like his excellent Hubcast from [...]
The short answer is all of them. But that's not always possible, especially if you have a high gift volume. Few doubt the power of thank you phone calls. McConkey International UK found that first-time donors who get a personal thank you within 48 hours are 4x more likely to [...]
Prospect research is difficult. Asking for upgrades, major gifts and bequests is something that every fundraiser wants to do. But identifying the best supporters in your lists for those types of asks can be an even bigger challenge than the ask itself. Oftentimes we look only to the wealthy. But [...]
There's little argument that long-term, loyal donors are your best prospects for things like major gifts and planned gifts. Monthly donors, active volunteers, current and former service recipients, and the securely retired (especially the childless and empty-nesters) are also great prospects. But who else might be lurking in your donor [...]
Asking your donors why they are passionate about the cause is always a good idea. But how often do you ask them how they feel about your organization? It might be a better idea than you think. Roger Craver of The Agitator and DonorVoice fame has developed a simple donor [...]
Social media is great for connecting with true friends and close family members, but it also creates awkward situations when a friend request comes through from a person who we might not went to let into our private lives just yet. A co-worker, a distant cousin, a new acquaintance. What [...]
Lapsed donors are complicated. Some stopped because life got in the way. Some stopped because you got in the way. Some aren't even actually lapsed, even if you think they are. While prevention is the best strategy for tackling low donor retention rates, there's a lot of value in taking [...]
Well, it's happened again. Facebook has updated the algorithm that controls the visibility of content on the news feed (that center column of content users see when they log in). What is the update? Today we use signals like how many people react to, comment on or share posts to [...]
There's no shortage of learning opportunities for fundraisers: blog posts, webinars, seminars and conferences. It can be a full time job keeping up with all of them, let alone identifying the ones that are most appropriate for your current role. Conferences are particularly tough since they often require travel expenses [...]
It's "newsletter." Let me preface this post by saying that if you send out a recurring (weekly, monthly, etc.) email newsletter and it has the word "newsletter" in the subject line and you're getting amazing open rates, no need to run out and change everything you're doing. Why say no [...]
On Giving Tuesday 2017, I received 86 emails from over 60 orgs. 83 were solicitations, and you can read a full analysis of them here. Three additional emails stood out to me from those 83. Perhaps these orgs recognized that most of the other nonprofits in the sector would be [...]
In 2016, I received 40 email solicitations on Giving Tuesday from a mix of orgs I had given to previously and ones I had never given to (but engaged in some other way with). In 2017, that number rose to a whopping 83 through the normal course of interacting with [...]