Category Archives for News & Information


Donors Asked to Stop Focusing on Overhead Costs

At long last someone has the courage ask donors to stop focusing on overhead costs, and to say that it’s okay for charities to have effective management and administration.  No, 100% of your gift will not immediately go to feed the naked starving babies in the street.  Some of your gift might actually be used […]

Charitable giving tied to state tax write-offs

By: Elaine S. Povich, Pew/Stateline staff writer States that have tinkered with one of the most sacrosanct of all tax write-offs – state income tax deductions and credits for charitable contributions – have seen their local charities suffer the backlash. Their decisions offer insight for other states and for federal officials who are contemplating reducing […]

Everything Old is New Again in Fundraising

Everything Old is New Again in the fundraising industry.  We appreciate the perspective that Jay Frost expresses in this article, as he strikes a rational balance between respect for our industry’s well-established best practices with the explosion and exuberance for fundraising with new social media techniques. Everything Old  is New Again by Jay Frost New […]

Donor-Advised Fund Growth Defies Giving Trends

Here is an article we found about donor-advised fund growth in the TIME Magazine Business Section.  This certainly appears to be good news about giving in the main stream media.  Hurrah. This article suggests that these individuals clearly understand the tax benefits of giving.  As fund-raising professionals we should be encouraged that donors across the […]

Finding the Next Million Dollar Gift

Interested in finding a million dollar gift to your nonprofit?  Here is a research report that might help.  When your organization moves its attention from pursuing unrestricted operating support toward funding for organizational and program growth, the importance of early pace-setting advance gifts will become an issue of vital importance.  This research report will help […]

Become A Better Listener by Maintaining Your Curiosity

Want to become a better listener? We found some sage advice in this article from Andrew Olsen (spotted on LinkedIn) that listening is in fact one of the most important skills that fund raisers must develop. We’d argue that fund raisers need to first maintain a genuine curiosity about people and what their interests are to […]

About High Fundraising Costs: It’s Complicated

The following editorial about high fundraising costs appeared in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.  Excellent topic.  On a related issue and another one of our pet peeves is the nonprofit executive that suggests 100% of a donors gift will go directly to programs. . . . July 8, 2013 About High Fundraising Costs: It’s Complicated By […]

Conducting Community Health Needs Assessments

This is an excellent post on the origin and history of the Community Health Needs Assessments that all hospitals must now perform. From our viewpoint we are continually surprised to see that the development office and/or hospital foundation has little to no involvement in requesting, directing nor performing these assessments.  Seems to us that this […]

When Donors Say No – A Time-tested Metric

When donors say No, is one of the time-tested metrics of a robust major gifts campaign.  Too many clients and campaign directors will gleefully describe the progress of their campaign with that fact that no one has said ‘No.’  Wrong answer.  If you haven’t received ‘No’ you simply haven’t asked enough. This recent post caught […]

The Million Dollar List

The 2013 Giving USA Research report has been issued and as always is receiving a good bit of attention.  And, for good reason. The continuing research of Giving USA is a valuable tool for our profession and the philanthropic sector. Many development officers can quote the segmentation of donor types, or in other words, where […]