Smartideas

Straight talk about major, mid-level and legacy gift fundraising to help you be a better fundraiser

What’s Your Reason for Requesting The First Meeting With a Prospective Donor?

What’s your reason for requesting the first meeting with a prospective donor? The ones I hear most often, including the ones used on me, include:… Read More


The Power of Building Relationships: Why Donors Need Good Fundraisers

Why, of all people, would a donor want to build a relationship with a fundraiser? If you are a donor, it sounds like a questionable… Read More


Dr. James explains why identifying with others is so powerful in a donor’s hero story

Effective fundraising starts with identity. Compelling fundraising story connects the donation story with the donor’s story. When does a story become the donor’s story? When… Read More


Dr. James explains why the feeling “People like me make gifts like this” is so powerful in major gifts fundraising

Verba docent, exempla trahunt. “Words teach people, examples compel them.” – Latin proverb[1] It’s simple. We want the donor to say, “Yes.” But how? How… Read More


Giving vs. Sharing: The Power of Community in Major Gifts Fundraising

Giving vs. sharing Are we asking people to give? Or are we asking them to share? This might feel like a trivial choice of synonyms…. Read More


From “Giving To” to “Giving Through”: The Great Philanthropic Shift

In 2007, after listening to a lot of donors and conducting a lot of research, I advised, “Don’t just ask you donors to give to… Read More


The Pathway to a Significant Philanthropic Investment is Not Paved With Just “Visits”

A common KPI used to evaluate fundraisers is the number of visits they pay on prospects in their portfolios. It should be replaced by PPIs… Read More


What Advancement Must Become: Builders of Communities of Shared Interest

You don’t have to poke too far into most nonprofits’ fundraising results to see significant donor erosion, usually masked by a few large gifts each… Read More


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