The 40% rule your campaign consultant may not tell you about
40% of your campaign goal must be achievable from your top 30-40 donors or your campaign will fail faster than a chocolate teapot. This fundraising principle has predicted campaign success or failure for decades, yet most organizations launch campaigns with the planning equivalent of crossing their fingers and making a wish. Here’s how to determine if you’re truly campaign-ready or ...
The Incredible Vanishing Donor Pool (and your life preserver)
The donor pool is shrinking faster than a wool sweater in hot water. According to GivingUSA, two-thirds of households contributed to nonprofits 20 years ago. Today, less than half do—and individual giving as a percentage of disposable income has hit a 20-year low. It's like your potential donor pool decided to go on a crash diet just when you needed to ...
How 400 fundraisers looked at the same donor and saw 400 different wallets
In research that would make statisticians weep into their spreadsheets, 400 advancement officers were given identical donor information and asked to determine appropriate ask amounts. The result? A variance wider than the Grand Canyon – from $50K to $3M for the EXACT SAME donor profile. That’s not fundraising science; that’s fundraising astrology. Let’s bring some science to this art before ...
3 Sobering Fundraising Truths About the WWIII Tariff War
There are three fundamental truths about philanthropic giving and today's tariff war. 1. People give from disposable income and assets and rarely to the point of affecting their lifestyle or financial security. 2. The tariffs outlined by President Trump yesterday will reduce everyone's disposable income. For small-dollar donors, this will likely substantially reduce their giving even more than the declining ...
Capital Campaigns Just Got More Complicated
Creating the case for support and launching a campaign are a heavy lift for most organizations. Now, campaign leaders must contend with the existential question from leaders and donors – will federal grant and budget cuts weaken your organization? Will your organization be able to fulfill its core mission-centric programs today and after the campaign is completed? Hospitals Take the ...
March Madness Shutdown
The role of government is being redesigned. It is comically safe to say the architects of this redesign do not know how our government works or what it does for Americans and people the world over. However, the chaos and redesign by a blunt instrument are nothing compared to what will likely happen when Congress needs to come up with ...
