“Do you know how many of your supporters use popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? 42.3% of the entire American population use Facebook. Twitter has over 16 million users. YouTube is the second most used search engine in the world. With usage stats like that it’s probably safe to assume that a large [...]
Charitable Giving – Donors Set to Give More to Charity in 2011
05/11/2011 By Leave a Comment
“Just as more jobs are being created, and the economy continues to lurch forward in a recovery, the outlook for charitable giving is trending upwards, according to the 2011 Cygnus Donor Survey that came out in April.Here are the ‘aha’ moments from that incredibly thorough and wide-reaching survey. Charitable Giving Up Respondents to the survey [...]
Are Robots the Future of Fund Raising?
05/11/2011 By Leave a Comment
“The future of fund raising isn’t a topic that usually conjures up visions of Star Wars. But that might be changing with two academic efforts testing robot solicitors on three continents. Tim Pryde, a 21-year-old product-design student at the University of Dundee, in Scotland, built DON-8r – pronounced ‘donator’ – a small robot that travels [...]
Giving , Where does your money go
04/25/2011 By Leave a Comment
Few events move the heart and pocketbook like a natural disaster. After the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, millions of dollars began flowing to two local nonprofits on the front lines of disaster relief: Mercy Corps and Medical Teams International. But what exactly happens to the donations? How much goes to relief, how much to [...]
Connecting with Donors: An Interview with Dr. Thomas Wolf
04/22/2011 By Leave a Comment
Thomas Wolf recently spoke with his publisher about the topic of his new book, How to Connect with Donors and Double the Money You Raise. GuideStar has published two excerpts from the book (see the links on the right), and we’re pleased to be able to share Dr. Wolf’s additional thoughts with you. Many in [...]
Top Five Ingredients of a Successful Fundraising Letter
04/21/2011 By Leave a Comment
Direct mail fundraising will be harder in 2011. Postage rates are increasing. Attention spans are decreasing. And discretionary income, which is to say, the money your donors use to support their favourite causes, is tighter. So, if you want to succeed at raising funds with direct mail letters, follow these five timeless tips. 1. Write [...]
Health Care Bill Offers Tax Credit to Small Charities
03/24/2010 By Leave a Comment
The historic health-care bill adopted by the House of Representatives Sunday night provides relief to small charities that offer health insurance to their employees — a victory for nonprofit leaders who fought for such language.By adopting the Senate version of the major health-care overhaul, the House agreed that both nonprofit groups and businesses could qualify [...]
10 Donations. 3 Thank-Yous. 7 Failures to Communicate.
02/23/2010 By Leave a Comment
It’s time to share the results of my 2009-2010 “What I Got When I Gave” Experiment. The point of this experiment is to see what kind of communications response I get in return for unsolicited donations to national charities. This does not include the automated email receipt that I get from the payment processor; I’m [...]
Not For profit Fundraising Downturn
10/27/2008 By Leave a Comment
Not for profit organizations both large and small from wall street to main street are feeling the impact on donations and fundraising as a result of the national current economic climate.The financial pinch will only deepen in the coming months given the potential of a Global recession now taking shape. The potential impact is just [...]
Not for profit sector and economic down turn
10/21/2008 By Leave a Comment
The current economic downturn is a bloated up financial crisis caused by the erroneous banking system. The banks refuse to take measures beyond the so-called ‘light touch regulation’. As their regulatory authority is being constantly challenged, they have begun to aggressively embrace newer methods of funding the failed mortgage lending. These complex financial instruments have [...]