Key Performance Indicators That Ultimately Undermine Performance
Are your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) rational and sustainable? Do they appear to enhance productivity while actually raiding the cupboard…
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Should Nonprofits Ask for Money Less Often?
It’s a question nearly every nonprofit wrestles with now and then. We have to raise money, and if we don’t…
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What We Should Value More: Fundraisers Who Are Reluctant Askers
What? What good is a reluctant fundraiser? Aren’t they professional askers? Shouldn’t they be looking for the first opportunity to…
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3 Types of Marketing Automation — Which One Do You Really Need to Raise Major Gifts?
Marketing automation software automates repetitive marketing tasks, like email campaigns and lead nurturing (cultivation), allowing businesses to efficiently manage and…
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The Two Deadliest Words in Fundraising
The two deadliest words in fundraising are: Annual Fund The first word suggests one gives simply because the Earth orbits…
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How to Help Major Donors Give More By Knowing Their Own Motivations for Giving
Dr. Russell James (the foremost researcher in our field) often speaks about the primal motivations for giving, emphasizing that donors…
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The Most Basic Benchmark for the First Donor Meeting
The most basic, and perhaps the most important benchmark, for the first meeting with a donor is the ratio of…
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Fundraisers Share What Obstacles They Encounter When Making Outreach Plus How to Overcome Them
Have you ever wondered, “Why won’t they accept my outreach? Why won’t they return my calls? And why do donors…
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Donors Want a Peer-Based Relationship Not a Parental One
Read or listen to institutional fundraising appeals. What are many organizations really asking of their donors? The subtext is rich…
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Why Nonprofit Fundraising Gift Officers Quit Their Jobs
What is it about gift officers, who continue to quit in droves after short tenures at nonprofit organizations that hire…
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How to Fundraise? Understand The Donor’s Why
The more objectively we study the issue, the more we see that fundraising, particularly soliciting, has much less to do…
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Seeing Through the Donor’s Eyes: Introducing the Simplest Way to Understand the Fundraising Process from the Donor’s Perspective
Why do so many major gift fundraisers struggle to connect with donors and motivate them to give? There are lots…
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The Five Most Important Emphases For An Advancement Operation
Given the significant and ongoing decline in giving households and the increasing competition from that shrinking market share from a…
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Dollars Up, Donors Down: How You Can Buck the Trend
If your revenue seems to be holding steady or even increasing year over year (dollars up), good for you! That’s…
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Fundraising’s Two Most Common Oversimplifications
Two common oversimplifications related to fundraising are: It’s about relationships It’s about storytelling Yes, but let’s be a bit more…
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Why Do Donors Fill Out Surveys?
If you’ve hung around MarketSmart for any decent length of time, you know that at the heart of our approach…
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Donor Centric Doesn’t Mean Catering to the Egocentric
As wealth concentrates in fewer hands, and big gifts prove more vital to mission realization, some question if too many…
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5 Ways Major Gifts Fundraising Differs from All the Others
For the illusion of efficiency, it can be tempting to use buzzwords like streamline and aggregate as you work to…
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Boomer Giving Vs. Millennial Giving: Myth-Busting Facts
Contrary to common belief, more Millennials give than Boomers. A smaller percentage of Boomers give but contribute more dollars and…
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6 Costly Ways Turnover Cripples Major Gift Fundraising Operations — and 5 Ways You Can Reduce It
The investment of time, money, training, and expertise required to run a successful major gift fundraising program is immense. You…
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How to Win More Major Gifts by Understanding the Donor Hero Journey
Don’t believe what you hear in the news. The truth is, everyone still wants to be a hero. Deep down,…
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What If Advancement Was Just Folded Into The President’s Office?
What if Advancement was just folded into the President’s Office? That’s right, advancement as a separate entity goes away but…
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Three Wonders of the Ancient Fundraising World: Pyramids, Pillars and Phases
What are the three wonders of the ancient fundraising worlds? Pyramids, Pillars and Phases 
Don’t waste your time putting…
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Strengthening Donor Relationships at All Levels
If we had to pinpoint just one issue as having a greater influence on the future health of nonprofit fundraising…
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