My friend posted an alarmed message to a listserv about a new data service he read about in the Wall Street Journal this week.  “We now have NO privacy with Rapleaf,” he said.  I was, to say the least, intrigued.  I immediately read the WSJ article and went to Rapleaf.com to see what the fuss [...]

I recently ran across a review of Laura Fredricks’ book, “The Ask: How to Ask Anyone for Any Amount for any Purpose,” which was published a few years ago.  Within, Laura presents “The 10 Guiding Principles for Any Ask.”  As I read the list, I was struck by how pertinent and timely this reading was [...]

Strategic marketing requires that the right message be sent to the right prospect at the right time in the fundraising decision making cycle.  The messaging needs to be timely, appropriate, and influential enough to inspire its recipient to write a check and support your mission.  Non-profits were more likely to be forgiven in the past [...]

Are you experiencing Annual Giving fatigue at your organization?  Have many individuals “plateaued” at the same level of giving year after year?  Are you having difficulty transitioning donors from annual giving to major giving?  If so, consider implementing a leadership or transitional giving program dedicated to proactively increasing gift levels among individuals capable of making [...]

In Messaging Part I we focused on the messaging with donors.  It is just as important to ensure we are creating the right message within the organization.  It really boils down to making sure we are all on the same page and that hopefully the retention of staff will increase.  It is highly unlikely anyone [...]

On October 7, Kate Lindsay Breck posted a provocative blog about the ethics of using information gathered from social media sites in prospect research (“Facebook and Prospect Research: Too Big Brother?”).  Liz Rejman referenced Kate’s post in her session on social media at the APRA Canada meeting last week.  Liz also referenced a post by [...]

A key factor to success for any non-profit is retention of donors and staff.  In order to achieve a high retention we have to be conscious of the messaging we transmit not only outside of the organization but within.  This two-part paper will look at seven key factors that we should be messaging to donors [...]

Tis the Season!  No, not the Holiday Season.  The Back to School Season.  And for those of you working for educational institutions, there is no better time than today to start working with your class of incoming parents. Parents are such a unique constituency for educational institutions and research shows that they can be loyal [...]

Most people are familiar with the concept of the 6 degrees of separation.  It’s the idea that everyone in the world is connected to each other by no more than six relationship jumps.  I know Joe, who knows Gail, who knows Mary, who knows Jim, who knows Bill, who knows President Obama.  There have been [...]

When I was a front-line fundraiser, I used to read the newspaper every morning and clip out pictures of board members, major donors and prospects to keep them in our manila files.  I never knew where I would be and would need to recognize this individual.  It helped with my memory, and certainly helped when we [...]