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Our board just isn’t a fundraising board.

We hear that feedback from nonprofit leaders – both staff and volunteer – nearly every day. Whether it’s said with regret or with frustration, nonprofits, schools and churches are clearly puzzled as to why their board seems disengaged or focused on less-important minutiae.

Every non-profit leader is familiar with the feeling: somewhere, about half-way through the campaign, you hit a dip. It happens every year, but I’m always amused at how unexpected this seems to everyone.

Being a fundraising volunteer isn’t easy. One of the main reasons why is that it is so personal. It’s you, connecting with your peers, possibly even your friends or family, to ask them to be generous towards a cause you believe in. For even the most passionate volunteer, the experience can be a little nerve-wracking.

Recently, someone I know received an annual campaign appeal from an organization that he has had a long and deep relationship with. His family has made major gifts to the organization, and they’ve made the organization a planned giving beneficiary. In this particular appeal, he and his wife were misidentified with an incorrect first name and salutation. At the same time, three other letters, with different names but listing his address, also appeared at his door.

Recently, a charity lost two generous annual donors because of a mistake that could have been avoided.

As I work with nonprofit staff and volunteer leaders, I often get this question: “How do you ask someone for a $1,000+ gift?”

It is estimated that 30% of charitable contributions are made between Thanksgiving and Christmas and 10% of those are made in the last 48 hours of the year. With that being the case, it is not too late to capture a share of this year’s holiday generosity by launching a year-end fundraising effort!

At Donor By Design, we are guided by a series of axioms: core concepts that shape our work and have proven their worth over and over again. In this series, we’re digging into these axioms and clarify how they can help you achieve your development goals. Read Part 1 or Part 2. 

For years, the big fundraising lie has been the donor pyramid. You know what I am talking about: the image of a pyramid that shows we need a large gift at the top, a few more at the next level and so on until you get to the base of the pyramid. Nonprofit leaders have shared this with their boards and donors, but, if you do regression analysis on campaigns, the infamous pyramid looks more like a donor pagoda or, as I like to call it, the donor champagne glass.

It’s beginning to look a lot like… end of season appeal time. Yes, December is the number one month for giving. I received five appeals this week: two from my universities, my daughter’s university (like the five-figure tuition is not enough!), and two others.

I recently visited with the staff of a local nonprofit organization.
We were reviewing their 2014 campaign and discussing strategies for 2015. As usual, we talked about renewals and new prospects. We also talked about where executives’ and board members’ time is best spent. How do we cultivate our closer friends now to have the right to ask for an annual major gift in a few months? This question is critical to enhancing the major gifts portion of any annual campaign, and will also be a cultivation step for future capital giving for these annual donors.
But one executive put it perfectly when identifying what’s good use of her time right now. Simply put, she said “don’t water the rocks!”
What does it mean to “not water the rocks”?