Raising Money through Hosted Events

In a recent article, Four Low Cost Fundraising Ideas, I suggested that non-profits of all sizes could benefit from a hosted event program.  I received lots of questions asking for more detail about what hosted events are and how you can use them to raise more money.  Today, we’ll delve into hosted events and how [...]

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Mission + Energy = Raising More Money

As fundraisers, we often focus on planning and tactics: what five things are we going to do to raise $200,000 this year?  How are we going to shift our direct mail strategy to find more mid-level donors?  What’s our social media fundraising plan? Tactics are important.  Strategy is important.  We can’t ignore them: that’s why [...]

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How to Be a Great Development Director

Over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to lead the search for a development director for several different non-profits, and over the course of my career have served as the development director for several organizations.  I have spent a lot of time thinking – what makes a development director “great”? While great [...]

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How to Motivate Your Board to Raise More Money

This is a tricky subject, and a difficult one for many non-profits to address:  How can you get your board to raise more money on your behalf? I’m not talking about “show boards,” those boards of directors that you asked people to be on just so you could attach their name to your cause (usually [...]

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3 Great Unusual Fundraising Ideas

When small and midsized non-profits are looking for new fundraising ideas, they are usually given ideas that require a lot of work for only a little return.  Things like carwashes, rummage sales, and spare change collections can raise money, but often take a ton of work in return for just a few thousand dollars of [...]

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Guide to Raising Money from Foundations (Part II)

In Part I of this article, we discussed what foundations are and how they operate.  In this part, we’re going to talk about how your organization can raise money (or raise more money) through foundation grants.  (For even more information on what grants are and how to approach them as part of your fundraising plan, [...]

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Guide to Raising Money from Foundations (Part I)

For many small and medium-sized non-profits, foundation fundraising seems like the holy grail: there are thousands of charitable foundations with trillions of dollars to give in the United States alone.  For many small charities, receiving one big check from one of these organizations would be enough to fund their activities for the next several years. [...]

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Major Donor Fundraising 101

Many non-profits, particularly smaller churches, schools, and charities, believe that all they need to succeed is for that one (or two… or three…) major donors to come knocking and fund the projects that the organization has in the pipeline. Unfortunately, as these organizations usually find out, major donors rarely just show up and write a [...]

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