News and Resources
International Giving Points of Practice
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Growing Relationship Management: Checks and Balances to Ensure Success
Growing Relationship Management: Checks and Balances to Ensure Success In a recent blog post, BWF Managing Associate, Bond Lammey, wrote about the value of establishing a relationship management policy. The relationship between a robust major gift program and...
The Importance of Refreshing Predictive Models
BWF Client Advisory — May 17, 2017 Staying Up to Date At its core, predictive models represent a snapshot in time. Whether that snapshot was taken one week or one year ago, it is the basis of your predictions and just like a printed photograph, this snapshot will...
Engaging Recent Graduates, Not Young Alumni
It is now that time of year when the class of 2017 is thinking about graduation and the next step coming in their lives. As advancement officers at colleges and universities, you are once again hoping you can crack the code to engage these recent graduates. For that...
5 Tips for Getting Started with a Dashboard
The widespread adoption of data visualization in news sources and business reports has spurred the fundraising industry to adopt data visualization in its reporting. Management and staff request data visualization, often in the form of dashboards, for fundraising...
Bridging the Divide Between Frontline Fundraisers and Operations Staff
The end-of-year gift processing and reporting season is over, and most advancement offices are gearing up for spring solicitations and appeals. Now is a good time to review advancement’s strategic priorities and evaluate departmental effectiveness. One critical but...
The “Wealth” of Social Data
Social databases are inexpensive to gain access to, and when married to your database, the combination can be powerful fundraising tool.
Data Analytics Implementation Across Industries
Many nonprofit fundraising shops have long since recognized the value and power of their own internal datasets. Good leaders know that evaluating and analyzing our data leads to important insights that inform our decision making and goal setting processes. A common...
Incorporating Analytics: Make Sure Your Bracket Doesn't Bust Next Year
Now that every 2017 NCAA Tournament bracket is officially busted, is it time to start planning for your 2018 bracket? Check out how industry experts are incorporating analytics into their picks.
Working with Data in R – Part I: Basics
What is R? R is an extremely powerful statistical & data analysis tool that can help you do your work more efficiently, enable you to perform advanced analyses for a large number of applications, and the new skills will impress your boss and colleagues! R is...
21st Century Cures Act: Opportunities to Leverage Philanthropy
If you represent a large academic medical center, medical college, or an institution with a deep medical research enterprise, the recently announced 21st Century Cures Act could offer you positive philanthropic positioning. Passed by overwhelming bipartisan support,...
Colleges and Universities Raise $41 Billion in 2016
Gifts to higher education reached $41 billion in fiscal year 2016, according to the latest Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey. This is only a 1.7 percent increase from the $40.3 billion in 2015, and almost no growth when adjusted for inflation. Harvard...
Socializing Data: Making Sure the Right Data is in Front of the Right Person
Interested in data socialization? Review this article discussing how data socialization is an attempt to tackle the ongoing process of making sure the right data is in front of the right person at the right time.
Introducing the Impact Maturity Model for Fundraising
Great fundraising places are data-driven and develop new approaches, but what sets them apart may be simpler than you think. In this month's Points of Practice, author Josh Birkholz reveals one of the key distinguishing characteristics of high-performing fundraising...
3 Questions for Understanding Fundraising Success
Proper investment in a philanthropy office is vital to success. With that investment comes increased questions, such as “What will success look like?” These questions come from the C-suite as well as the board. Being able to properly answer the “success” questions...