Today, for the fourth year in a row, Keith moderated VOLUNTEER Hampton Roads’ Annual Funders Forum. This event, which brings together funders from across Hampton Roads, always produces a variety of interesting takeaways. An underlying theme of the funders’ comments from this year’s forum was the importance of a nonprofit operating like a business. The… Read more »
Earlier this spring, The Giving Institute hosted an interesting webinar on “The Cost of Fundraising” presented by fellow Giving Institute member, Melissa Brown of Melissa Brown and Associates. Melissa began by pointing out the fact that there are a lot of gaps that exist in fundraising costs today. In fact, the majority of organizations only track… Read more »
I attended a luncheon today hosted by the Economics Club of Hampton Roads and Old Dominion University, which featured an interesting presentation by Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank and voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee. Lacker addressed the “considerable progress of the U.S. economy in recovering from the great… Read more »
As a part of our daily work we spend a lot of time listening to donors share their candid impressions of our client’s organizations as a whole; everything from the effectiveness of the staff and board to the way they are cultivated. Through the planning study, development assessment and capacity building interview process we learn… Read more »
We recently tuned in to an informative webinar on “Converting Event Donors to Organizational Donors” presented by fellow Giving Institute member, Event 360. The webinar, part of Giving Institute’s monthly series, opened by defining the characteristics of these two distinctly different types of donors—the difference being the individual’s degree of knowledge, connection, motivation and investment…. Read more »
Earlier this week, The Hampton Roads Community Foundation gathered past grantees of its Building Excellence program to share ideas and discuss development challenges. The gathering not only produced very interesting conversation but some great ideas that we thought we’d share. Board engagement was a reoccurring theme that presented itself over the course of the lunch…. Read more »
Earlier this week, the Nonprofit Research Collaborative released the results of its most recent Nonprofit Fundraising Study, which covers charitable receipts of U.S. nonprofit organizations during the 2011 calendar year. More than 1,600 nonprofits responded to the survey representing organizations with both large and small budgets and across all sectors from Arts, Culture and Humanities to… Read more »
Speaking of questions that have come up following our presentations lately, someone recently inquired about pledge attrition after our webinar on effective capital campaigns. The question was: How can nonprofits best plan for unpaid pledges during a campaign? Because capital campaigns are built around multi-your pledges, a nonprofit can expect to experience some pledge attrition… Read more »
Wendy had an interesting question following a presentation last week that we felt was noteworthy. A participant inquired how best to handle a donor who offers to make a restricted gift that could be put to better use if directed toward a different area. This nonprofit leader described a situation in which a donor wanted… Read more »
An article that ran last week in the Chronicle of Philanthropy got us thinking about the recent controversy between Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood. No matter where you stand on the issue, there are valuable lessons to be learned for any nonprofit. The most obvious to us is the importance of a solid crisis… Read more »
