Are you a development staffer, trying to figure out how to work with a CEO or executive director who knows less about fundraising than you do? How can you decrease her stress about fundraising? How can you get her to trust you, buy in to your ideas, and not derail your efforts with her own limited personal experience? [...]

According to Tracy, if the first thing you did each morning was to eat a live frog (yuck!), you could go through your day pretty sure the worst part of the day was behind you.

Of course your frog isn’t an actual frog; it’s your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to keep putting off. It is also the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your work. [...]

“Next step?” This is a phrase I often see written in donor cultivation plans—including my own! You may be waiting to see how things go with a donor in the near term before scheduling a series of cultivation activities down the line.

Or, you may be stalled. We all sometimes hit an impasse when the best next step in building a relationship with a donor is simply not clear. [...]

You know that it’s important to build relationships with your donors. After all, relationship-building is at the heart of fundraising. What better way to build a relationship than to visit with someone in person?

As a new fundraiser if there was one thing that filled me with terror, it was making a call to a donor to invite them to meet with me. What was I going to say? What if they didn’t want to meet? [...]

Imagine this: Two years ago, you secured a five-year pledge agreement from donor “Anne” to fund the Doing Good Work program at your nonprofit organization. For the first two years, Anne sent in her annual pledge donation check. In year #3, Anne’s payment due date came and went and your organization did not receive a check. [...]

Have you ever struggled to meet your annual fundraising goals – or any goal for that matter? If so, you are not alone. Many people struggle with reaching goals because of one common mistake: we set a deadline, but not a schedule. [...]

This article in The Atlantic, “The Power of Good Enough,” is one of those articles that I’ve reread several times since I first saw it. The article talks about choices and how people who choose things that are “good enough” are generally happier and more satisfied than people who are always searching for “the best.” [...]

I know what you are thinking. You don’t like role-playing, right? To be honest, it’s not my favorite thing to do either. But, as the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” Or, as I prefer, “Practice makes progress.” [...]

“Cultivation” and “Stewardship” are fundraising terms that pop up frequently in development staff meetings, and in every fundraising plan I’ve ever written. They are part of an internal terminology used by those of us in the fundraising profession [...]

For the vast majority of my career – in both nonprofits and the corporate sector – meetings were scheduled for 60 minutes. It was the norm. Then about four years ago, I started working with a nonprofit organization whose staff scheduled their meetings for [...] 

January is the time for to-do lists. But often we create so many lists, we set ourselves up for failure. My suggestion? The anti to-do list! Here is a list—short and sweet—of three major gifts-related activities that DO NOT warrant your time [...]

Chances are, if you are working in the nonprofit sector, you have a busy job and are always looking to get more done in less time. Lucky for you, efficiency is a passion of mine! This post will help you leverage good stories to raise more money [...]