This past week, I’ve been privileged to be on a couple panels introducing nonprofit organizations to social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Linked in. While I love these tools, I was quick to express that: They don’t replace all the good fundraising practices we’ve learned over the decades. “Social” media is just that, social. [...]

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Do you remember Jean Preston, the unassuming librarian who’d amassed an $8 million estate? Or Helene Whitlock Alley, the $100 donor that bequethed $7.3 million to a diabetes group. Well here’s another entry in the never underestimate anyone category: Richard Walters. Perhaps you’ve heard his name on NPR: “Support for NPR comes from the estate [...]

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As fundraisers, we know we are most effective at our job when we’re talking to prospects one-on-one. Isn’t it amazing how seldom we do it? I’ve been doing this for years but I’m still amazed at how easily we get caught up in writing case statements, designing fundraising letters, refining development strategies…all things we can [...]

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Fundraisers are some of the best people in the world. People committed enough to a cause to ask others to invest in it. They’re good with people, great at networking with donors, and quite resourceful. Except when it comes to professional development. I’ve spoken to too many colleagues that aren’t allowed to go to professional [...]

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If you’re going to ask people for money, you’ve got to learn to love objections. Or at least be comfortable with them! Working on a session for the APRA conference in Boston, I’m relearning how fun objections can be. Seriously, if there were no objections, we wouldn’t be needed. It would be so clearly self-evident [...]

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As the recession continues, and our need for funds grows, I continue to believe we’ll need a combination of face-to-face experiences with donors augmented by a robust, but appropriate, use of online tools. In my article Bananas and Websites, I give an overview of Seth Godin’s concept that, when looking at a web page, all [...]

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I’ve been through a flurry of bad powerpoint presentations recently. At the last one, the speakers turned their backs to the audience and read the slides word-for-word. I kid you not. Perhaps it was because the words were so tiny none of us could see them. If you’re using Powerpoint or a similar slide-style program [...]

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Last week, I had someone pay me a huge, though unintended, compliment when unsubscribing from my email newsletter. She said the content was “far too basic” for her. I was thrilled! I strive to make fundraising simple, basic, and easy to understand. Many of you have heard me say that the most extreme thing about [...]

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In the last edition, I mentioned some points taught by Betsy Rigby, Director of Development with Partners HealthCare at the New England Association for Healthcare Philanthropy annual conference in Rhode Island last month. One was the two managment theories, ingloriously named, Theory X and Theory Y. Along with of these, she mentioned the role assumptions [...]

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Last week I was at the annual conference for the New England Association for Healthcare Philanthropy. It was a great conference, and I did alot of tweeting. You can see all my NEAHP tweets here. A great session I went to was on managing development staff by Betsy Rigby, Director of Development with Partners HealthCare. [...]

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