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The Oprah Syndrome

I think of it as The Oprah Syndrome. And if you raise money for a nonprofit, I’m betting you’ve run into it, too. Picture this: you’re at a board meeting. The topic of discussion is a forecast deficit for the year. “What are we to do?”, the finance chair moans. Board members look around, hoping […]

Filed Under: Annual Giving, Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: Donors, fundraising plans, Oprah Winfrey, relationships, strategic planning, wishful thinking 14 Comments

The value of trust

Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about the value of trust. This was spurred in part by a couple of pieces of mail I received. One looked like business mail from our garbage collectors. I opened it because you can never tell anymore what might be a bill and what might be another […]

Filed Under: Annual Giving, Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: appeal writing, donor appeals, donor retention, Nonprofit organization, trust 6 Comments

Are you caught in a dead-end?

I live on a cul-de-sac. Or as we used to say back in NJ, a dead-end. Every once in a while I watch a truck driver pull into the end of our street, hoping it will be a shortcut to another neighborhood. Then the driver has to perform truck gymnastics to get back out. It’s […]

Filed Under: Annual Giving, Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: appeal writing, jargon, Writing 2 Comments

Put it in writing

It’s fun when something you should do is also something you enjoy doing. I’ve grown to truly enjoy sending hand-written thanks (and other notes) to our donors. It’s partly the challenge. For instance, after the end of the year, I had more than 70 in a backlog. That was one marathon note-writing session! But I […]

Filed Under: Annual Giving, Blog, Donor communications, Thanks Tagged With: appeal writing, donor relations, donor-focused, thank you letters, thank you notes, writing for donors 4 Comments

A love song to the small donor

The small donor is not really small I’ve been trying to update and correct information in our database. It’s a chore. I’m going through everything line by line, gift by gift. I realize one thing as I work, though. While I’ve only been at my organization for a year, so many of the names I […]

Filed Under: Annual Giving, Blog, Donor communications Tagged With: loyalty, Nonprofit, small donors 9 Comments

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