Your data tells a story: Are you listening?

Do you want to grow planned giving? Do you have a shrinking annual fund? Is your fundraising campaign stalled? Graham Pelton explain how you can look at what your data is telling you. If you are willing to transform the way you fundraise, data-driven strategies will yield better decisions, improve performance, and accelerate your growth. […]

16 Fundraising Success Metrics to Start Tracking

Measuring performance is a crucial step that nonprofits must take to succeed. There’s no better way of isolating and troubleshooting any ongoing problems. And worry not, there’s no shortage of methods of measuring performance. They’re called fundraising success metrics here, but they are also often referred to as key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics are […]

How do we know philanthropy helps students succeed?

There is little doubt that philanthropy supports student success. Just don’t ask how many students receive meaningful supports thanks to donors, or how donations correlate to increases in student retention. The way universities usually silo their data, those questions are nearly impossible to answer. We ought to have answers. Reporting income raised is not the […]

The Enemy Within – why the narrative about universities and students went so wrong

The headlines about universities over the last year have been tough to read. They reveal a sad truth. That the higher education sector, for all its strengths, has lost its ability to tell a coherent story about itself. The sector and its leadership are now suffering a collective crisis of moral authority, a crisis of […]

A seven-step approach to problem solving with your team

A colleague walks into your office and says, “We have a big problem…”, as the leader often the desire is to jump into action and get the problem solved as quickly as possible. The key to success is to step back and immediately begin a seven-step process which will help you to gain detailed understanding […]

Why Creating Donor Engagement Opportunities Boosts Fundraising

Just because I care about something, and somehow learn you are involved in doing something about that thing, doesn’t mean I’m going to support you financially. Why should I? There are a lot of good causes out there, and making a decision to invest in you is something I need to act on. I’m busy. […]

You are what you think; So just think big

“You are what you think; So just think big, believe big, act big…” the words of Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish American industrialist and philanthropist summarise the essence of successful fundraising – make friends and think big. No one gives to a cause that promises to do the ordinary. People want to feel they are contributing […]

Disrupting the Case for Support

A Case for Support is an oft-used tool in fundraising to set out your stall; its purpose to communicate the ‘Why’ of your campaign. It’s a working document designed as a group/workshop exercise to provoke discussion, tease out the campaign’s identity and find its most compelling elements. It constantly evolves and very, very rarely ever […]

10 Ways to Find New Donors for Your Nonprofit Organization

Each year, approximately 10% of your non-profit donor base will attrition naturally through death, moving, or just not giving any longer. Then you add lapsed donors on top of that natural attrition, and you are looking at an eroding donor list. Sound familiar? Here, Robin Cabral shares some simple steps that you can take to […]

More Than Just Data: Why Actionable Insights Matter

There’s no question that customer experience (CX) is a data-driven discipline. After all, at the foundation of most CX programs are close-ended surveys designed to capture and analyze customer feedback. Yes, metrics are a crucial element of every successful CX program. With metrics, you can establish a clear performance baseline and track trends based on […]