Often wonder what it is like to be in a small fundraising shop? Exciting, exhilarating and yet tedious all at the same time. You need to be a generalist rather than a specialist. So your skills need to be broad and you need to know a great deal about many things within fund development. You don’t have […]
Does you board of directors give? This all important topic that is so hard to broach. First, lets start where it all starts… Does your organization have board of directors expectations that you share with them even before they are elected? Do you have them sign and commit to those expectations? Do you evaluate them […]
I know, I know. The BOARD…we all seem to cringe when we hear that word. The board is the way the board is because… Perhaps the board is the way the board is because… we haven’t done our jobs. Whether as executive directors or development professions, we do have a job to do you know! […]
Whether part of an existing gift acceptance policy or a separate written document, your organization should prepare a written description of the procedures for handling a gift of securities. Where is the organization’s brokerage account? Who is the organization’s broker? Who pays the broker’s commission? Who is responsible for overseeing the transfer of securities? How […]
“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.” – George R.R. Martin Are you diversified? If you have been a client of mine, you will know that I often talk about the need for diversity in fund development. Organizations should not be totally reliant upon a few minimal streams of income especially special events. Many […]
I find myself sitting comfortably at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota waiting for the start of my second year Masters program in Philanthropy and Fund Development. I wanted to arrive a day early before everyone else. Unpack, settle in, and get acclimated to my new home for two weeks. Not a lot to do on […]
Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term “servant leadership” through an essay that he first published in 1970. According to Greenleaf, “the servant leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one […]
Before a capital campaign is conducted, it is imperative to determine an organization’s capacity to succeed. Commonly this is usually done through an external feasibility study. However, I urge most non-profits that in tandem with conducting a market survey, they also, go one step further and conduct an internal audit or assessment of their own […]
It is almost two weeks now until I go away to school to complete my second summer residency for my Masters in Philanthropy and Fund Development. As I reflect back on my career, I am in awe. When I first started in development back in 1994, it was all by chance. I ended up working […]
Shared from the Chronicle of Philanthropy For the second year in a row, charitable giving barely grew, rising by just 0.9 percent after inflation in 2011, according to today’s release of “Giving USA,” the annual yearbook of American philanthropy. The study estimated that the total donated was $298.4-billion as compared to $290.98-billion in 2010. The […]
Slow fundraising growth in 2011 comes nowhere near to erasing record historic losses—the deepest ever recorded in the report’s five decades—caused by the recession. Total charitable giving last year was still 11 percent below what it was in 2007, before the effects of the recession were felt. Donations to charities dropped by a total of […]
American charities that conduct development and relief work overseas were the only type of nonprofit to outpace inflation by a significant percentage, at 4.4 percent, while donations to environmental causes increased by 1.4 percent after inflation. Giving to every other type of organization was either flat or declined. Religious organizations suffered the biggest drop, with […]
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