You’ve invited one of your best prospective major donors to make a significant gift to help construct an exciting new facility. You know that the donor is generous and has made other significant gifts in the past. You know that the donor values your mission. You know that the donor agrees that constructing this facility…
If I asked, “Do you have a day and a half you can use simply for yourself? To disconnect. To focus on yourself with no other responsibilities for family or work, etc. For self-care, for feeling better, for getting healthier.” Most likely, the typical response would be something between laughter and suspicion regarding my sanity. …
The essence of fundraising (i.e., development) is often analogized with “asking for the gift,” or “engaging the giver,” or “cultivating the prospect,” or even “stewarding the donor.” But almost never is fundraising viewed as “spreading ideas.” Spreading ideas, though, is exactly what the best development and advancement leaders and teams do exceptionally well. They effectively…
Too often we think of the donor’s next gift as if it is their final gift. “Don’t leave money on the table.” “I asked for too little.” “We could have gotten more.” These are familiar statements we use nonchalantly but they deeply shape how we think about a donor’s current gift. It’s as if we…
Perhaps one of Maya Angelou’s most well-known quotes is her wise sentence on interpersonal influence: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” During our firm’s Annual Conference this past weekend, our Gonser Gerber family recognized and thanked Doug Mason for his 31 years…
“Open” people are the ones you should be spending the bulk of your time engaging as an advancement professional. People who are open are learners. They are interested in ways to make tomorrow better than today. They are willing to charitably invest in others who are working to make tomorrow better than today. “Closed” people…
The most important part of leadership is deciding. Deciding which direction to go. Deciding which choice to make. Deciding what project not to put resources behind. Deciding what idea not to pursue. But making decisions isn’t the most difficult part of deciding. Each of us make decisions every day. We have preferences. We have interests. We make…
In the sociopsychology world, the concept of diffusion of responsibility is well studied and researched. Basically, diffusion of responsibility suggests that when individuals are confronted with an emergency, they are less likely to help when there are more people around. This diminution of helping behavior occurs because each of us believes others in the group will or…
Development leaders often make the case that donors aren’t eager to give to the annual fund because its not compelling to support “keeping the lights on.” But, donors aren’t ceasing their giving to your annual fund because they want to, “give to something specific” instead. Or, because your annual fund, “is a black hole.” Or,…
“Young people today don’t love our country and they don’t want to work.” This statement was made by a major gifts donor I interviewed a couple years ago. The interesting thing about this quote is not that an older, white, U.S. citizen made such a statement. These types of statements from folks in this demographic…