Encore Keep on Giving SKK Jan 2026 | Alexander Haas

January 29, 2026

rom the desk of
Sandra K. Kidd
Senior Partner

Keep on Giving, America

It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of it. — Benjamin Franklin, American philanthropist

As a history buff, I am honored to wish our country a happy 250th birthday at the start of 2026. To kick off the year of celebrating our 250th, I am taking a highly curated look back at the early days of American philanthropy. A few examples:

Long before Europeans ever set foot on our continent, Native Americans practiced giving, sharing resources among young and old to keep their communities strong.
In 1618, just a decade after the 1607 founding of the first colony in Virginia, the London Company set aside 10,000 acres for the purpose of a school “to be erected and endowed in Henrico, Virginia, for the training of English and Indian youth in knowledge and religion.” Private donations, estimated at 1,500 English pounds, came in, and the Rector of Virginia’s Henrico Parish, the Rev. Thomas Bargrave, donated his personal library. The Henricus College project never came to be. It was abandoned 5 years later, following the destruction of the settlement at Henrico through Native American raids in 1622, which ultimately allowed Massachusetts to get ahead of Virginia 20 years later.
The first recorded fundraising campaign is widely acknowledged to be that of Harvard College in 1643, when founders solicited the “college corne,” gifts of wheat and money to fund its religious and educational mission. The “silent phase” donor to this effort was John Harvard, who donated half his estate and his personal library in 1638. This led to a time-honored practice of donor recognition when the new college was named in his honor.
Boston’s Scots Charitable Society, established in 1657, was set up to provide support for Scots families in need and for the education of their children and is still in operation. It is believed to be the longest continuously operated such charity in the Western Hemisphere.
Benjamin Franklin, American inventor, statesman, diplomat, philosopher, and philanthropist, founded the first subscription library in 1731 to advance the acquisition of “self-knowledge” among his peers. As the oldest cultural institution in the country, The Library Company of Philadelphia endures today. In December 2025, it announced its merger with Temple University to continue its nearly 300-year mission.
The first modern American philanthropic foundation was believed to be the Peabody Education Fund, established in 1867 by George Peabody to advance education in the post-Civil War South. By 1898, The Peabody Education Fund had distributed an estimated $4 million across the Southern states and thereafter ended its work, in accordance with the mandate of its founder.

I have a personal connection to Peabody’s legacy, in that the Peabody Normal School in Nashville, established through the foundation’s giving, is now part of my alma mater, Vanderbilt University.

Vanderbilt was founded by a New England philanthropist, Cornelius Vanderbilt, in the post-Civil War years, when an earnest solicitor from the Southern Methodist Church named Bishop Holland McTyeire convinced him to give $1 million to start a new university to help bring the nation back together by educating the youth of both the South and North. One hundred years later, this then-young Southern girl was one of the many students receiving scholarships to attend VU, an opportunity that led me to my own 40-year-plus career in philanthropy.

In soliciting Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who had never been known to give anything away, Bishop McTyeire followed principles that have stood the test of time:

He used his personal association—his wife Amelia was a cousin of the Commodore’s Alabama-born wife Frank Armstrong Vanderbilt–in order to get a meeting with her wealthy husband. Frank was deeply devoted to the Methodist Church and is credited with being essential to making the gift happen.
He set up a series of face-to-face meetings with Vanderbilt to look the old gentleman in the eye and personally lay out the vision for a new institution.
He kept following up until he secured the gift, a feat in itself because the Commodore was not noted for his philanthropic spirit.

And the Bishop kept his word: Vanderbilt celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2025. Its current “Dare to Grow” campaign surpassed the initial goal of $3.2 billion in fall 2024—and, like America’s history of philanthropy, has continued to thrive.

United States charitable giving in 2024, based on the latest data from Giving USA, reached nearly $600 billion. As we turn to celebrating our 250th, may this proud and very American tradition–of asking, giving, and receiving—keep on for another 250 years!

Use Linkedin To Grow Donor Support

Jaci Thiede says pay attention.

“Read this article! It provides a very good overview of how to use LinkedIn to expand your donor base. Here is the last paragraph, and I believe it really hits the mark: ‘Philanthropy thrives on trust, and LinkedIn has become one of the best places to build your reputation and cultivate relationships. Donors are already vetting you there — make sure when they come, they find a story that inspires them to give.’”

