By now, all organizations should have closed off their 2020 (calendar) year. And what a year it was! I can confidently say that for every organization, there was some degree of uncertainty. There were probably some disappointments but, hopefully, there were also some pleasant surprises. But what should charities start examining when looking back...
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Fundraising Metrics Part 1
Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant, would often proclaim, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Fundraising is chock-full of metrics, and in this article (and the next), I will explore the two major different types of fundraising metrics — financial and non-financial. Both are something that boards and bosses should be...
Continue reading...What Comes First — the Overhead, or the Revenue?
Every charity that I have worked with in my 25-plus years worries about overhead costs. As they should. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) also has a concern with overhead costs per dollar raised. As a result, they have set out some guidelines that it feels charities should strive for, namely: Generally acceptable costs are...
Continue reading...8 Mistakes that Hurt Fundraising
Everybody makes fundraising mistakes. Hopefully, everybody learns from their mistakes. But, wouldn’t it be nice if we could learn from others’ mistakes without having to endure the error ourselves? Here are eight fundamental fundraising mistakes: 1: Treating Donors as ATM’s This is my number one pet peeve and I have written many articles about...
Continue reading...Are you Fishing in the Right Pond?
There is always this push/pull dichotomy between donor acquisition and donor upgrade. Above all, a fundraiser’s efforts should be precise and fruitful — the spray and pray mentality just isn’t very effective. I wrote about the spray and pray method here. But, how is a fundraiser to effectively raise more funds? I have often...
Continue reading...Mass Emails (Inexpensive & Low Effort) = Spray & Pray
Despite what some people will tell you, fundraising isn’t easy — if it was everyone would be doing it! (It’s human nature to do certain things that are easier than others.) Some fundraisers take a mass approach (spray & pray) while others take a personal approach through engagement. I’m not saying that one method...
Continue reading...Is your bucket leaking donors?
There is a great adage out there that it is better/more economical to retain a customer/donor than it is to acquire a new one. That is totally true. So often, we speak of how many new donors we have gained or added to our database. We tend to gloss over the donors that are...
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