By: Nancy E. Peterman, Partner Have annual performance reviews become passé?  A recent article states that “more than four-fifths of firms are ditching standard year-end performance reviews and ratings, including Goldman Sachs and General Electric.”  Keeping up with the times, General Electric is now using a mobile app in its new process to provide more […]

By: Katie MacKenzie, Project Coordinator Why is good data management important? Because it can tell you a wealth of information about both the past and the present! Instead of being reactive in knowledge about your donors, you can be proactive. You can determine those who might be good prospects for moving up to a major […]

By: Mark D. Belcher, Partner As Development Professionals, our job is to generate resources to assist our organizations in moving the needle on some cause and usually for a specific purpose.  Pretty vague, right?  It’s not easy to capture the scope and impact of what each of you does every day, in some cases, just […]

By: Jerry W. Henry, Partner “How will our proposed capital campaign impact our annual giving?” The question came up in a Board meeting just the other day. (I knew it would!) The organization has been around for a number of years; but, until two years ago, it had seen quite a bit of staff turnover, […]

By: Katie MacKenzie, Project Coordinator Recently, I’ve finished watching the second season of Amazon’s Original Series, “Mozart in the Jungle.” I’m a classical music buff, so this television show is right up my alley. The storyline follows a very eccentric young conductor who takes over the fictional “New York Symphony.” And, I must say, the […]

By: Meggan Arp, Ph.D., MBA, Marketing Coordinator Over a year after the alumnae of Sweet Briar College stymied a plan to close their institution, the College’s resilience is manifest with positive results: Sweet Briar has exceeded its fundraising goals for the 2016 fiscal year, raised $10.25 million in 10 months, balanced the budget without touching its […]

By: David T. Shufflebarger, Senior Partner Two stewardship incidents stick vividly in my mind even though they were 25 and 35 years ago. Both times I was mad as hell. The first involved a large program endowment and an aggressive Dean. We had a very good investment year and wound up in the top 10 […]

By: Nancy E. Peterman, Partner  “Can we require a minimum gift to a campaign?”  The question I was asked was unusual.  The caller, co-chair of a local organization, wanted to know if we had ever recommended requiring a minimum gift level for a capital campaign.  This organization had initiated a capital campaign several years ago, […]