The most valuable thing in direct mail fundraising isn't your donors, but your donor data. Your building could burn down this afternoon, and all your staff could quit, and you'd still be able to recover if your donor data remained...
On February 14th, an impactful Valentine’s Day card arrived in the mailboxes of a group of unsuspecting donors. So impactful, in fact, that its sender, Ottawa-based SuzukiMusic - a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the musical education of children using the...
Many small charities and churches start out tracking their donors and donations, and creating their charitable receipts, using a homegrown system. Most often, in my experience, this is built with Microsoft Excel and Word, but sometimes Access or another simple...
In his 2000 book, The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the power of people he called “connectors”. Social engagers, these individuals tend to have a large network of contacts from a range of social, professional, economic and cultural...
No one would argue the fact that every fundraising campaign needs a goal and that everyone connected with the campaign, including prospective donors, needs to be aware of that goal. Then why do people so often fight the setting of...
Canada and the United States share the longest undefended border in the world and we consider ourselves to be good neighbours, but when it comes to cross-border donations things can get a bit tricky. Adam Aptowitzer, a lawyer with the...
When Professor Ida Berger of Ryerson University’s Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies published a study in Voluntas last summer, the nonprofit sector received some additional discourse for their boardroom tables. The report, The Influence of Religion on Philanthropy in Canada,...
Be warned. If you're starting a nonprofit and don't have $100,000 in the bank, don't use direct mail. You literally cannot afford to use direct mail to raise funds right now. Launching a new nonprofit is like launching a new...
Principal fundraising myth: It's common knowledge that corporations and foundations give most of the money to nonprofit organizations. Principal fundraising truth: You go where money you think you can get is to be found in the greatest quantities and most...
Tom Ahern is author of the book How to Write Fundraising Materials that Raise More Money: The Art, the Science, the Secrets, published by Emerson and Church. His other book, Raising More Money with Newsletters than You Ever Thought Possible,...