Why does LinkedIn matter for growing your donor pipeline? Because your future funders are already there — reading articles from thought leaders to gauge their expertise, sharing insights with colleagues, and searching for opportunities to build their own partnerships. Your leaders have an excellent chance to make a strong first impression and position your organization effectively. Follow these four steps to turn LinkedIn into a powerful tool for cultivating donor relationships.

Integrate LinkedIn into your donor-outreach strategy. Include LinkedIn growth metrics in your yearly organizational goals. Attempt to maintain a consistent content plan for nearly daily posts or ad campaigns.
Ensure that your executive, fundraising, and marketing teams sing from the same songbook. Donors care about your organization’s credibility, leadership, and relevance. This means your teams need to be on the same page — from senior leaders to fundraisers to marketers — so donors can understand and feel compelled by what you do.
Encourage senior leaders to become more active posters. A recent survey shows that 77% of Americans believe a CEO’s reputation affects donors’ willingness to invest, and 70% say thought leaders positively shape their perception. For nonprofit leaders, your credibility, leadership, and relevance are all strengthened when your C-suite is active and intentional on LinkedIn.
Stay consistent and trustworthy in sharing content. Define three to five relevant themes or topics you’ll focus on. Stay consistent and commit to a posting rate that is sustainable for you. Engage with your network, to connect with colleagues on LinkedIn by liking, commenting, and celebrating people in your network. And, be authentic. Especially in a world saturated with AI content, people are drawn to personal stories and connections over generic ones.

Check out our Linkedin. We share items we think are important to the work you do.

More here.

Most Americans Did Not Plan on Making Year-End Gift

Jaci doesn’t see this as a negative take on giving.

“My takeaway from this is that there is not just one “giving season”…donors give on their own schedule. So, communicating your organization’s mission and the impact of gifts is more important than ever. Provide tangible examples of how gifts made a difference whenever possible. I also recommend creating a day of giving that is unique to your organization and mission so you don’t get lost in all the GivingTuesday competition.”

‘Most Americans aren’t making end-of-year charitable giving plans,’ according to a new AP-NORC poll, despite many fundraising appeals made by nonprofits that depend on donation surges in the final month of the calendar to meet their budget goals. The survey, conducted in early December by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that about half of U.S. adults say they’ve already made their charitable contributions for 2025. Just 18% say they’ve donated and will donate again before the year ends. Only 6% report they haven’t donated yet but will do so by December’s end. The rest, 30%, haven’t donated and don’t plan to.

How was your year-end giving? We’d love to hear from you. Drop us an email or share a post on LinkedIn.

Go Beyond a Feasibility Study

David King And Our Enhanced Study

“A lot has changed in campaign planning in the 3+ decades I’ve been in consulting. The old “feasibility study” is no longer adequate—and most people don’t even use that term any longer. At Alexander Haas, we’ve spent the last 20 years improving our Campaign Strategy Study to ensure that it is a reliable, comprehensive campaign planning tool. Of course, we still speak with the top prospects, but we also assess the capacity of your entire constituency, survey them, and evaluate your internal readiness to take on the rigors of a campaign. Take a look at our 6-step process and see how you can benefit from thoughtful and thorough campaign planning.”

You want practical information from your “feasibility study” to make informed and strategic campaign decisions for your nonprofit. For this reason, the fundraising consultants at Alexander Haas designed the Campaign Strategy Study. We have moved beyond the old fundraising feasibility study model and created a process that evaluates your nonprofit’s readiness—externally and internally—to conduct a campaign successfully, offering comprehensive fundraising counseling along the way.

Go here to learn more.

We Know the Performing Arts
For more than 35 years, Alexander Haas has been a fixture in the nonprofit community. We are honored to have worked with leading performing arts and cultural organizations across the country that help communities be a better place to live. Just ask our clients.

Face It: Arts Organizations are Different
Our services aren’t cookie cutter. We don’t operate with a boilerplate, merely changing names and locations. We craft each and every service we provide to match your organization’s unique needs, wants and abilities. We work hard and expect you to do the same. Together we can help you transform your arts organization, your fundraising, and the unique community you serve.

Whether your need is in Capital Campaign, Annual Fund Campaign, Major Gifts, Leadership Annual Giving, Planned Giving or all of the above, we take a fresh approach to nonprofit fundraising.