Donor-advised Funds Are Misunderstood, Bound to Be Regulated, and Not Going Anywhere
“Have you read this one?” “Zach, hold on I didn’t even finish the other articles you sent me yet.” I guess I was being a… Read More
Login
Your Role
Challenges You Face
results
Learn
Resources
Company
Smartideas
Helping you qualify, cultivate and prioritize major donors and legacy supporters so you can have fun closing more gifts more efficiently.
Jan
21
2020
Jan
08
2020
Product Updates: January 2019
New Product: QCD Effort Raise more money (for less cost!) from qualified charitable distributions Over the past few months we’ve researched, tested, and validated the… Read More
Jan
02
2020
Here’s what I learned about leadership in 2019. I hope it helps you!
In the age of Fundraising Climate Change, leadership at nonprofits is needed more than ever. However, what I learned last year is that leadership is… Read More
Dec
13
2019
Product Updates: December 2019
More than just a survey… Engage your supporters with a more robust marketing plan in 2020! There are a lot of ways you can engage… Read More
Dec
05
2019
MarketSmart’s “How-to” Guide for Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs)
Click here for the free comprehensive guide for donor-advised funds. Trends come and go, but donor-advised funds are forever. I’m not quite sure that’s the… Read More
Nov
26
2019
What Does Thanksgiving Have to Do with Fundraising? A Surprising Amount.
“You can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” I wasn’t frustrated. If anything, I was disappointed. “How could I forget that quote?”… Read More
Nov
19
2019
5 Online Year-End Fundraising Stats You Can Use to Help Craft Your Campaign
This guest post on year-end fundraising stats is from Nathan Hill at NextAfter. Every development professional understands the importance of year-end fundraising. The key to… Read More
Nov
13
2019
5 Ways You Can Get Meetings with Major Donors (Even When They Won’t Answer their Phone)
I hear the following all the time when I ask fundraisers about their efforts to land meetings with major and legacy donors: “I tried calling,… Read More
Nov
06
2019
3 Reasons You Should Be Thinking about QCDs (Backed By Data + A Free Guide)
How many decisions do you make each day? A quick google search yields our answer: somewhere near 35,000. That number may seem intimidating, “How can… Read More
Oct
29
2019
How Important Is Training for Fundraisers? Very.
This time of year is filled with tricks and treats. The end of October seemingly always has something in store for us, whether it be… Read More
Oct
25
2019
Dividing the “might consider” stage into two unique consideration stages
Where we were Our Dashboard scoring algorithm grouped two deferred qualification responses (“Not now, but in the future I would definitely be interested” and “Not… Read More
Oct
22
2019
3 Things You Can Learn From $58B in Donations
If you had $58B, you would be among some interesting company. $58B represents more wealth than Larry Page and Michael Bloomberg, but not enough to… Read More
Oct
17
2019
The 80-20 Rule is DEAD!
It’s no longer 80-20 but, rather, 70/.7 According to our research, tons of nonprofits spend most of their fundraising budget on efforts focused on acquiring… Read More
Oct
15
2019
MarketSmart + The Giving Institute
In case you couldn’t tell from the title of today’s blog post, we have some exciting news to share with you! MarketSmart is the newest… Read More
Oct
02
2019
Introducing, Louis Diez— The Checklist Guy for Fundraising Excellence
Some people really know how to be givers. You know what I mean don’t you? From time to time all of us come across people… Read More
Sep
25
2019
How to Improve and Develop Process at Your Nonprofit
Developing process is tricky. In the world of for-profit businesses there are myriad books, webinars, and even conferences you can attend to help you become… Read More
Sep
20
2019
One Simple Tactic You Can Use to Be More Effective at Everything
I wish I didn’t have such a “clickbait” title. Even I’d think twice before reading a blog post that suggests it can make you more… Read More
Sep
13
2019
3 simple steps to break your transactional, spray-and-pray fundraising addiction
Nonprofits tend to get addicted to transactions they generate mostly by aiming marketing toward potential supporters with low-capacity. I call it ‘spray and pray’ marketing… Read More
Sep
05
2019
Brand new digital body language filters
Filter by Digital Body Language Digital body language is integral to understanding how supporters are engaging with your organization online. You can now filter by… Read More
Sep
04
2019
3 Reasons Why You Should Market Charitable IRA Rollovers (And What They Are)
What would you do with $2.5 trillion? Retire? Buy a beach house? Travel the world? Develop a marketing strategy for Charitable IRA Rollovers? (Probably not… Read More
Aug
26
2019
Finally, the true cause of high fundraiser turnover!
Recently a lot of people have been writing about the high level of turnover among fundraisers in our field. As reported in The Chronicle of… Read More
Aug
23
2019
The power of convenience: A follow-up to my post about online will-writing tools
The power of convenience as an influencer and motivator of outcomes is enormous and should never be underestimated. Ours is a culture of convenience; we… Read More
Aug
20
2019
How to ask for a gift: Do you really have to ask?
At MarketSmart, we don’t close sales and we don’t close deals. When it comes to how to ask for a gift, you’ll see there’s a… Read More
Aug
14
2019
Online will-making tools: My pros and cons.
Brace yourself. This is a long post because there’s a lot to be said. I wrote it because digital will-writing tools are popping up to… Read More
Get the book!
Feeling like your job is getting harder because donor expectations have changed and competition for the charitable dollar is growing?
Finding that the old orthodoxies and conventions espoused by so-called experts in online echo-chambers and at conferences don’t work anymore?
Want to help more people make impact by facilitating their acts of philanthropy but feel like too many obstacles keep getting in your way?
Then this book is for you.
Engagement Fundraising was developed from the perspective of a donor who discovered firsthand that the impersonal, spray-and-pray approaches of his beloved charity were not only offensive but also wasteful and ineffective. So he took action. And now, you can too.
Get smarter with the SmartIdeas blog
Subscribe to our blog today and get actionable fundraising ideas delivered straight to your inbox!