More and more often we hear this catchy phrase "culture of philanthropy" and how essential it is to high levels of nonprofit fundraising success. Having worked as a staffer for many years, I’m a firm believer. If you want to raise more money and retain more donors, start by looking at your collective mindset toward [...]
In your nonprofit work you occupy a highly inter-connected space. You have a relationship network that includes program volunteers, donors, vendors, other nonprofits, employees, board members, companies that serve nonprofits and more. These folks believe in your cause and they support it with time, expertise, money and other resources. You cannot survive long without them. [...]
This article by Ed Baldwin appeared in my LinkedIn feed a month or so ago and I liked it, shared it and simply can’t forget it. Whether you’re gearing up for year-end fundraising, onboarding a new class of volunteers, or trying to figure out how to approach next year’s plan, you're busy and have gobs [...]
Has this ever happened to you? Maybe you’re a peer who is counting on a board member to follow up on a project and it doesn’t happen. Or you’re the CEO and a board member told you they’d reach out to someone and they didn’t do it. Or the deadline for that fundraiser is tomorrow [...]
You’ve seen the studies. The 2015 Leading With Intent Report from Board Source shows that only 60% of nonprofits have achieved 100% board giving. Even when every board member is investing, rarely are they treated as well as other major donors. That’s ridiculous. Why such harsh words? * If you’re in the other 40%, you’re [...]
Everyone who loves meetings, raise your hand. Yeah. I will never forget when I was doing some calendar work with 3 board members. As soon as I mentioned that we needed to schedule some regular committee meetings, I got an eye roll, a sigh and an outright “aarrrrrggghh!” as she slumped in her chair. Yikes! [...]