Women, as a group, are increasingly impacting fundraising efforts in the U.S.  Research shows that women tend to the lead the philanthropic decision-making in many households and have the resources and desire to make their own impact on the world around them.  Almost 70% of women are employed and nearly half of them say that [...]

If you could focus on 100 prospects over the next two years – one person a week – with the promise of raising more than $3 million, would you devote your time to building relationships with these individuals?  What if this same group of donors could provide $7 million or more in contributions?  Would your [...]

The latest edition of Association of Fundraising Professional’s magazine, Advancing Philanthropy, contains a series of articles on prospect research.  The articles focus on educating the non-researcher to the benefits of effective use of data, analytics and research to improve an organization’s fundraising operations.  In addition to two main articles, More Than Data: How prospect research [...]

“What is that prospect worth?”  Behind the closed doors of development offices, you often hear this question.  Let me just get this point out of the way.  As a human being, every person is of indescribable worth, intrinsically valuable and precious.  This is true regardless of the person’s wealth.  Even in those closed-door conversations, this [...]

Whether your organization has a robust, well established Planned Giving program, or if your Legacy Society is just getting off the ground, there is one thing that you will most likely observe if you take a careful look at the individuals who have made a deferred giving commitment:  loyalty.  Planned Giving donors can be of [...]

How much time should you be devoting to prospect research for a single prospect?  I am frequently asked this question by researchers who have been given a list of urgent “Top Prospects” that is 200+ people long.  Where do you start and how deep should you go in researching each prospect? It is best to [...]

“So what will you do with $1000 if I give it to you?”  Strange question?  Not really.  It should be the first thing your donors ask when you present them with an Annual Giving upgrade request.   Many organizations are guilty of one of the most common annual giving mistakes:  Lack of clarity as to what [...]

Occasionally I hear fundraisers scoff at the idea of predictive modeling and electronic screening projects.  More often than not, these fundraisers are working for smaller non-profits, non-profits with very localized constituencies and/or have been involved in their local philanthropic communities for many years.  However, I have heard naysayers from non-profits of every size and sector.  [...]