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“How do I tell my donor she made a difference?” the MGO asked. “I mean, there are only so many ways to do that.” Good question. Jeff and I routinely tell MGOs that there’s no limit to how many times they should tell a donor he’s making a difference. You could do it every week. But then the question...
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To be blunt, the metrics used to evaluate many major gift programs these days don’t make much sense to Richard and me, especially the metrics around how many face-to-face meetings or phone calls you...
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Part Two of a Three-Part Series: 3 Reasons a Mid-Level Program is Critical If you ask any CEO or Executive Director if their organization is donor-centered, they will always say “yes.” But in...
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Part One of a Three-Part Series: 3 Reasons a Mid-Level Program is Critical While the majority of our time and attention in this blog is about major gifts, we also write about the importance of the...
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Imagine going into a store to buy a pair of shoes. This is the dialogue between you and the customer service person (CSP) helping you, after he’s brought you the shoes you requested. CSP: Would you...
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Giving societies and membership programs suppress giving from major donors.
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Third in a Series: Unhealthy Major Gift Practices I have seen a lot of crazy organizational structures in my 40 years of working in fundraising. And I could go into a long monologue on each example...
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Second in a Series: Unhealthy Major Gift Practices Earlier this year I wrote about the major gift pipeline – the concept that everything that happens in fundraising in an organization should be...
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First in a Series: Unhealthy Major Gift Practices I went to my doctor recently and she gave me quite a lecture on practices I was engaged in that were not healthy. We covered eating, vitamins and...
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Third in a Five-Part Series: It’s Not Rocket Science “Culture is just not one aspect of the game… it is the game.” —Lou Gerstner, IBM’s Turnaround CEO from the 90’s A complaint that Richard and I...
