There’s no shortage of things the experts say fundraisers should be doing: handwritten notes, donor visits, thank you phone calls, bequest marketing; the list goes on and on. It can be overwhelming when you’re bogged down planning an event that your leadership team insists on, or when you’re simply trying [...]
What is it that drives donor loyalty? What are the determinants of longer term value? These are questions we’re often asked at Bloomerang and we’ve been working to develop measures that all our clients can use to track how well they are doing at bolstering future donor retention. We know [...]
The other day I received a solicitation in the mail from an organization I made a donation to a few years back. I have yet to make a second donation. Let me tell you the story. A few years ago, when I was finishing my MBA, one of my professors [...]
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 [...]
Aside from helping to identify prospective major donors, boosting your nonprofit’s rate of donor response is the key purpose of donor research. If you’re struggling to secure a prospect’s support, it’s time to double down with your data! You already put careful thought into your communication strategies to keep your [...]
If you’re not actively engaging with folks online in today’s digitally-revolutionized zeitgeist, you’re missing a huge opportunity. One of the best ways to engage with folks online is through content marketing. In Part 1 of this three-part series we looked at how you can create a value-for-value exchange with [...]
Potential major gift donors (like all donors) have philanthropic motivations. But have you asked them what they are? As a fundraiser, the way you build trust with donors is by getting to know them. The best way to do that is by asking them questions. Do you know: why they [...]
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 [...]
Ask not what your donor can do for you, but what you can do for your donor. The donor is always right. The donor’s priorities are our priorities. These are adages for the modern age in which nonprofits compete with for profits in a service-oriented digital economy. It’s one of [...]
Benjamin Franklin had it right: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I’m sure you have heard about the tax changes. It was all over the news and pretty much on every social media feed with one horrific message. “Nonprofits are going to [...]
Capacity matters in fundraising. That might be the most obvious thing for any fundraiser. People will give what they're capable of giving. But time and time again, organizations I work with talk about having trouble filling their major gift pipeline, upgrading donors over time, or making any headway with lapsed [...]
We live in an “all about me” world. All about me doesn’t have to be a bad thing, even if at first blush it sounds ego-driven. You see, there’s nothing wrong with ego. It drives us to want to be better. We want to look in the mirror and see [...]