Making time in your schedule to thank donors on a regular basis is critical. Take advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday and celebrate your donors. Here is what we do: All donors receive a handwritten thank you note. This note is specific and authentic. It mentions ...
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Category Archives: Fundraising
The Death of Donor Demographics
Donor demographics are dead. Fundraisers and prospect researchers are gasping after reading that. In the age of web 2.0 and social media, it is now more important what online circles and environments our prospective donors fall in to, not what demographic group. Seriously. If ...
Don’t Groupon Your Nonprofit
Groupon is a business model encourages people to spread the word about great deals and recruit friends to sign up. The business offering the deal gets an influx of customers and Groupon gets a cut of the deal. Many ...
Build a Loyal Dazzle
This is the third post in a series on Donor Retention Done Right. We last examined creating a loyal donor base by celebrating your success and engaging constituents around these moments. How do we continue to build a loyal donor base?
Donor Retention Done Right
Donor retention is an important issue facing all fundraisers. By definition, retention is simply keeping a donor. If that is the case, nonprofits need to focus on donor loyalty, not donor retention. Loyalty instills a compassionate commitment. We want our donors engaged at a higher level, not simply retention. We want more than a transactional ...
Does Your Nonprofit Have a Return Policy?
As I was running downtown last night I saw people darting in and out of stores with returns. I was overwhelmed with the amount of people experiencing buyer’s remorse or dissatisfaction with their purchase. What would you do if a donor had buyer’s remorse ...
Fundraising: It’s Not Luck
Your success as a nonprofit or a fundraiser is not based on luck. It’s based on hard work. I work with a small healthcare organization that attributed their early fundraising success to luck. Despite being in existence for over 20 years, this organization did not ...
Just Ask
As fundraisers, we often forget that it really is that simple – ask. Successful fundraisers make it happen because they ask for support. They get out there, hit the ground running, and ASK. I recently worked with an employee giving campaign that was ...
Show Compassion
The compassion we extend to others helps create a sense of community. Successful leaders, fundraisers and nonprofit organizations value compassion. They go above and beyond to do more for their communities, their employees, the people they serve and other nonprofit organizations. Think of your favorite boss – how did he/she show compassion? How did they go above ...
Taking the ‘No’
One of the most important lessons fundraisers can learn is that ‘no’ more often than not means ‘not right now’ or ‘not in that manner,’ not NO forever and ever. As long as you are dealing with a qualified prospect with the capacity ...
