Amazon went for six years without returning any profit to investors, and people had patience. They knew that there was a long-term objective down the line of building market dominance. But if a nonprofit organization[…]
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Category: Fundraising
“…we should be investing more money, not less, in fundraising, because fundraising is the one thing that has the potential to multiply the amount of money available for the cause that we care about so deeply”
…this one very dangerous question, which is, “What percentage of my donation goes to the cause versus overhead?” There are a lot of problems with this question. I’m going to just focus on two. First,[…]
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“Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, “We kept charity overhead low.” We want it to read that we changed the world…”
This is what happens when we confuse morality with frugality. We’ve all been taught that the bake sale with five percent overhead is morally superior to the professional fundraising enterprise with 40 percent overhead, but[…]
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“…the nonprofit sector is starved for growth and risk and idea capital”
…the for-profit sector can pay people profits in order to attract their capital for their new ideas, but you can’t pay profits in a nonprofit sector, so the for-profit sector has a lock on the[…]
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“…we don’t like nonprofits to use money to incentivize people to produce more in social service”
We have two rulebooks. We have one for the nonprofit sector and one for the rest of the economic world. It’s an apartheid, and it discriminates against the [nonprofit] sector in five different areas, the[…]
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“nonprofits are really reluctant to attempt any brave, daring, giant-scale new fundraising endeavors for fear that if the thing fails, their reputations will be dragged through the mud”
Disney can make a new $200 million movie that flops, and nobody calls the attorney general. But you do a little $1 million community fundraiser for the poor, and it doesn’t produce a 75 percent[…]
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“Donor recognition has become an increasing problem in a culture of entitlement”
Donor recognition has become an increasing problem in a culture of entitlement. We only feed that dilemma when we say thank-you as another form of solicitation. “Thank-you for your generous gift. It touches so many[…]
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“enjoy the break after June 30, because the next campaign year begins on July 1”
Over the course of my years in the nonprofit world, I recall more than one manager ending the day by facetiously telling me and other staff members to enjoy the break after June 30, because[…]
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As opposed to hob nobbing, “you should turn your attention to your existing relationships to identify and engage new supporters”
It would seem that common sense would dictate that a fundraiser should hob nob at charity events, the golf course, or any place where monied people go to hang out. You may get lucky, but[…]
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