Category Archives for News & Information


What do donors want in the year 2014?

What do donors want?  Experienced fundraising professionals should be constantly asking themselves this question, and they should be earnestly working to learn the answer.  Upon seeing this headline at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, our interest was immediate.  It seems that so many articles these days address the emerging promise of increased results through technology and […]

Donor Advised Funds Now 3 of Top 10 Biggest Charities

The numbers don’t lie. The three largest donor advised funds now rank as three of the top ten largest charities in the nation.  Some may argue that  these organizations are not truly charitable organizations, and in fact the contributed funds will move along to other organizations in due course.  But, what does the latest Philanthropy […]

The Technique of Soliciting

We were reminded of the essential advice of John D. Rockefeller on the technique of soliciting last week, while attending a conference and listening to a nationally renowned development expert.  After reading Mr. Rockefeller’s remarks again, we felt it appropriate to share these timeless words of advice from one of our country’s most influential philanthropists. […]

Create Your Key Performance Indicators

This blog post advocating the creation of metrics to track the key performance indicators of nonprofit websites has a much larger application.  This article presents an excellent framework for establishing methodical metrics to guide and evaluate an organization’s entire development effort.  Instead of simply doing this year, what you did last year, why not think […]

Sage Advice on Charity Golf Outings

I absolutely love this post from Guidestar by Tom King on the special event charity golf outings. This article quickly dispels many false claims about special events, helps to set some reasonable expectations of success, and emphasizes the importance of early planning.  Why is this article timely, as the summer season is winding down and […]

Start Planning Year-End Appeals Now

If you are not thinking strategically and planning for your year-end appeal now, rest assured that your competition is! This post at Forbes.com challenges development officers to rethink the herd-mentality that we see so often in our society today.  Mr. Watson also urges those of us engaged in philanthropy that “fundraising is competition, philanthropy is […]

Building your brand through targeted marketing (a.k.a. social media)

The following post makes the broader case for building your brand through targeted marketing. In our view this brief article is packed with supporting facts and figures, and might be an excellent piece for development officers to share with their executive leadership team.   Today, targeted marketing is nearly synonymous with the use of social media. […]

Enhance the donor experience

Satisfied customers make repeat customers.  So too, satisfied donors make repeat donors.  This article from GuideStar suggests that keeping your donors happy will depend more and more on the organization’s online engagement.   The New Donor Engagement Reality: Bottom-Line Priorities for the Online Experience July 2014 Community impact is all about people—the customer experience. Making […]

Active involvement a trigger for donations

We are pleased to see that the study of behavioral economics is picking up on the importance of “active involvement” to the success of private philanthropic organizations. This recent article in the New York Times presents a new twist on a basic tenant of major gift fundraising.  The analogy of shareholders is also one that we have […]

IRS introduces new EZ process to apply for non-profit status

The IRS has introduced a new process to apply for non-profit status, in what appears to be an attempt to relieve the backlog of new applications.  The typical Form 1023 is one that requires a very significant amount of work and practically requires engaging specialized legal advice before an organization can hope to prevail in […]