Are we there yet?
Just about everywhere you turn nowadays, you can find gloomy economic news about the charitable giving. A new study released by Dunham and Company of 487 adults who donated at least $20 in the past year reports that only 2 in 10 Americans plan to continue or increase their giving next year. 1 in ten plan to stop giving altogether. Giving USA has revised its estimates for 2008 and 2009 – and now says that donations fell by a higher percentage than in any other time in the past five decades. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has several articles...
read moreDonor Loyalty Programs
Several clients have asked me recently about establishing donor clubs based on cumulative giving. In general I recommend against it, unless the organization already has a well-established system for recognizing annual donors. Your priority should be to establish donor clubs and recognition events at the $100 and $1,000 levels first, to encourage annual giving at those levels. Even one at $10,000, if you have a critical mass (8 or so) beginning to give at that level. Then look at a legacy club for people letting you know that the organization...
read moreAre You Communicating Wins?
I read with interest this article from the Harvard Business Review, Three Ways to Turn Setbacks into Progress. The article builds on research from Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer on the “power of small wins” in motivating employees. I read it thinking about motivating land trust donors. Here’s what Amabile and Kramer say: “The progress principle: Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people...
read moreRecycling: How Many Renewal Letters Should We Send?
The following post is an updated version of a post I wrote in September 2009 The answer to this question is “As many as it takes”. Part of the job in fundraising is to build a strong, broad base for your fundraising by recruiting and retaining basic membership support. You do that by recruiting new members each year and by renewing the ones you already have. The trouble is that not everyone responds to the first renewal letter. So send a second one, and a third one, and a fourth one. Track the response rate for each letter. If you are...
read moreRecruit Advocates; Be a Storyteller
James Read is a Creative Director for Grizzard Communications. His recent article on “Lessons from Young Charities” presented the following five principles that characterize today’s most innovative nonprofit organizations. Each of these ideas can also be applied to well-established organizations also and are worth considering related to yours. They are: Focus on a powerful idea Recruit passionate advocates, not merely donors Be a storyteller Invest in the brand experience Prove your impact A couple of things jump out of Read’s...
read moreFinancial Literacy and Organizational Sustainability
I have long been critical of Land Trust Alliance’s organizational assessment tool, the Assess Your Organization or AYO, because it focuses too heavily on policies and compliance and too little on sustainability. It’s fine that you have a conflict of interest policy and that you monitor each of your 35 conservation easements every year like clockwork, but having only six Board members and 100 members is a problem. It’s not sustainable. Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman collaborated last year on a new Jossey-Bass published book...
read moreCreative Disruption: Sabbaticals for Executive Directors
Early last year, six foundations with a history of funding Executive Director Sabbaticals released a study documenting their effectiveness, entitled Creative Disruption: Sabbaticals for Capacity Building and Leadership Development In the Nonprofit Sector. According to the study: Organizational capacity increased as the second tier of leadership took on new responsibilities. Governance strengthened as a result of the planning and learning that goes with a sabbatical process. Executive directors came back rejuvenated, with a fresh vision and...
read moreUsing Email for Renewals
Many organizations, including land trusts, are beginning to use email to carry the first renewal message. Follow-up to non-responders is carried by more traditional first class postage letters. Here are several things to think about if you are beginning to experiment along these lines: First, your website should be ready to receive renewal responses and donations before you send email asking for electronic renewals. Test the system yourself to make sure everything works. Then the email carries a hotlink to the renewal form and payment...
read moreExcellent Newsletters
As a consultant, I end up seeing a lot of newsletters. Many are excellent. Some are good. A few need help. Along the way, I have assembled the following list of aspects I find common to many newsletters I consider excellent. Excellent newsletters use line drawings of nature and photos of people. Don’t waste space on landscape or nature photography unless you have the budget to do it really well (think National Geographic). Your audience wants to see photos of themselves, or people they know/recognize, or people like them doing things with...
read moreThe Importance of Donor Files
I just got back from Columbus, Ohio, the site of this year’s Land Trust Alliance’s Midwest Land Conservation Conference. Meeting and working with practitioners and Board members from the twelve states represented there inspired me to pick this blog up again. As a relative newcomer to full-time professional consulting, I had gotten seriously overwhelmed with work in February and early March, and I dropped posting on the blog while I sorted things out. In the major donor solicitation session that I led, I asked the group at one point for a...
read moreDavid Allen, Development for Conservation LLC
I am a fundraising consultant who has devoted the majority of my professional career to the service of land conservation. This blog is intended to help conservation organizations and land trusts pursue excellence in all aspects of their conservation endeavors. I welcome your comments and feedback to these posts. 