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How to Cultivate Big Donors with a Small Staff
Time is the most precious commodity in fundraising, especially when you are leading or part of a small but mighty development team. Knowing where to best invest your fundraising time is critical to success, yet it can be one of the hardest aspects of s …
Win Back Your Lapsed Donors: 3 Effective Strategies
Your nonprofit knows that every one of your donors is important to helping you continue your good work and achieve your mission. As soon as they’ve made their first gifts, hopefully you work hard to build your relationships with each of them, but that’ …
3 Online Fundraising Tips for Small Nonprofits
There’s regular fundraising, and then there’s small shop fundraising. Raising money when you’re limited to a very small fundraising staff presents some unique obstacles that aren’t typically faced by larger organizations. Thankfully, online fundraising …
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 …
In-Kind Fundraising: A Great Way to Expand Your Budget
You’re desperate. You’re planning a fundraising event but don’t have the funds to book a venue or a caterer. So what do you do? First, breathe! Then, start thinking about options for support in a new way. The truth is, often your problem is actually an …
Succeeding When You’re Small: Lessons Learned from DonorsChoose.org
Although the Blue Avocado audience consists of community-based organizations, we can still learn from the experience of those who started a nonprofit out of their basement and grew to be nationally recognized leaders in the field. DonorsChoose.org is o …
The Best Route to Approaching Donors: Hand-Head-Heart
As someone who began her career as a fund raiser and migrated to become a funder as head of a large corporate foundation, I have a somewhat unique vantage point on the struggle many nonprofits endure when engaging funders and major donors to support th …
Branching out: Raising more dollars by understanding donors’ differences
With so many worthy non-profit causes nationwide all competing for donations, how can your organization reach and engage philanthropists? The answer is twofold: broaden your fundraising tactics to be more inclusive of multigenerational giving while emp …
Ask Rita: Sound answers to human resource questions
Dear Ask Rita in HR: In order to foster a culture of giving, my nonprofit organization requires employees to give an annual gift each year. While I agree that we should support the work of our organization, I object to the idea that I am forced to dona …
