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By: Katie Kinder DeBauche, Associate “It’s almost the end of the year! When is the end of the year appeal going to be in mailboxes?” How often have you heard this from board members and other stakeholders; volunteers and staff; or even clients? It’s that time again – the end of the year fundraising push – now known as “Giving Season” and it arrives earlier and earlier each year. As you’re reading this, you, too, may
By: ML Bennett, MPA, CAP® President & CEO, The Arc of San Antonio Marion Lee penned last July that “In 2005, Barbara Taylor, Richard Chait and William Ryan wrote Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Board. This book and its follow-up: The Practitioners Guide to Governance as Leadership from Cathy Trower are not easy reads, but well worth the effort. Chait and his co-authors present functional Board governance as a series of how-to’s (modes and mind-sets) versus the
“For sure” is not as predictable as it used to be, that’s for sure! 2020 threw all of us for a loop and as we come into 2021, we hope that things will change for the better. However, I believe normalcy may be slower than we had hoped. As we all attempt to navigate our lives to get back to pre-pandemic status and the recent post winter storm chaos, we can’t help but think of
By: Covita Moroney, CFRE, Associate has been a year that called you to adapt to one unanticipated challenge after another—factors completely out of your control. Whatever happened “out there” that presented challenges to you, if you are reading this article you are likely seeking a new lens through which to view the outcomes of your past and future efforts to make a difference. One such lens is the Results Based Accountability (RBA) framework. By this time
By: Karen Kegg, Senior Associate Feasibility studies, or planning studies, are a recommended tool for pre-campaign readiness. Interviews are conducted on donors and friends of an organization who desire to launch a major fundraising campaign in the near future. Not only is the study used to test drive a financial goal set by the Board, but to engage the donor base and empower them to make decisions, understand their wants and needs, clear up misperceptions of
By: Marion Lee, CFRE For many nonprofit organizations, a feasibility study is a huge leap into the unknown. An organization may never have attempted a major fundraising campaign for construction or endowment, or many years have passed since the last campaign. As noted in Karen Kegg’s article, feasibility studies surface information beneficial to the organization, but what do you do next? Once a study is complete, the Board and staff should take time to assimilate the
By: Amy Phipps, Senior Associate As if nonprofit management, development, and program planning weren’t hard enough…welcome to 2020! Along with everything else, the pandemic has added an unwelcome extra layer of difficulty to all things nonprofit. Clients with more need, revenue sources that dry up, more regulatory requirements – all make it harder for nonprofits to do their jobs at a time when their services are most urgently needed. It’s not business as usual this year
By Marion Lee, CFRE In 2005, Barbara Taylor, Richard Chait and William Ryan wrote Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Board. This book and its follow-up: The Practitioners Guide to Governance as Leadership from Cathy Trower are not easy reads, but well worth the effort. Chait and his co-authors present functional Board governance as a series of how-tos (modes and mind-sets) versus the more common concept of to-dos (tasks and technical). In his
By: Barbara Marrou, Associate Why is it necessary to prepare a budget? Isn’t that the thing that takes an enormous amount of time and effort to make, and then is just forgotten until next year? If this is how you feel, then you are not using your budget to its advantage. A nonprofit’s impact is determined by its ability to make good on its promise to deliver services to its clients. A budget highlights what
By: Marion Lee, CFRE Kenneth Burnett in his book, Relationship Fundraising, said, “Fundraisers are members of a profession that is one of the world’s most powerful catalysts for change.” Good fundraisers raise money, great fundraisers make caring service possible by developing processes through the lens of relationship or donor-centered fundraising. They raise life-long friends for an organization. That friendship begins with an annual fund process-the cornerstone of an organization’s fundraising strategy. Primarily considered unrestricted funds,