I was traveling to Philadelphia by plane this week and through sheer luck was seated next to a vice president of a hotel management company.  Turns out he is also the incoming Chair of the Board of my local American Red Cross chapter, as well as a volunteer with a recently formed local micro-granting organization.  [...]

Over the past ten work days Phyllis Freedman, an independent fundraising consultant specializing in planned giving marketing, has been sharing her ten commandments for at The Planned Giving Blogger. They’re wonderful and we should all have them pinned up on our corkboards or written on our whiteboards or as the home screen of our smart-devices, [...]

Last week, I spoke at the monthly meeting of the San Antonio chapter of Partners for Philanthropic Planning.  The topic:  Prospect Research for Planned Gifts.  I’ve recently written a white paper on the subject in conjunction with my colleague Michael Quevli, and along with one of Target Analytics’ founders, Lawrence Henze, have presented the paper [...]

In a March 2011 cover article, Time Magazine explored the collection and sale of personal data in the United States.  My colleague, Lawrence Henze and I saw an immediate opportunity to build on this information and to explain many of the data sources available to nonprofit institutions for their development programs.  We were honored when [...]

I just read a post by one of the popular planned gift calculation product companies regarding common questions that they receive during planned giving program audits with their nonprofit clients.  The focal area called “Metrics and Productivity” is often a center-of-attention topic, they say, and the tug between raising deferred revenue and the need to [...]

For about 24 days each July over the past seventeen years I’ve gotten up early each morning to watch Le Tour de France. The tradition started because I was married to a triathlete and not only wanted to understand the specifics of elite cycling, I also enjoyed learning about France and seeing the stunning sights [...]

School ended recently in the area where I live and everything seems to be in slow-mode.  The hustle and bustle of cars leaving driveways at 7:30 a.m. to get the kids to school is missing; around Noon the local fast food parking lot is filled with stationary carloads of teenagers; and, my neighbors are busy [...]

Each time Blackbaud publishes one of my writings, I feel an honor and a fulfillment that’s hard to describe.  When I was young I wanted to be an author – and a jet pilot, like my father.  I’ve accomplished one but not yet the other and I think I may have gotten the better life [...]

An important bill that could mean additional current revenue to your organization has been introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The Public Good IRA Rollover Act of 2011 (S. 557) would extend the IRA charitable rollover beyond 2011, lift the $100,000 cap on distributions, and allow planned gifts beginning at age [...]

I just read an attention-grabbing article extolling a new print service called Read Smart by Production Solutions and it piqued my interest – maybe it really piqued my brain.  Read on to find out how that might have happened.  ReadSmart, they say, is the result of over 20 years of research examining how messages are [...]