1 Fundraising finding: Revealing AI use can hurt nonprofit results and relationships (unless you explain why)
AI tools can save time and money. Many teams use them every day. But new 2026 research shows a real…
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The Fundraising Hall of Shame
Here are the worst practices I would enshrine in that hall. No, I am not talking about scams or criminal…
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Prepare Your Team for Successful Outreach – Here’s What You Need
Making outreach to major donors requires more than pre-qualified prospects. That’s essential, and it’s the reason MarketSmart exists. But even…
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Is Your Fundraising Guilty of TMI?
It is impossible to develop a single formula for guiding the fundraising process. We humans are too varied in the…
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Why Qualitative Donor Data Helps Find More Major Donors
Major donor discovery and cultivation depend on far more than quantitative data like wealth capacity and giving history. In fact,…
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The Key to Consistently Making Your Numbers in Fundraising
It’s funny, but the key to consistently making your numbers is to care more about people than you do about…
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How To Identify Hidden Major Donors Your Wealth Screening and Prospect Research Will Never Find
For too many nonprofits, the search for hidden major donors often misses a large swath of potential revenue in the…
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What Fundraising Organizations Can Learn From Trusted Leaders
The most productive philanthropic partnerships are built on trust. Trust is built on shared convictions and candor, not self-promotion or…
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1 Fundraising Finding: Permanence and Death Reminders
Today’s experiment highlights a key legacy-fundraising concept. Mortality reminders trigger two responses: avoidance and/or pursuit of symbolic immortality. The second…
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How to Use LinkedIn for Outreach to Major Donors and Prospects
You may not realize it, but LinkedIn is often the most effective social media channel for making initial contact with…
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The Big Bequest Misunderstanding: Why You Can’t Ignore Your Oldest Friends
Half of all charitable bequest dollars will come from people passing at this age and older: 89. The big wealth…
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5 Fundraising Stats on Major Gifts of Assets: 2.3%, 60%, 77%, 6X, and 50X
2.3% of household wealth is held in cash and checkable accounts; stop ignoring the other 97.7%. 60% of the largest…
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Why Your Board and Wealthy Donors Don’t Send You Any Referrals
We all know the value of networking. We also all know that some of your best and most valuable donors…
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The Key to Improving Fundraising Results: Improve Your Posture
So many ill-conceived ideas about metrics and other means of evaluating fundraising performance are rooted in the terribly false notion…
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What Is Preliminary Qualification for Major Donors and Prospects?
For decades, major gifts fundraising has revolved around a process for working with wealthy donors to raise money. It involved…
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A Fundraising Process That Builds Donor Trust
The “ambush ask”—luring donors to meetings under false or veiled pretenses, then asking for “a gift”—has done significant damage to…
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What’s Your Strategy?
If you’ve ever cracked open a book on how to play chess, you know the feeling: A swirl of foreign…
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Why A Gift Officer’s Actual Job Is NOT to Raise Money
From the nonprofit’s perspective, the job of the gift officer often seems to be to convey wealth from supporters. But…
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Who’s Your Customer?
In 2010, Procter & Gamble had a dilemma. The massive consumer products company based in Cincinnati, Ohio had just signed…
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The Best Long Term Fundraising Strategy: Recruiting Volunteers
If you recruit the right volunteers (those with giving histories) and give them tasks worthy of their talents almost 80…
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Introducing the Staff Position You Never Knew You Needed That Can Boost Major Gifts Efficiency and Reduce Turnover
There’s too much to do and not enough time to do it. While this may be a common feeling in…
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Why The Affluent Give
The most common and persistent reasons for giving, as documented in the top two bars of the chart below, underscore…
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The Leadership Attribute We Need Most: Master Weaver
We will not build better advancement operations… – or sustain fundraising success – or build stronger cultures of philanthropy –…
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6 Reasons Why Major Donor Prospects Ignore Your Outreach Efforts
Major donor outreach isn’t easy. When you have success, it feels great. But more often, your efforts to make contact…
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