by Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels | May 10, 2024 | Annual Fund, Donors, Giving Societies, multi-year pledges, Passions & Interests | Annual Fund, Asking, Focus, Fundraising, Giving, Passions and Interests
“How can something so good and so effective actually suppress giving?” the development director asked. “I mean, everyone knows that these things work!” That was the reaction of a seasoned fundraising professional to my comments that five commonly used fundraising...
by Jeff Schreifels | Oct 2, 2024 | Accountability, Portfolio Management, Tiering Donors | Caseloads, Focus, Tiering
Many years ago, I was working with an MGO to help create her donor portfolio. We were going through a process called the “gut check” to separate which donors were actually qualified from those that weren’t. We came upon one donor whom the MGO described in great...
by Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels | Nov 23, 2020 | Accountability, audit, Reporting | Focus, Planned giving, Return on Investment
“How an organization counts planned gifts is often a convoluted mess, despite having some pretty clear best practices from the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners and CASE.” This is what Bob Shafis, our Director of Planned Giving Services, told me...
by Jeff Schreifels | Sep 27, 2023 | Donors as Mission, Non-Profit Leadership, Organizationally centered | Donor-Centered, Donors as Mission, Focus, Leadership, Mission, Non-Profits
I recently received an email from a VP of Development from a fairly large organization. She’s struggling with the leadership at her non-profit. In that email, she asked us this question: “How do I get our executive leadership to care for our staff and our donors? The...
by Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels | Aug 26, 2020 | current donors, Fundraising, MGOs | Cultivation, Focus, Prospecting
We’ve heard it hundreds of times. Some authority figure or MGO/PGO, speaking about a wealthy person they know about, or some corporate or foundation leader, says: “Look, I have their contact info. So let me reach out and tell them what we do. I think we have a good...
by Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels | Aug 21, 2020 | board meetings, path dependence | Focus, Leadership
We’re sitting in a management meeting with the leaders of the organization or in a board meeting. If you step back and analyze what is of interest to everyone attending, it’s usually everything but fund development. Or one or more of the attendees has just heard of a...