A topic that particular attention has been focused on in recent years here in Italy (but also abroad) is the relationship between nonprofit governance and issues related to development. It is part of a process Read more…
“The Daily Mail is not inherently anti fundraising”, I recently and naively posted on a chat forum on Facebook. The response was vigorous, and almost universally in disagreement. I stand corrected. But some of the Read more…
Pratfall is a term coined by psychologist Elliot Aronson to describe the bias of how your attractiveness to someone or something increases or decreases after making a blunder or a mistake (or a pratfall). The impact Read more…
“But we need to ask!” That’s always been the assumption. The golden rule of fundraising. Ask more people, or ask people for more, is how to raise more money. So we need to ask. In 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…
… and one simple answer. The greatest fundraisers asked and answered only four questions, repeatedly, for a long time. These questions are: 1. How do we make our proposition even better? 2. How do we Read more…
Some years ago, I had a charity Board insist that my fundraising programme should deliver a return on investment, or fundraising ratio, of 4:1; that is, not cost more than 25% of gross income. On Read more…
Look at your board and your leadership team… How many are men? How many are over 50? How many are white? If the answer is: “most of them” – you are leaving money on the Read more…
Preview of a NEW IFC SESSION, led by you… Nothing better sums up our sector than a line from a sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: Dud: Would you say you’ve learned from your Read more…
Evaluating activity v/s performance In my last post , I shared my insights on the importance of making Optimism an actvity (yes! not just an attitude) to impact fundraising performance. In this post, I Read more…
Our sector’s never taken the kind of media mangling it took earlier this month. (For anyone outside the UK who doesn’t know what I’m talking about quickly Google ‘Fundraising in the UK’. You will see Read more…
You probably remember it much as I do: the white wristbands, the star-studded Live8 concert, the remarkable celebrity ‘finger click’ ads, Blair and Brown and the G8 summit engaged and involved. And all of it Read more…
Where are all the challengers? The agitators? The objectors? The realists? The more sophisticated and developed our Sector becomes the more people seem happy to stay in line or fall into line. We seem to Read more…
I have worked for a few “small shops” in my career. Each organization had its own quirky, wonderful, and bizarre challenges and victories. I worked for a theatre in a building so old that the Read more…
“Hi, I am fundraiser and I’m addicted to acquisition.” Dear fundraiser, let’s start our day by admitting our addiction. We’re all obsessed with the idea of “new”: our new fundraising campaign, testing crowd-funding, creating best Read more…
Give donors more choice over where their money goes. It sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? If we want to be supporter-focused, and help them feel genuinely close to the mission, why wouldn’t we let Read more…
With 2014 drawing to a close, for many of us thoughts turn to what 2015 has in store. It’s an ideal time to get inspiration from some of the fundraising industry’s brightest brains. And what Read more…
Let’s presume you have this great innovative idea for recruiting new donors and there is just one hurdle to overcome: a ‘final go’ on the extra budget from your director or management team. For some Read more…
I used to love the titles given to the IFC opening and closing CEO speeches at the IFC by my hero and fundraising guru and friend, George Smith. They were simply “Rant 1” and “Rant Read more…
A few weeks ago a stranger told me something that made me feel truly sad for an entire afternoon. I was at a charity marketing seminar. Presentation topics were things like: how to meaningfully calculate Read more…
Not going to IFC? See details below this post to watch Tony and Rory’s presentation via webinar!
With the emergence from recession of many countries (albeit slow and staggering for some) and many markets announcing reasonable steady growth in voluntary income, it may seem that the not-for-profit sector is in a strong place and continuing to manage growth and development to meet the many varied needs of the Sector. The reality is that this growth and success is fuelling another major crisis for many charities. Yet it is one that the Sector fails collectively to recognise as the biggest challenge to our ability to continue to grow the power of fundraising to meet future needs, which inevitably grow faster than the resources we can generate to meet them. (more…)
Reading Ken Burnett’s post on reciprocity left me, as most discussion on the subject do, with an awkward feeling about how this very familiar issue keeps popping up. I can’t say I answered requests for Read more…
Unless you have been living in a hole for the last month you will have heard something about the latest campaign ‘proud to be a fundraiser’ from the Institute of Fundraising in the UK.
The essence of the proud to be a fundraiser campaign is not some naval gazing back slapping morale boosting exercise for the fundraising community. It’s about how organisations that are significantly growing their fundraising income are the ones where everyone in the organisation is both proud of what they do and the fundraising activities that enable them to do it. Because without fundraised income charities can’t achieve their mission. (more…)
At least, not without some reciprocity.
I love people who do pro bono work. They offer their skills free of charge for something they believe in. They will inherit the earth.
My younger son Charlie, who’s just completed his training as a human rights lawyer, used to work pro bono on Fridays for the charity Reprieve on ‘death row’ cases and at weekends for people who need legal aid. He did this gladly, for quite a while, as it helped him learn his trade. He did it for good causes because he figured they’d need and value his services more than would, say, a big corporate client or its highly paid legal firm. He not only learned from this, he believed it was well worth doing too. (more…)
It was 1993 and our most important holiday mail pack of the year. I opened the seed pack to discover the return address on the business reply envelope was wrong. Really wrong. Every generous donor Read more…
