At their best, fundraising events bring together a group of passionate people ready to do good and have fun on behalf of a beloved organization, but careful planning is critical to their success. You want your guests to feel inspired and eager to contribute to your mission.

Is the tight labor market making it difficult to find quality hires for your team? You’re not alone! The 50-year low in the U.S. jobless rate, combined with a shrinking labor force is making the hiring process incredibly difficult.

Meet the newest member of Strategic Consulting & Coaching! Heidi Herron has a strong background in resource development, strategy and program development, and design experience.

The key to good fundraising is engagement—taking the opportunity to find out what a prospect is interested in and building on that interest. All requests for funding require engagement, but none more so than a capital campaign. Capital campaigns are big deals: They can set the stage for the future of an organization. They are a public announcement that the organization is undertaking a major effort. They engage people on a different level than annual support. And the campaign video is a key “tool” in your toolbox. 

If a picture says a thousand words, then imagine the power of a video!

We recently worked with our client, The Phoenix Residence, Inc. to create a video as part of a fundraising campaign to help “put a face” on the urgent need facing the organization.

Let’s be honest, the term “evaluation” can be intimidating or off-putting; sometimes both! But the importance of program evaluation is worth paying attention to and doing something about as the results are what your grantors are looking at when they evaluate you and the funding requests you make.

As fundraisers, we have a myriad of techniques available to reach donors, potential donors, and past donors (I dislike the word “lapsed” as it isn’t a word we would use to the donor’s face).   However, those techniques focus on what we do and the “moves” that we or the donor are making, not on what is happening in our relationship with that person. I believe we need to go on a journey of understanding with the donor. What does that journey look like?

Sometimes (often?!) we are so embedded in our own worlds, that we fail to recognize key conditions that we are living and working within. Sometimes, rather than “solving a problem” we need to change our mindset to “shifting the conditions that are holding the problem in place.”

Does the idea of pulling together your next annual report fill you with dread? You’re not alone. But what if we could pull the task off your “Hate to Do/Must Do” list onto the “Hey, This is a Great Way to Tell Our Story!” list? What’s the secret to an awesome annual report people will actually want to read and a communications tool you’ll feel really good about creating?