Indulge me, will you? There are some common words or phrases that I see in too many appeals (and annual reports or even thank you letters) that set my teeth on edge. You’ll find me, almost daily, sorting my mail and shaking my head. So here, for your amusement or education, are a few. […]
4 ways you might be making it all about you
And why that’s a mistake We all do it from time to time. We fall a little in love with our own organization. Or we get a little tired of the hard work. Then we forget that good fundraising focuses on the donor and the mission. Are you making these mistakes? 1. You make decisions […]
How to address hard truths in the era of fake news
Yes, this is still a piece about fundraising and nonprofits I watched the press conference wind to an end. At that point, the spokesperson uttered demonstrably incorrect words and walked away from the podium. Boom. The intent was obvious: my “facts” will trump your “fake news”. Obviously, our current situation is fraught with danger. But […]
Do you like me? You like me!
Let me ask you something: do you really like your donors? I don’t mean as a group or as an idea. I mean as people. Do you like them? I recently read an article by Roger Dooley at Neuromarketing. He was writing, as he often does, about Robert Cialdini and his findings about sales. Your instinct […]
Love your donors? Why you need to care about keeping them
Recently, Tom Belford at The Agitator shared information from the latest Fundraising Effectiveness Project Survey Report. Two statements jumped out at me. Perhaps most striking is the performance difference in retention between the top 20% organizations, who lost on average 14.1% of their new donors, whereas the bottom 20% lost a whopping and unforgivable 68.3%. Who […]