Skip to main content

Tag: Soliciting Gifts

5 Ways to Increase Blended Gift Fundraising

No two snowflakes, or people, are exactly alike, so why do we spend a lot of our time looking at donors as lines of data or dollar signs?

We lump them into boxes, like major giver, planned giving donor, and capital campaign prospect. These terms mean nothing to the donor; are self-serving for us (nonprofits); have us short-changing the donor’s capacity; and often don’t get us where we’re trying to go.

Particularly in this challenging fundraising environment – donor retention rates falling, donor confidence waning, cost to acquire new donors rising, and non-profit lay-offs, turn-over and program cuts – we must think outside the box to view donors comprehensively; not in categories, but as our partners and believers – real people we can build relationships that both the donor and our organizations value.

Continue reading

Soliciting Campaign Gifts: The Vanishing Volunteer

In the forty years I have been working in development, the past two decades as a consultant, I have witnessed a significant shift in the degree of reliance on – and even the use of – volunteers in fundraising.

It may be difficult to imagine this, but when I began my service in this profession, it was generally considered unbecomingly aggressive for a staff representative to make an independent solicitation of a prospect.  At the very least you took a volunteer along with you.

Continue reading