Thoughts on Nonprofit Leadership

What Foundations Want to Know grant writing

Grant funding is a crucial part of many nonprofits’ fundraising strategies. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, 17 percent of all charitable giving is given through foundations. Foundation also tend to give bigger gift amounts than many individuals, often in the $5,000 to a...

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How to Get Your Community Eagerly Involved with Your Nonprofit building community support marketing and communications

Do you want to recruit more volunteers? Donors? Good board members? Motivated staff? Advocates? Do you want the community to get excited about being involved with your nonprofit? Of course, you do. The question then is “how can I position my nonprofit so that I find good people eager to...

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How to Make Your Nonprofit A Household Word building community support marketing and communications

Approximately 1.5 million U.S. nonprofits are vying for the attention necessary to raise the money they need. Many nonprofits struggle to be noticed in the fray. How do you get your agency to stand out in a crowd? How does your organization gain the visibility it needs to generate stronger...

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How to Make Sure You Raise Money When You Ask fundraising

Are you doing a lot of fundraising but still not making the kind of money you want? Maybe it’s because you’re focused on asking for money instead of asking to meet mission. 

Keep Your Fundraising Focus on Squarely Your Agency’s Mission

Fundraising is not about getting...

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Reviewer Reflections on Funding Grant Proposals grant writing

We’ve narrowed it down to a small group of applicants. The proposals are all focused on meeting a mission that matches ours. They all present nicely and are written well, using proper grammar and no misspellings. The request is focused and cohesive. The narrative and the budget are...

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How to Attract New Donors building community support fundraising relationship building

Aah. Attracting new donors to your cause. You can always use new donors. The question is, “How do you stand out in a crowd and draw people to your cause who will give to your nonprofit?”

Target Specific Donor Groups

When nonprofits talk about their efforts to gain visibility, most of...

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How to Prepare Your Board to Fundraise board relations for executive directors fundraising

Is your board excited about fundraising? Probably not. They may think that fundraising and governance don’t have anything to do with one another. They may see fundraising as management’s responsibility, with their role only holding staff accountable for financial results. Or they may...

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Three Fundraising Benchmarks to Use with Your Board board relations evaluation for executive directors

A nonprofit board has a fiscal duty to make sure that resources are raised and allocated to meet the organization’s missions. Often, however, boards have unrealistic expectations about how much money can actually be raised. They have no way of knowing, and thus planning for, how many...

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How to Make Sure You Always Have More Money than Month financial management for executive directors

I know what it’s like - sweating the finances – when not as much money is coming into your nonprofit when it was expected to come in. Government payments are delayed yet you are still expected to run the programs they fund. Grants were submitted later than anticipated. A major gift...

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