Budgeting as a fundraiser can be challenging. Too often, the overall goals seem to be (1) spend less and (2) raise more. It's as if it was as easy as simply willing it to happen … I am unable to solve that problem for you, but here are six groups you need to be sure have a starring role in your next fiscal year budget.
Could you be stewarding your donors better? In today’s video, Vanessa Chase shares a technique that will help you get started when it comes to stewarding your donors. If you have any stories or advice around stewarding and retaining donors, please share it with everyone else. Leave a comment under the video. Thanks.
Create your own "March Madness" bracket theory for your fundraising program, and your organization will be the ultimate winner over time!
Middle donors provide a rare instance in which making your middle bigger will actually increase the health of your organization.
As I was thinking about this whole donor relationship thing, I looked up a few thoughts from some really smart people to see what kind of insight they could offer on how to make relationships strong and lasting. Here’s what some of them had to say.
Ted Hart speaks with fund development and board management consultant Deborah Kaplan Polivy, author of "Donor Cultivation and the Donor Lifecycle Map: A New Framework for Fundraising," about the donor lifecycle map on his Nonprofit Coach radio show.
Over the years, I have worked with a number of nonprofits that always hit their fundraising goals, and I have noticed that they all have 5 things in common: 1. They set deadlines and responsibilities. 2. They focus on individual donors. 3. They track donors through the fundraising funnel. 4. They build fundraising networks, starting with their boards. 5. They tell great stories.
Want your donors to sustain you? Then you can’t consume them in five minutes. Yet all too often nonprofits treat their donors exactly like a gumball dispensed from a machine. Chew it up. Spit it out. Done. If you’ve been treating your donors like gumballs, start tomorrow with these five tips: 1. Thank them immediately and with gusto. 2. Pay attention to any particularities. 3. Develop and implement a donor stewardship plan. 4. Wrap engagement opportunities into your stewardship plan. 5. Always be donor-centered.
I’m going to say this right up front. I don’t believe there should be ANY stewardship of donors. What ...? Yes, you heard me right. None, zero, nada. Now, after you get up off the floor, let me tell you why.
Immediately after a donor signs his name to a check or wires his stock into your account, you are immediately CULTIVATING him. For what you might ask? Cultivating him for a deeper relationship, to inspire him by reporting on the impact of his gift and for moving him to a place for another gift.
Is the journey that you ask your donors to follow a pleasurable experience that makes them feel special — or is it like jetting cross country on multiple budget airlines, with seemingly endless waits in characterless airports?
