Changing and Challenging Trends in Higher Education — The 4 D’s
The opening panel at the CASE District III conference featured distinguished college and university presidents who talked about the changing and challenging trends in higher education – or, the four D’s. Fortunately these weren’t final grades, but the latest trends in higher education: Demographics, Disruption, Disintermediation, and Dollars. Joe DiPietro, President of the University of Tennessee,Read More Changing and Challenging Trends in Higher Education — The 4 D’s
Six Degrees of Fundraising
It happened to me again yesterday in a meeting. I had traveled to another city conduct a Campaign Strategy Study with a young couple. Before even sitting down in their living room, I was quizzing the couple about their professional backgrounds, their connection to the organization – warm up questions – when I happened to mentionRead More Six Degrees of Fundraising
The Benefits Of Challenge And Matching Gifts
The utilization of challenge and matching gifts remains a very good strategy for securing more gifts and larger gifts. The influencing power of these gifts is multifaceted. These gifts are motivating to those being challenged. They want to help the organization secure the full challenge or, in the case of the matching gift, add toRead More The Benefits Of Challenge And Matching Gifts
Billionaires Are People, Too!
Fairly often I see major gift officers who are successfully cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding their portfolios of $25,000 to $100,000 prospects begin to change their style when the prospect is rated at $1 million or more. Some almost freeze up when it appears that the prospect might be capable of a $5 to $10 millionRead More Billionaires Are People, Too!
The Importance Of Closing The Ask
Have you closed a gift today? As fundraising consultants, we spend a lot of our time talking about (wait for it – big surprise!) FUNDRAISING. Fundraising always prompts for me a mental picture of raising a house—laying the foundation, building the walls, cutting out spaces for the windows and doors and chimney (because any houseRead More The Importance Of Closing The Ask
Making A Measurable Difference
“It is more difficult to give away money intelligently than to earn it in the first place.” Thus said Andrew Carnegie in his 1889 essay, The Gospel of Wealth. I was reminded of this quote by some students whom I had the good fortune to encounter on a cold January day in a warm classroom.Read More Making A Measurable Difference
Touch Points Please: Donor Engagement
The most important thing a nonprofit can do to increase its annual fund donors is simple: reach out and touch them. To ensure a healthy and prosperous year end, your development plan should include sending out an annual solicitation letter as early as November. Much emphasis is placed on making an annual ask, and whileRead More Touch Points Please: Donor Engagement
When It Comes To Metrics, What Does Not Get Measured Does Not Get Done
We have spent a lot of time over the last several years helping organizations establish metrics to measure the development office and staff performance against a set of standards. Often these standards are based on what peers are doing and on some “best practices” in development. But often, what these metrics lack are 1) andRead More When It Comes To Metrics, What Does Not Get Measured Does Not Get Done
Utilizing Your Gift Officers To Their Highest Capacity
In conversation with development professionals and from the many development assessments my colleagues and I at Alexander Haas have done, I am constantly reminded that no office has sufficient field officers to secure major, planned and leadership annual gifts. It’s just a fact of life. That only serves to amplify our need to make sureRead More Utilizing Your Gift Officers To Their Highest Capacity
Don’t Say No To The Dough: Gift Lessons
Last month The Washington Post reported that 50 leading Roman Catholics in higher education signed a letter protesting a $1-million gift that will enable the Catholic University of America’s School of Business and Economics to hire four visiting scholars to do research on “principled entrepreneurship.” They argued that the gift sends “a confusing message” becauseRead More Don’t Say No To The Dough: Gift Lessons
