Social Justice and Fundraising
By William Gross, Senior Consultant, Copley Raff Inc. Social and technological change are moving faster and faster. We have all learned to embrace digital changes: think of learning to use increasingly sophisticated donor databases, Constant Contact, peer-to-peer giving sites, and other digital tools. We are now seeing different changes … those driven by evolving social norms, and specifically, the movement ...
It is Always Darkest Before the Dawn
English theologian and historian Thomas Fuller appears to be the first person to commit the notion that “It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth,” to print in 1650. The notion implies things often seem at their worst just before they get better. It feels like we are beginning the darkest time of the pandemic. The dawn will likely ...
Why NOT to Ask for a Gift — NOT
I have consulted with well over 200 organizations in my career. This experience has put me in a position to share some of the “greatest hits” of why organizations do not ask a donor or prospective donor to make a gift. Allow me to share both their arguments against and my arguments for asking a donor or prospective donor for ...
What Might 2022 Look Like for Fundraising?
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 ...
Harm Averted is Benefit Unseen
Recognizing success can be elusive. And staff, who are closest to the “action”, are often least aware of how their work and their organization are making a difference. I know this is counterintuitive, as evaluation and planning are so much of our work. Here is a story to illustrate my point. During interviews with staff and board members of a ...
COVID-19: When is it Time to Start Campaign Planning or to Launch a Campaign?
The decision to undertake planning for a major gift campaign is hard enough during normal times- otherwise known as "the good old days". But today, with the potential for subsequent waves of Covid-19 infections, deciding to mount a campaign is a more complicated undertaking. The campaign that was urgent four months ago may need to be quite different now. And, ...
