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Finding Your Data Path to Success, Part 2: What We Learned Along the Way
In January’s article on Finding Your Data Path to Success, Ken Doane, EVP & Chief Program Officer at the SH Cowell Foundation, offered guidance on how to be successful with your data and data systems. In Part 2, the creators of the free Making Wise …
What I Learned as a Funder: Frank Tips for Nonprofits
Over decades in the social sector, I spent countless hours in the grant-seeking trenches and saw my share of things that left me wondering whether to laugh or cry. But then I became a foundation funder and encountered a prospective grantee’s “toxic dia …
Funder’s Corner: Finding Your Data Path to Success
Data. It’s all the rage nowadays, with data-driven fundraising and metrics and analysis driving every aspect of nonprofit operations and programming. So how do you know if you have the right systems in place to gather and disseminate the data that’s ke …
Want Equity? Then It’s Time to Break the Rules!
Back in June, we wrote about the need for nonprofits to better understand what it really costs them to deliver services, and on a related note, how funders can adapt their grantmaking practices to better support work around equity, inclusion, and oppor …
Social Enterprise & Earned Income: A Key To Revenue or a Distraction?
Have you been in a board meeting discussing funding and the challenges of growing revenue and heard someone say, “I know, we should open a for profit venture!” In an era of continuous government funding cuts and foundations seeking “innovation,” many o …
Empowering Next Generation Leaders through Crowdfunding
Just about all nonprofits struggle with fundraising, and nowadays many are also concerned with enlisting the support and engagement of the next generation of donors: millennials. Well, what if I told you that you can solve both these challenges simulta …
Some Say Fundraising Is Just Sales: They’re Wrong!
Early in my 30-plus year career in the philanthropic arena, I was looking for a major gifts officer for a reproductive health clinic in Los Angeles. Of the many résumés I received, one was from a candidate with ten years of solid experience—but for eig …
Fundraising for “Friends of” Organizations
As a lifelong animal lover and longtime advocate, I knew I liked the sound of a nonprofit called “Friends of Oakland Animal Services”—after all, I live in Oakland and I love animals! Sold, right? But while I figured this was an organization I’d likely …
Scarcity or Abundance? An Experiment in Collaborative Fundraising
As a recovering lawyer, I wasn’t professionally trained in development when I became an executive director three years ago, yet my Board expected me to get to work fundraising…fast. When I began exploring the field, I quickly learned there are a lot …
The New Fundraising Frontier: Impact Investing
Capital campaigns can be a slog! Most organizations face similar challenges: donor fatigue, the time it takes to raise funds, rising development costs, and concerns about falling short of your fundraising goals. But what if there were another way to ra …
