Get 100% of board members to give at a passionate level. This should be your pre-eminent goal as you enter into year-end fundraising season –the time of year when most folks feel peak generosity. However, just feeling in a giving mood won’t necessarily translate to philanthropy. Most significantly, it won’t [...]
What makes a fundraising appeal, well, appealing? The last six weeks of the calendar year are make-or-break time for nonprofits. In fact, nearly 30% of nonprofits raise 26% to 50% of their annual fundraising in November and December – when people are feeling their most grateful and generous. As the [...]
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 [...]
Custom merchandise is a no-brainer for most nonprofits for one primary reason. Merchandise provides a significant revenue boost for organizations that understand their audience and how to provide the products that will excite them. With the growth of online merchandising platforms over the past several years, it’s easier than ever [...]
For many nonprofit organizations, it can be difficult to measure fundraising effectiveness when it comes to strategy. Especially since there is an old-school and misguided belief by many people that fundraising expenses are bad. On the surface, this belief sounds good. Shouldn’t all money in an organization go towards program [...]
What’s the hardest job in the world? Parenting a toddler or teenager? Milking venom from poisonous snakes? What about motivating unpaid volunteers to raise money and reporting to them because those same volunteers are your bosses? Engaging a leadership team made up solely of volunteers is one of the [...]
I receive a lot of questions about annual fundraising appeal best practices. You’ll find a lot of tips in this free, downloadable “Annual Appeal Checklist.” But today let’s look at some of the thornier questions I receive. Q. What if your mailing list isn't really that great? A. There’s no [...]
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 [...]
Ultimately, the goal of every appeal letter is to get a resounding “Yes!” With the right number of positive responses to your annual fundraising appeal letter, you can get the support you need for your mission. You could even surpass your short-term goals, giving your nonprofit the ability to focus [...]
Monthly or recurring donors are crucial to your fundraising in short because of this: And as the retention rate goes up, so does the only fundraising metric that really matters: lifetime value. Lifetime value is not just the secret weapon for donor acquisition but the barometer of how well your [...]
In 1984 Robert Cialdini wrote a groundbreaking book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, outlining principles of influence that affect human behaviors. Today these principles have been well documented. Trail-blazing research added by behavioral scientists like Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky supports and expands on Cialdini’s principles. No matter how much technology advances, the triggers [...]
While some donors upgrade their giving without being asked, most donors wait to be asked – or at least to be offered a darn good reason to give more. In Part 1 of this three-part series – your “Donor Upgrade Roadmap” -- we took a deep dive into monthly giving [...]