Is your organization feeling the changes in our economy, society, and communities? Are you a leader feeling the pressure to meet these challenges? Fortunately, data can help you make good decisions during uncertain times.   Living in uncertain times Recent events have led to uncertainty in today’s world. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to pivot to survive. Suddenly, there was no clear path forward, and we did not know if things would return to normal. We still face uncertainty today, given inflation, rising costs, high employee turnover, and political unrest. Do y ..read more

As a nonprofit event planner, you know that any successful event needs a clear blueprint, volunteer and staff support, and strong attendee engagement. Event management software for nonprofits brings all planning elements together in one place, streamlining your preparation and saving your team time and stress.  Research shows that over 85% of event planners use event management software to bring their events to life. But the key to smashing event success is finding the right tools that suit your nonprofit’s needs. This guide offers advice on how to approach the event software research pro ..read more

Every profession likes to claim ethics are essential to its success. But you can make an especially robust case that this is indeed the case in fundraising. What does it take to be successful in fundraising? Strengths like persuasion, problem solving, and persistence come to mind quickly. But integrity is squarely at the top. Fundraising is a profession directed at nurturing friendships that culminate in gifts of time, talent, and treasure. There’s no way this is possible without earning and maintaining trust. I love the expression that fundraising occurs at the speed of trust. Fundraising eth ..read more

The other day I spoke with a major gift fundraiser who had quit her job with a large health care facility. Why? She couldn’t stand the focus on metrics as the reference point against which her work was evaluated. Everything was about numbers and, for her, this prevented her from focusing on truly building relationships with the donors to whom she was assigned. I understood her perspective and immediately shared with her this similar take from another professional fundraising expert. Numbers and measurements have their place, but there is an administrative function to them. They are about order ..read more

Our Ask An Expert series features real questions answered by Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, our very own Fundraising Coach, also known as Charity Clairity. Today’s question comes from a nonprofit employee who wants advice on when it makes sense to celebrate a nonprofit anniversary:   Dear Charity Clairity, We have a 75th anniversary coming up, and I really think we should do something to celebrate this milestone. But, I can’t get the board to really support this with much enthusiasm. In fact, they gave more over the past several years than they seem willing to commi ..read more

Our Ask An Expert series features real questions answered by Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, our very own Fundraising Coach, also known as Charity Clairity. Today’s question comes from a nonprofit employee who wants advice on what the average foundation portfolio size is for a full-time grant manager:   Dear Charity Clairity, What is the average foundation portfolio size for a full-time grant manager? I can’t find an answer anywhere! I know this will vary depending on the GM’s salary and their fundraising goal, but there has to be a formula somewhere. I have been tol ..read more

Did you know that each year, millions of dollars by women donors may be left unclaimed, due to the lack of understanding around the way that women give? Millions. Right at the fingertips of so many organizations moving the good work forward, and yet there is still not a greater prioritization of engaging women donors. Add to this, that during the Great Migration of Wealth, which is currently underway, it is women who will lead the way with inheriting extraordinary sums of philanthropic resources. With all of this in mind, even if it has never been a targeted approach at your organization, delv ..read more

When you’re a busy fundraising professional, it might seem like you’re jumping from one campaign to the next. It seems often easiest to “rinse and repeat” last year’s campaigns. However, I encourage you to take some time to analyze your online fundraising campaigns to optimize your overall fundraising results. Analyzing your campaigns can help you: Track how the campaigns are performing so that you can adjust and improve them along the way Understand how well the campaigns performed compared with your goals Identify trends and opportunities that you can use to improve future fundraising campa ..read more

Our Ask An Expert series features real questions answered by Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, our very own Fundraising Coach, also known as Charity Clairity. Today’s question comes from a nonprofit employee who wants advice on whether they should hire a development consultant:   Dear Charity Clairity, I’m a one-person development shop, wondering if I should hire a consultant to help with some of the work that’s not getting done. I need to make the case for this to my boss. Can you help? — Wearing Too Many Hats Dear Wearing Too Many Hats, To receive your money’s worth ..read more

SEO is an essential part of any organization’s marketing strategy, and this doesn’t change for nonprofits. Nonprofits will need to prioritize the highest impact SEO strategies to optimize their lower time and budget. So what are the best SEO strategies for nonprofits? The best SEO strategies for nonprofits provide the highest impact for the lowest investment. These include: Targeting lower difficulty keywords before high difficulty ones Optimizing your content to ensure it follows basic SEO best practices Focusing on local SEO to be found easier on Google Including E-E-A-T information in thei ..read more