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Good board leadership can help your alumni program achieve more than you think is possible. But for most organizations, board development is one of the toughest areas to navigate. In our upcoming posts, we’ll guide you step by step through this important topic and give you some tools to use as you develop your alumni [...]
As Shenandoah University’s chief fundraisers try to grow their donor pool this year, they are targeting a not-so-wealthy population for the first time: students who are about to graduate. It’s not an easy pitch. The private university in Winchester, Va., charges more than $35,000 a year for tuition and other expenses, and more than 85 percent of a [...]
The Thunderbird School of Global Management enjoyed a 400 percent increase in the number of donors – many of them alumni – to its annual end-of-fiscal-year campaign 2010. Everything they did that year was the same, with one exception – Thunderbird had a small team of social media managers creating and monitoring conversations with the school’s supporters … Continue reading »
For analytics month at Bentz Whaley Flessner, we are proud to offer this Points of Practice written by our colleague, Jennifer McDonough. Her work in building affinity models for alumni relations has seen tremendous success throughout higher education. And the approach is very transferable to other nonprofits as well. We know you will enjoy Affinity Models: Alumni Relations by the Numbers.
Good question (Patting myself on the back since I asked it myself)! In all seriousness, we have a lot of attention paid on our donor counts, renewals, etc. These are great numbers for us to be paying attention to and they serve as an excellent scorecard. But how are we doing with our constituent relations [...]
A fundraiser’s ultimate job is not to raise funds–it is to build relationships. Learn how to create purposeful and strategic cultivation by following these six steps. Posted with permission, Association for Healthcare Philanthropy
The most serious economic recession in 70 years is forcing nearly all non-profits–colleges, universities, children’s hospitals, cultural organizations, and social service agencie–to slash budgets and refocus priorities. One of the first casualties is funding for professional development and training. And this means serious problems for staff retention and program quality are just around the corner. When the economy starts to recover, you may not be ready to catch the wave. Traditionally, most institutions have relied on conferences which deliver a smorgasbord of just-in-case training options. In times of scarcity, the expenses of such conferences call into question the value of training that doesn’t address urgent issues or quickly improve the effectiveness of your programs. Bentz Whaley Flessner has a solution. We’ve been in the business of meeting the just-in-time development and constituent relations training needs for our clients for over 25 years.
In this expanded issue of the Occasional Papers, read how the economy, elections, and the rise of energy costs will affect your fundraising agenda in the lead article, “A Restless Time for Philanthropy,” by Bruce W. Flessner.
It is planning time! In many development shops leaders have accelerated planning to get a jump on the fiscal year, but for most, annual planning takes place around the turn of the year. The prevalence of the exercise we know as planning suggests that it is beneficial, yet the groans that greet the announcement of a planning process suggest that many are not convinced of its value or are unsure how go about it. How can we determine what makes for good planning?
