The amount and timing of your next gift is directly connected to the way you say "Thank You." Rule #1: Thank Donors Faster. You can never thank a donor too much or too fast! I’ve encouraged charities to stop batching thank you receipts for the postal discount. They...
The fact is a big check can hide a multitude of problems. In each of these cases the charity thought they are seeing real, measurable growth with predictable, repeatable results. However, nothing could be further from the truth
One half of all donations received by charity in America occur in the 4th quarter (now the real stats… ) and one half of those gifts are received in the month of December and one half of those gifts occur the last week of December and one half of those gifts happen the last day of December and one half of those gifts happen between 3 and 9 pm on the 31st of December.
Beware of the major gift guru who says he has the secret black book with the list of his major donor friends who will fund your charity.
“For clinking money, you can shake the can. For folding money, you should go ask for it. “
The next President of the United States will have to shift away from the traditional fundraising strategies which have been used over the last two Presidential campaigns. It will be critical to use “marketing integration” to raise funds and move away from silo’d...
Today, social media is producing primarily “One-And-done” new donors. While this kind of funding helps, it is very risky to build a future on.
Most nonprofits, like Sweet Briar, do not consider the fact that capital campaigns can hurt your annual fund and general operating budget, especially if annual fund donors are being targeted for a large percentage of the capital gifts. With nearly $200 million raised in Sweet Briar’s case, they learned the hard way that capital campaign donors will rarely give “twice” or release “restrictions” to pay for overhead and operations.
Bottom line, there is a cost to acquire a new donor and, as importantly every new donor has lifetime donor value to the charity. Charities must be willing to invest in growth.
Every January I encourage charities to spend more time on practical, actionable events rather than writing beautiful superfluous words about their organization and cause.
