Category Archives: Featured

Gifts of stock and mutual fund shares are second cousins to one another.  So you’d think the procedure to accept them would be the same, or almost the same. It’s not. Virtually all gifts of stock today are now conveyed from the donor to the charity electronically.  On rare occasion the donor will want toContinueContinue reading “Gifts of Stock: What You Need to Know”

We talk a lot about “impact investing” in advancement.  If you really want to know what impact investing is all about, here you go. The development director was walking down the hall when a member of his team stopped him.  “Here, you should see this.”  The staff member handed him a flyer with the headline:ContinueContinue reading “The Prom”

Jim Nabors.  Gomer Pyle.  Is there a fundraising lesson there? You betcha. The Indianapolis 500 is this weekend and for those of us who can’t be there, it is really not the same since they abandoned radio for a television broadcast.  The sheer artistry of the five radio announcers, painting a picture for the listenerContinueContinue reading “A Fundraising Lesson from Gomer Pyle”

“There are no shortcuts to planned giving.” I cringed when I saw that. That tweet only serves to perpetuate the myth that planned giving is a secret land unreachable to most fundraisers. The truth?  85% of all planned gifts made in America today are plain old bequests that donors included in their will or estateContinueContinue reading “Planned Giving Unmasked”

Many of these same concepts can be applied to preparing the budget of the overall nonprofit organization. “Cost of fundraising as a percentage of your gift income goal will yield your total development budget for the year.” Number One: Income First! The biggest mistake we can make in preparing our budget is doing the expenseContinueContinue reading “Preparing the Development Budget”