Frankly, I’m stumped. A friend asked how to get nonprofit organizations to stop sending information, invites and fundraising letters. What makes this a complicated question, and what I explained to my friend, is that nonprofits learn a relationship with a donor takes more than one connection – more than one mailing, more than one e-mail or newsletter. Nonprofits learn it takes at least seven ...[Read More]
How Do You Slow Nonprofit Traffic in Your Mailbox?
Questions You Should Ask Before Donating to Scale an Idea
If it’s such a great idea why aren’t they doing it everywhere? Or maybe it sounds like this; it’s an incredible idea. It should be in every school, neighborhood or every community. Sometimes it even sounds like this. I just had a phone call from someone in California or Mississippi or Tennessee about our program. They want to know how to do it for their community. That’s probably an executive dire ...[Read More]
Yes, I STILL Love This Work!
As I sit here in our NEW Your Philanthropy office space surrounded by boxes needing to be unpacked, it is hard for me to believe this journey started five years ago. And now I’m looking to the next five and what’s next for Your Philanthropy. Today, I looked back and found one of the first blogs that I posted as I was leaving Fourth Partner and launching Your Philanthropy. Over the years it has gro ...[Read More]
How to Dig into a Nonprofit’s Numbers
Paul Harvey might have left us ten years ago, but the rest of the story has never gone away. Growing up on AM radio meant that I listened to Paul Harvey talk about the news of the day and heard his fascinating The Rest of the Story segments almost daily. I learned things are never as simple as they appear on the surface. When I entered the nonprofit world, and later became a philanthropy advisor I ...[Read More]
How to Give from the Heart and Still Be Smart
Walking to the front of the room I knew I had one job to accomplish. I needed to thank officers, welcome new board members and especially turn the reins over to the new board chair. But as I turned to face the audience, it separated into the faces of spouses, children, friends, and co-workers who had one thing in common. Virtually everyone in the room had lost someone close while under the watchfu ...[Read More]
Tips to Answer Your Question “Are the kids ready?”
This story captured my imagination. I’ll tell you why shortly. First, the story. A certain farmer had become old and ready to pass his farm down to one of his two sons. When he brought his sons together to speak about it, he told them, “The farm will go to the younger son.” The older son was furious! “What are you talking about?!” he fumed. The father sat patiently, thinking. “Okay,” t ...[Read More]