I loved graduate school. I moved across the country to attend grad school and not only had a wonderful adventure, but a fantastic education that I truly value. I loved it so much, that a decade later I am still paying for that education and will be until my own child leaves for college a [...]
Last week, I attended the Washington Planned Giving Council Planned Giving Day conference at Seattle Pacific University as did our CEO Aggie Sweeney (see her blog post here). For someone like me who is just beginning to learn all the terms and options of planned giving vehicles, the information was surprisingly easy to digest. The [...]
Is there really a recession underway? I am a benefit luncheon junkie. I attend an amazing amount every year and I never fail to be inspired, renewed, and rejuvenated at the impact I can have in making our world a better place. Last week I attended the annual luncheon for Hopelink. For those of you [...]
For nonprofit organizations in every sector and every region of the country, 2009 has been a challenging year for fundraising. And with the great majority of personal contributions given in the last quarter of the calendar year, staff and board members are feeling significant pressure to secure needed funding. A new study commissioned by Campbell [...]
A current TCG campaign client, the Methow Conservancy, put a big challenge out to its community this summer. It wasn’t the typical fundraising challenge, where raising a certain dollar amount would unlock a challenge award. This was the Every Donor Counts Challenge. The Methow Conservancy’s Imagine the Methow Campaign received a $100,000 challenge from a [...]
Yesterday I attended a fundraising revival of sorts, the second annual AFP Major Gifts Symposium in Seattle. Along with 300+ fundraising professionals, trustees, and CEOs, I was challenged to refresh my thinking about donor stewardship in the context of creating a philanthropic environment that supports successful major gifts fundraising. That environment, keynote speaker Karen Osborne [...]
Stuart Grover, TCG’s Chairman Emeritus, debuted his latest book “Getting the Green: Fundraising Campaigns for Community Colleges” this week. With community colleges facing increased enrollment and decreased public funding, ”Getting the Green” offers community college–specific guidance for every step of planning, carrying out, and following up fundraising campaigns. A 30+ year veteran of the nonprofit sector, [...]
The role of social media in nonprofits is getting an enormous amount of attention these days. Without a doubt networking tools enable your organization to build a level of awareness previously unimaginable (and prohibitively expensive). However, just like the ability to “friend” hundreds of people in our personal lives can blur the boundaries of deep vs. casual [...]
We at The Collins Group spend a great deal of time thinking about the state of the nonprofit sector, both here at home in the Northwest and across the country. We share a great deal of this information amongst ourselves on a daily basis and with our clients, and wanted a way to share thoughts [...]
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