It’s really unfair. Like any fundraiser, you’ll eventually discover the concept of donor centricity, just like any marketeer discovers customer experience optimisation. You’ll love the concept, because your gut tells you it’s the Truth. You’ll Read more…
I once had a rather nice Italian linen suit. Back in the day when a rather baggy disheveled look was cool. Or so I thought at the time. One day when I went to collect Read more…
The social-profit sector needs fundraisers to dive in to a digital way of living and thinking more than ever. And in 2016 if you aren’t, you’re going to get left behind. Here’s 3 reasons why Read more…
My previous blog on 101fundraising earlier this week outlined some of the key theories from social psychology that Rogare’s project to review relationship fundraising had suggested might be usefully applied to the discipline. I now Read more…
You’d be hard pushed to overstate how important the concept of ‘relationship fundraising’ is to many fundraisers. You only need to do a quick search on 101Fundraising to realise that. But despite it being one Read more…
The year just passed will probably get, and deserve, some colourful descriptors from fundraisers, most of them uncomplimentary. In Britain particularly it was uncomfortable, to say the least. But as the year ended a number Read more…
Please turn yourself into your Grandmother. This might be hard if she is no longer with us. I only met one of my Grandmothers and she was run over and killed by a Rolls Royce Read more…
A couple of years’ ago, a wise and brilliant friend, also a fundraiser, said to me over coffee: ‘Relationship Fundraising only needed to be written because the invention of databases meant fundraising could be done Read more…
Apparently if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump out. Yet put a frog in a pot of water and gradually heat it up the frog will not jump out Read more…
The Resource Alliance’s International Fundraising Congress is hands down the best investment a fundraiser can make in their career and themselves. Every year, some of the best minds in fundraising gather in Noordwijk to elevate Read more…
With so much concern about how the charity sector treats donors and those it hopes will become supporters, suddenly the donor is right there in the spotlight. What do donors want? How can we meet Read more…
A friend of mine has spent three years working with refugees on the border of Turkey and Syria. Sometimes the challenges were overwhelming, 16 hour days for weeks on end, as the stream of people Read more…
When fundraising is seen as a public enemy, for sure it’s time to change. To coincide with last Wednesday’s launch of the Etherington Review* the BBC published a poll revealing that 52 per cent of Read more…
I have been somewhat dismayed at the flood of criticisms that are now threatening to engulf our great profession. In my fifty years of fundraising, I have never seen anything like it. First, the sad Read more…
Will my intern ever understand what I’m trying to say? The newbie has only ever volunteered before, don’t ask them. You’ve been doing this 6 months what would you know? In a couple of years Read more…
There’s been a lot of discussion about supporter experience recently, and as a massive advocate of long term relationship fundraising, I’ve been asked several times about KPI’s and ROI’s on supporter experience. It’s not an Read more…
I just finished re-reading “Deep Dive” by Rich Horwath, a book about strategic thinking. It reminded me how important that competency is to successful major gift work. There are lots of conversations on and offline Read more…
Six major international development charities were asked a very simple question; “what’s the reason donor’s support you and not your competitors?” Each gave their answer. A cross section of their donors was asked a similar question; Read more…
You can’t do that. **** Last week, Olive Cooke killed herself by jumping off the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol UK. The Coroner has not yet established the cause of death, but her family has Read more…
Why we should all adopt the retiring Giles Pegram CBE* as our role model. The police officer was puzzled. The women driver appeared to be quite annoyed about the fact that he’d pulled her over. Read more…
This is the second of two blogs looking comprehensively, and provocatively, at the state of relationship fundraising In the last blog, we defined relationship fundraising, and looked at its implications, strengths and weaknesses. Today, we Read more…
This is the first of two blogs looking comprehensively, and provocatively, at the state of relationship fundraising. In this first blog, we define relationship fundraising, and look at its implications, strengths and weaknesses. In the Read more…
A question fundraisers were never asked…until now. Your answers were revealed at last week’s AFP conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Responses to the survey “How Philanthropic are Fundraisers?” came in from 19 countries from places as Read more…
(And they’re all about your audience) There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tactics we can apply to get better fundraising results. But what are the big things that make the really big differences? 1. You’re Read more…
Across the charity sector we literally spend days on the creation of boardroom presentations, we meet for hours in cross-functional working groups, and the other half of the day we’re either in one-on-one or team Read more…
