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A few months back, I shared a story about a fundraising caller who hung up on me. I was ready to talk to him about my family’s philanthropy, but the paid caller had something different in mind, so he hung up on me, before he learned that I cared about his cause. Bad customers service, [...]
Most of us have heard of the Pareto Principle, or the 80-20 rule (80% of production comes from 20% of the resources). For years, philanthropy experts have used this economics principle from Vilfredo Pareto to explain why so much giving comes from so few people. Of course, for many of the “best” fundraising organizations, that ratio [...]
Competition in the fundraising software marketplace has yielded some big changes and some even bigger questions. Organizations are increasingly asking the “should I stay or should I go” question, no matter what system they’ve implemented. Questions of which vendor, which product, and with what impact and effects can be difficult to answer these days. Corporate [...]
Last night, 8:32 p.m. CT. A truncated transcript from a call (note: I’m sensitive to using a single anecdote to make decisions, but this was teachable moment): (me): “Hello” (some guy, about 10 second later): “Hello? Um, hello?” (me): “What can I do for you?” (some guy): “Is Mr. or Mrs. Cannon home?” (me): “This is Chris Cannon?” [...]
After 1,000′s of discussions with gift officers and prospect development professionals around the world, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: we could all be doing more. More research. More discovery. More proposals. More prospect management meetings. More data entry and tracking. More, well, fundraising. What I have mostly learned, though, is that doing more through [...]
An uproar about data modeling was in full swing the last few days. The NYT reported that Target uses data to, well, target customers. It got one wrong (spilling the beans about a daughter’s pregnancy to her father!) by getting it right (quickly gathering, analyzing and distributing marketing based on data points that knew more about the [...]
The central challenge in fundraising operations is managing data, technology, reporting, business processes, and people while balancing the countervailing forces of accuracy, speed, and volume. This new blog will focus on the difficulties that fundraisers experience and, more importantly, how to overcome these challenges, deliver results, and help our organizations raise more money and build [...]
Client Advisory – July 22, 2011 Frequently, clients ask us to outline the best metrics for managing the important work of fundraising. Our first response to such questions is always, “why?”. We are not questioning the validity of the request, but rather the goal of the metrics. As with any field, there are infinite ways [...]
To Join the Online Briefing: click HERE Entry Code: strategyPerhaps e.e. cummings best described the prevailing approach to fundraising strategy in Seeker of Truth. But sometimes what is common is not what is best. To celebrate Analytics month at Ben…
