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Are you guilty of donor abuse?

Are you guilty of donor abuse? It happens too often. You might want to check yourself. Here are some signs: You value the person according to their checkbook It’s happened more than once. I make a thank you phone call, only to hear the person on the other end protest. “You don’t need to call me! I’m […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications, Thanks Tagged With: donor care, donor love, thank you letters 4 Comments

It’s personal

It’s personal. Fundraising, that is. Picture this: you walk to your mailbox. Inside, you find an envelope with a return address you recognize. “Real mail!” you think. You open that envelope first and in a hurry. Then you begin to feel confused. Disappointed. “Dear Ms. LastName” it begins. “Because I am a caring person, I […]

Filed Under: Blog, Donor communications, Thanks Tagged With: donor retention, stewardship, thank you letters 3 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

Triage and nonprofit fundraisers

Nonprofit fundraisers could use some applause I wrote last week about our smaller donors and how wonderful they are. The often unsung backbone of many organizations (or the smart ones, anyway), these folks don’t ask for much and offer what’s probably a lot to them. But without sounding too self-serving, I’d like to celebrate another […]

Filed Under: Fundraising, Thanks Tagged With: fundraiser, nonprofit staff, thank you 4 Comments

Size matters. But don’t be too rough on the big guys.

Size matters, right? Do you work in a smaller nonprofit?  Chances are you do – in 2010 75% of nonprofits had annual budgets under $500,000. So you probably can’t turn to a well-oiled fundraising machine to coordinate complicated campaigns that cross multiple channels. We’re happy just to have a database, get the mail out on […]

Filed Under: Annual Giving, Blog, Donor communications, Thanks Tagged With: Customer service, donor retention, donor-focused, small nonprofits, thank you letters 13 Comments

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Recent Posts

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