Insights Archives | Copley Raff

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – Are You Feeling the Whiplash?

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Emerging Ideas, Insights Posted January 26, 2021 3 Comments

I want to address how important diversity, equity and inclusion are to the advancement field. As nonprofit leaders, we are well aware of the need to avoid a “stale, male and pale” board of directors. Though I fit the last two descriptors, I have a forty-year history of working with and living among diverse communities.

Social Justice and Fundraising

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Emerging Ideas, Insights, Leadership & Management Posted December 30, 2020 3 Comments

We are now seeing different changes … those driven by evolving social norms, and specifically, the movement to ensure racial justice and equity. This deeply personal issue also requires your organization’s attention. To address racial justice and equity, we must learn more, be introspective, honestly look at our personal biases, be respectful to everyone … and our organizations must craft policies that promote racial justice.

It is Always Darkest Before the Dawn

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Insights, Leadership & Management Posted November 16, 2020 1 Comment

To succeed during these especially trying times, I suggest you do all you can to create the feeling and reality of forward progress and an institutional sense of positive momentum. It starts with planning both for the dark time and the slow-motion dawning.

What Might 2022 Look Like for Fundraising?

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Insights, Leadership & Management Posted July 13, 2020 2 Comments

This, our second economic crisis in the past 12-years, promises to be 10-fold worse with a longer and more disruptive recovery. The lessons we as advancement professionals learned from the great recession offer little insight to our current crisis. Life and the economy as we knew it will be profoundly different, even after the widespread use of a Covid-19 vaccine. While this is an enormously complex topic, I want to touch upon some likely societal changes and their implications for our work. Warning … the picture is not pretty.

Harm Averted is Benefit Unseen

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Insights, Leadership & Management Posted June 10, 2020 0 Comments

There is a saying in public health circles - “harm averted is benefit unseen.” This notion could not be more relevant today, as we cope with the coronavirus pandemic. You and your organization may be in a similar circumstance.

COVID-19: When is it Time to Start Campaign Planning or to Launch a Campaign?

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Insights, Leadership & Management, Major Gifts Posted May 31, 2020 0 Comments

The decision to undertake planning for a major gift campaign is hard enough during normal times- otherwise known as "the good old days". When making a decision to start campaign planning or a campaign, you will need a disciplined process to identify and weigh many key variables.

Fundraising in the Time of COVID-19

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Emerging Ideas, Insights Posted March 11, 2020 3 Comments

With a recent spat of college closures, mergers and acquisitions, a college advisory services firm called Edmit was about to publish its report that identified 200 US colleges that could run out of money in the next decade. A threat of a law suite by Utica College stopped the release of the report.

2020 Vision – Opportunities and Challenges Ahead

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Emerging Ideas, Insights Posted December 30, 2019 1 Comment

Happy New Year! There is reason to be encouraged about 2020, with regard to advancement at least, and reason to do some adapting to the challenges the new year will bring.

Are Small Colleges a Safe Philanthropic Bet?

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Insights Posted December 9, 2019 0 Comments

Will Legacy Naming Recognition Become Too Fraught for Organizations?

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Emerging Ideas, Insights Posted October 10, 2019 1 Comment

The mess MIT and Harvard found themselves in by accepting gifts from Jeffery Epstein is a bellwether for things to come. These institutions had the audacity to accept a lot of money from Epstein, with the intent to remain anonymous, and despite this slight-of-hand, the rolling heads hitting the fan could be heard around the world.

Hate-Speech “Sells” in Today’s Politics – Will it Work in Nonprofit Fundraising?

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Insights Posted August 7, 2019 0 Comments

This is a difficult topic to address, but one that has fascinated me for a while. We are witnessing the phenomenon, last seen in the late 1960s during the George Wallace presidential campaign, of robust political fundraising on a messages of hate, divisiveness and demonizing of an entire classes of people. Hundreds of millions of […]

When You Get to a Fork in the Road – Take It

By Larry Raff In _CRI Blog Post, Insights, Leadership & Management Posted July 7, 2019 0 Comments

One of Yogi Berra’s famous utterances – When you get to a fork in the road… take it – has always resonated with me because it characterizes the forced choices we have to regularly make in our advancement work. Whether we like it or not, or whether we know it or not, we are constantly faced with forks in the road that give us options that may make or break our fundraising program, or at least slow its progress.

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