American giving is down. Education giving has slowed. Younger donors are abandoning crucial sectors. Megagifts are warping the giving landscape. What are charities and their fundraisers to do? Take a deep breath, for starters. Fear is a great motivator, but it is not a strategy. In fact, if you look beyond the numbers, the Giving
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"Making the ask" is at the heart of good fundraising techniques. Simply put, the most common reason why people give is because they were asked.
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With President Biden’s signature on the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (and the SECURE Act 2.0 package within it), new opportunities have opened for philanthropy. But some changes also require that fundraisers look at their promotional materials and begin their conversations with donors differently from the recent past. The Angeletti Group recommends fundraisers focus on
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It’s time to change the conversation around annual funds. Traditionally, many independent school annual funds have focused on “bridging the gap” or closing the chasm that exists between tuition costs and a school’s operating expenses. Annual funds are often used to cover the discrepancy between tuition and the full cost to educate a child—from technology
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If there’s one thing the pandemic taught cultural organizations, it’s that planning ahead means ensuring sustainability. When COVID-19 shuttered theaters and cultural venues across the country in March 2020, all forms of earned revenue – primarily ticket sales – ceased overnight. In response, organizations scrambled to reduce operating budgets and increase contributed revenue to stay
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If you are a fundraising professional you want to be certain of two things: 1) you’re getting the most in return for every dollar you invest in fundraising; 2) you successfully make the case to leadership for further investments in the advancement program by demonstrating the value of your fundraising with precise, analogous and justifiable
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Early in my 30 plus years of fundraising, I was given a copy of a book which my experienced colleague at the time said would “be the basis for your success.” Since I was brand new and hungry to learn to be a great fundraiser – which it turned out had been a possible choice
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There is a great, untapped resource of charitable people in the U.S., and it might not be who you’d expect. Blackbaud Institute recently found that not only has charitable giving exploded in the U.S. since the pandemic, but the average age of donors has risen from 62 to 65. Older individuals are becoming more
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As nonprofits work to recover from economic challenges and plan for stable futures, many have realized the importance of investing in the right fundraising professional to help sustain their mission well into the future. Opportunities within the field of fundraising continue to grow; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts about 12,000 openings for fundraisers
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As summer approaches and volunteers start to enter “vacation mode,” it’s easy for your organization’s board expectations to fall by the wayside. Beyond their fiscal and governance responsibility, the crux of nonprofit board members’ responsibilities rest in the ability to move the philanthropic needle. Sure, not every board member fancies himself or herself a fundraiser.
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