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		<title>Want to attract millennials? Try throwing a big ol&#8217; party.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s so nice to get up on my millennial soapbox once again and find a few more folks standing up here with me: Kristen Eddings of the Washington Global Health Alliance and UW School of Law student Jessica Smith. These two fellow impassioned millennials gave a great presentation at last week’s Northwest Development Officers Association winter [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2012/01/31/1055/</link>
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		<title>Writing a Personal Appeal Letter</title>
		<description><![CDATA[We at The Collins Group spend our professional lives advising clients on best practices to communicate with donors. Yet writing an appeal letter for a personal cause remains an incredibly challenging fundraising effort. It seems like it should be easy formula. Worthy cause? Check.  Admirable organization? Check. Compelling human element? Check.  A + B + [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2012/01/24/writing-a-personal-appeal-letter/</link>
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		<title>After the Year-End Whirl: A January Checklist</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Repeating this favorite from last January as it still holds true. Have you made your checklist yet? Year-end gift acknowledgments and tax receipts are going in the mail. For many development professionals, January is the time of year for shifting gears, perhaps from a winter appeal to an upcoming signature event, or from fundraising for operations to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2012/01/10/after-the-year-end-whirl-a-january-checklist/</link>
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		<title>Beyond the Thank You: Making the Most of Your Stewardship Efforts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[As fundraising professionals, my TCG colleagues and I often remind our client organizations about the importance of retaining donors, and the role of good stewardship in retention. As individual donors, the end of the year is a great time to observe how well those organizations we personally support know us: our giving habits, our interests, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2011/12/21/beyond-the-thank-you-making-the-most-of-your-stewardship-efforts/</link>
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		<title>How Not to Treat Your Donors</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you are working in development right now, chances are good that your life is consumed by year-end appeals, year-end metrics, and year-end numbers.  And, if you are a donor to nonprofits, this is the time of year that you receive appeals from many of them, all seeking another gift, a new gift, or a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2011/12/13/how-not-to-treat-your-donors/</link>
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		<title>Huddle, Rally, and Break!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The level of philanthropic giving has remained relatively static in the U.S. over the past 40 years. Through recessionary years, this might feel like success, but who doesn’t believe our society would be a better place if the nonprofit sector had even more fuel? Thirty-five nonprofit leaders and researchers came together to determine how we [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2011/12/06/huddle-rally-and-break/</link>
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		<title>GiveBLOG</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week, Julie and I joined about 75 nonprofit professionals at an NDOA event for a recap of last year’s Seattle Foundation GiveBIG event on June 23rd, and received a  sneak preview of GiveBIG 2012. In case you missed it, GiveBIG was a city-wide day of philanthropy last June where people were asked to donate [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2011/11/15/giveblog/</link>
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		<title>Volunteers&#8230;who needs them? YOU do!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’ll admit it: When it comes to fundraising volunteers, I’m an unabashed flip-flopper. In my almost 20 years in the fundraising trenches, I’ve dealt with my share of volunteers who wouldn’t give and wouldn’t ask. Now, they said they’d give, and they said they’d ask, but they just never quite got around to doing either. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2011/11/01/volunteers-who-needs-them-you-do/</link>
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		<title>Favorite Recent &amp; Upcoming Presentations (Slides Included!)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Social Media for Nonprofits Conference, on a national whirlwind tour, swept through Seattle just over a week ago and hurled a vast amount of sensible advice and provocative ideas at its rapt audience. You weren&#8217;t able to attend? The tour participants were kind enough to share their slides publicly. I strongly encourage you to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2011/10/24/favorite-recent-upcoming-presentations-slides-included/</link>
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		<title>How to &#8220;Speak Audience&#8221;: Speaking Tips for Nonprofit Professionals</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It took a long time to admit to myself that I was an introverted fundraiser masquerading as an extroverted one. I enjoyed meeting with donors and working with volunteers, but I also desperately needed alone time to recharge my batteries. I thought I was the only introverted fundraiser in the world, and it wasn’t until [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.collinsgroup.com/blog/2011/10/18/how-to-speak-audience-speaking-tips-for-nonprofit-professionals/</link>
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