Past Articles

Capital Campaigns

How Do We Know When We’re Ready for a Capital Campaign?

Recently, while meeting with a potential client, we were asked the important question, “what do we need in order to have a successful capital campaign?” Since we are often asked similar questions, I’ve been inspired to make it the basis for my latest blog to add to our ongoing conversation regarding our work as consultants [...]

Ethics

How Could This Happen to our Nonprofit? – Fraud Protection

If you Google the phrase “nonprofit fraud prevention”, you will get thousands of articles and presentations, primarily from the accounting world, discussing the far too often occurrence of fraud or embezzlement in nonprofits of all sizes.  These articles are full of excellent suggestions on how to prevent fraud, embezzlement, or theft by valued employees, yet there [...]

Capital Campaigns

If You Don’t Ask – The Answer is Always NO!

We hear it all the time, but we STILL find ourselves or our volunteers in that terrible quandary of “is it the right time?”  Well friends, eventually, your prospects will wonder why you never brought up the subject. 
•          Sophisticated donors understand the cultivation process, and if you haven’t moved the process forward, they will lose [...]

Donors

There’s Gold in them Hills!

Securing the Future for Your Nonprofit Organization
Especially in our challenging economy, more and more nonprofit organizations are wishing their past leadership had established a stronger culture for planned giving in order to supplement operations with a reliable source of income through a permanent endowment fund.  Understandably, organizations are trying harder than ever to sustain their [...]

Capital Campaigns

How NOT to Fundraise: Lessons from the NPR Fiasco

Last month in this space Jeff Metz posted a wonderful blog titled Cultivating a Donor: Like Cultivating a Garden.  http://www.nonprofitwatercooler.com/2011/02/cultivating-a-donor-like-cultivating-a-garden/  
Too bad that NPR fundraising vice president Ron Schiller did not bother to visit the Nonprofit Water Cooler before he went to lunch with what he thought were representatives of the Muslim Education Action Center.  [...]

Capital Campaigns

Cultivating a Donor: Like Cultivating a Garden

When growing a garden, the gardner has to plan the garden, plant the seeds, provide the right balance of water, sun and nutrients and keep the garden free of weeds and threatening pests. Cultivating a donor is much the same process. You need to have a plan, plant the seeds of knowledge about the good [...]

Capital Campaigns

The Seven “P” ’s Needed to Have a Successful Capital Campaign

Recently, while meeting with a potential client, we were asked the important question, “what do we need in order to have a successful capital campaign?” Since we are often asked similar questions, I’ve been inspired to make it the basis for my latest blog to add to our ongoing conversation regarding our work as consultants [...]

Capital Campaigns

Your Services Are Great, But We’re Flat Broke!

If we had a nickel for every time we heard this comment from prospective clients, we would have enough money to retire.  OK, well maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get the picture.
Perhaps the irony of needing financial resources to support a nonprofit organization is most apparent when we’re meeting with organizations to discuss our [...]

Leadership

Slow Down!…What We Can Learn From Eagles Coach Andy Reid

What a strange time to be a Philadelphia Eagles fan.  On Sunday and Monday, September 20 and 21, Coach Andy Reid stated definitively that Kevin Kolb was the team’s starting quarterback.  On Tuesday, September 22, in the late afternoon Coach Reid appeared to completely reverse his position, and announced that Michael Vick is now the [...]

Leadership

Tired of Talk about Vision

Tired of talk about vision? Me too! And here’s why.