Identity and Blackness in Prospect Development

You may know Joan Ogwumike as the author for the past four years of the blog, A Researcher’s Diary, but she is also the writer of the Apra-Illinois blog as well as Prospect Research Associate at the Obama Foundation. Although small in number, Black prospect development professionals deserve an opportunity to share experiences and knowledge pertaining to diversity, inclusion […]

A pinch of fairy dust and a touch of realism!

One of the most troubling facts about our industry is that the average time Development Directors stay in their roles is only 18 months! On average, a major gift takes two years to move from identification and qualification to solicitation and closure. Major Gift Officers generally require three years of activity before an optimal return […]

10 Ways to Reduce Interviewer Bias

Strangers often get a bad deal when it comes to being accurately assessed during interviews. While people who are known to the hiring manager are assessed on their past performance, strangers are judged on their motivation to get the job, a bunch of generic competencies, the depth of their technical knowledge and the quality of […]

Data Security in Philanthropy

As the saying goes “Data Is the New Oil” and charities and non-profits certainly hold a lot of valuable data. We collect contact details, build up donor giving histories, process payments, build up donor and prospect profiles and gain insights into very personal and sensitive information. And we do this for a vast number of individuals, […]

Top 10 ways to make better decisions

Decisions, decisions! Our lives are full of them, from the small and mundane, such as what to wear or eat, to the life-changing, such as whether to get married and to whom, what job to take and how to bring up our children. We jealously guard our right to choose. It is central to our […]

5 Building Blocks of Great Advancement Talent Management

James Murphy shares: “One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is why our profession has such a high rate of turnover of professional fundraisers. I often hear that the average tenure in a job for a major gift officer is 18 months. A partial answer might be that as demand for good fundraisers has […]

Which Staff Member Has the Biggest Impact on Fundraising?

Which staff member in a fundraising office has the potential to the biggest, long-term impact? The Major Gift Officer? Sure. They bring in big gifts. Chief Development Officer? Absolutely. They have the ultimate responsibility. Planned Giving,Annual Fund, Special Events – any of these? All revenue generators. Sure. But who has the potential to have the […]

My experience of being a woman in the charity sector

Just as we all say that homogenous trustee boards lead to homogenous senior leadership and we all agree that we must tackle the balance of gender, sexual identification, ethnicity, ability and age on the Board, then we must be careful not to take our foot off the pedal just because we found brilliant leaders who […]

In conversation with Liesl Elder and Amanda Bringans… The Highlights

In 2018, Blackbaud ended their UK conference with a conversation between Liesl Elder, Chief Development Officer at the University of Oxford and Amanda Bringans, Director of Fundraising at the British Heart Foundation. Here, Blackbaud present highlights from their discussion as these two successful fundraising leaders from two sides of the sector, charity and Higher Education […]

Be confident, be bold: 10 tips from female charity leaders

This article first appeared in The Guardian in 2015. While more than two-thirds of the UK’s voluntary sector workforce are women, men still dominate leadership roles. In the UK’s top 50 fundraising charities by income, just 30% have female chief executives and only 36% of trustees are women. Women are still under-represented at the top, […]