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VIDEO: How Much Do You Cost?

Maths of Fundraising
Too often we treat the time of fundraising professionals like you as if it’s a free resource. But it’s not at all free. In fact, it’s the most precious and irreplaceable resource you have. And when you put a dollar…
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Direct Mail: Dead, or More Alive Than Ever?

Direct Mail
These are dark times for direct mail fundraising. Response rates are down (and have been trending lower for more than a decade). At the same time, costs of paper, printing, and postage keep going up, usually faster than inflation. And…
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pop art alarm clock e1541662892489

VIDEO: How Much Do YOU Cost Your Organisation?

Maths of Fundraising
Should you write that appeal? Plan that event? Make those phone calls? Or would it be smarter to outsource it? There’s an amazingly easy way to calculate that. In this short video, I’ll show how an astoundingly complex bundle of…
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pop art man holding money bags free no strings

Free Toilet Paper! How Much Is It Going to Cost?

Pro Bono
Someone recently asked me a very good question: Are in-kind donations part of fundraisers’ responsibility? Or is it the responsibility of a procurement officer? Charities love to get stuff for free. When I was a new fundraiser, fresh out of…
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Pop Art Businessman watered money dollars from a watering can

How Cost-Effectiveness Could Destroy Your Charity

Maths of Fundraising
Write down these three things: Your favourite charity — not the one you work for How you support that charity (monthly gift, volunteer, occasional donation) Why you support them Here’s mine: My favourite charity: The Sumba Foundation How I support…
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Use Postage to Maximize Impact in Direct Mail Fundraising

Direct Mail
It’s easy to get so caught up in the creativity of a direct mail pack that you forget one of the most fundamental facts about it: It’s a piece of mail that goes through the postal system. And that means…
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The Most Crazy Thing I Ever Heard

The Most Crazy Thing I Ever Heard

Maths of Fundraising, Bequests and Legacies
I heard the most crazy thing ever: A frustrated charity fundraiser told me that they had to cancel their annual survey this year. Why? Had it failed to work? Not at all. It was still gathering game-changing data from their…
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The Calculation That Can Chart Your Future

Maths of Fundraising, Major and Mid Value Donors
Net Present Value Net present value (NPV) is a finance term that’s meant to help you decide whether an investment is worthwhile or not. It’s pretty much the same for fundraisers, who can calculate NPV this way: Total projected lifetime…
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Beware Don’t Make These Mistakes When Measuring Success Colin Shaw Featured Image e1519875069306

How the Way You Measure Success Can Shape Your Organization’s Future

Benchmarking, Maths of Fundraising, Trends
When corporations fail to invest in their future, we shake our heads and wonder why they’re so shortsighted. Think of the once-important ice-delivery companies. They didn’t realize they were in the business of providing ice; they apparently thought they were…
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Which Pile of Money Would You Rather Have?

Boards and Fundraising, Donor Psychology, Trends
Dan Pallotta couldn’t have been more right with his TED talk ‘The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong.’ But he wasn’t just trying to explain the importance and good that ‘overhead’ does for charities to the public and media. It’s also the charity staff who really need to…
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