Let’s talk addiction. That’s something we think is related to the brain, right? We think some folks have “addictive personalities,” while others may simply enjoy something so much – like chocolate – that they’ll say they are addicted. Guess what? Philanthropy is addictive too. Yup. MRI data show us when [...]
Nonprofits tend to wring their hands a lot about fundraising. We don’t have enough. It’s so difficult. Our board won’t help. Our staff isn’t sufficiently skilled. It’s so distasteful. It’s a necessary evil. We have more important things to do with our resources. All of this hand-wringing comes from a [...]
I want to make a point about the significance of a culture of philanthropy. About treating our internal stakeholders as kindly as we treat our external ones. About being grateful to those who support us and work with us, donors and staff alike. About being able to fully enjoy and [...]
Let’s begin with the too-often dreaded process of major gift solicitation. Whenever I conduct a board session on philanthropy, I come across big-time resistance to fundraising. People have a lot of deep-seated, negative beliefs when it comes to asking people for money. When asked to give one word that comes [...]
When I worked full time in fundraising, I felt like I was scrambling to find money to fund our many programs. We took money from Nike. From Boeing. These companies would be considered anathema to some nonprofits because of their involvement in the abusive Chinese labor factory industry, and in [...]
Are your development operations set up for success? Is the program team at war with development? Does communications get treated like a service fulfillment department by everyone else? Are major gifts and direct mail fighting over donors or who gets credit? Are donors treated like ATMs? Do you have a [...]
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 [...]
At least part of the focus of nearly every philanthropy study ranging from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project to the Giving USA Report to many others, is how flat-lined overall giving is in the United States as a percentage of GDP. This has historically hovered around 2% with very little variance over the [...]
With the recent news that Congress has passed significant changes to all of our tax laws, we wanted to share with you some timely articles, opinions and resources about how to deal with the aftermath of the new nonprofit tax bill. […]
In any area of life, it's important to teach young people the values that are important to you. In today’s culture, I have found that it can be difficult to teach children the values of giving and philanthropy. As kids turn to adulthood, the idea of giving time, talent, and [...]
So much is written each month about the various charitable giving indexes that are released. It seems that the interest in charitable giving in the United States is at least equal to the attention devoted to the current state of the stock market. I love statistics probably much more than [...]
So much has been written about impact of culture on results in the business world, however not nearly enough is written about its impact on philanthropy. Ironically, culture has just as big, if not larger, effect on philanthropy as it does for any business. […]