Tag: Individual Giving

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Giving

Year-End Giving

Year-End Giving
You never hear people say, “I know when I am.”  But it’s often useful to know where you stand in a temporal sense.  From a fundraiser’s point of view, it’s important to know where you are timewise  when we approach the end of the year.  One of out of every three dollars contributed to nonprofit organizations is donated in the month of December alone!

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Does Fundraising Slow Down in the Summer?

A reader asks, “Doesn’t giving slowdown in the summer?” Summertime is usually a challenging time for nonprofit fundraising and is often seen as the “off season.” Statistics show that nonprofits bring in less than 5% of their annual fundraising revenue in both July and August, respectively. Also, less donations are usually made during these two summer months than the rest of the year. Five Immediate Summertime Actions To make the most of the dog days of summer, consider these five immediate action steps: Increase your donor cultivation and stewardship Pick up the phone and call your major donors, even if

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New ‘Giving USA’ Report Signals Turbulence Ahead for Fundraisers

New ‘Giving USA’ Report Signals Turbulence Ahead for Fundraisers

By Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO The pre-eminent source of annual data about giving and philanthropy in the United States — Giving USA Foundation — this week released its 2021 report. This year’s edition offers a mixed bag of news for fundraisers and sends a few warning signals about what we can expect in the balance of 2022. But before the warnings, some good news: Charitable giving totaled a near-record $484.9 billion in 2021, which was flat when compared to 2020. That’s considered a win, especially since COVID-19 sparked an 8.1% annual increase in giving in 2020, and many observers feared

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Advancing Your Prospect Research

Advancing Your Prospect Research

By Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO A lot of donor information is hidden. Most donors aren’t advertising their net worth or telling us about the other nonprofits they donate to. So it’s up to us to do the research in advance of our conversations with them. Three Options Nonprofits have three options for conducting this research: Conducting In-House Research — Larger nonprofits with the financial means often build dedicated research teams into their organizational structure. Hiring a Consultant — Instead of hiring a full-time prospect researcher or having an existing staff member screen donors, you can bring in consultants like NPI

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Moving the Needle

Beyond Major Gifts: Transformational Donors

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO To quickly understand the difference between a major donor and a transformational donor, here are three examples of very different donors, all of whom at one time were NPI clients: first, a mega wealthy donor; second, a thoughtful philanthropist who made good use of his family fortune; and third, a widow who leveraged her own gift and invited her family and friends to join her. Michael Bloomberg gave a historic $1.8 billion gift to Johns Hopkins University (JHU) entirely for financial aid, allowing JHU to begin accepting students without regard to their ability to pay.

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Donor Advised Funds: 7 Myths Debunked

By: Al Cantor November marks the tenth anniversary of Professor Ray Madoff’s New York Times op-ed calling for new rules that would accelerate grantmaking from donor-advised funds. Over the years since, as the amount of money in donor-advised funds has grown from $25 billion to $142 billion, the DAF industry has pushed back strongly against Madoff and other reformers, relying on a familiar set of arguments to justify the status quo. These assertions have long rung hollow. Now, thanks to research that has come to light in the last few months, it’s increasingly evident that the talking points of the DAF industry are utterly without

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The Power of Giving Circles

By Roger Craver A wise fundraiser constantly searches for new approaches. “New” in terms of sources and approaches to giving beyond the conventional landscape on which most fundraisers graze. I write to sharpen your focus on the growing importance of the giving circle when it comes to diversifying and democratizing philanthropy. According to Philanthropy Together, there are 2,000+ giving circles in the U.S. involving approximately 150,000 donors who have contributed $1.29 billion. You’ll find a treasure trove of info on the power of giving circles when you visit the following links to Philanthropy Together’s website: Find a Giving Circle Support a Giving Circle Start

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Leverage Make-a-Will Month To Boost Planned Giving

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO Baby Boomers will pass on more than $30 trillion in wealth to the next generation over the ensuing 25 years — and they are deciding right now who to leave their estates to. Further, the Coronavirus pandemic has stimulated a rapid rise in estate planning and legacy or planned giving, as well as a drop in cash gifts due to economic uncertainty. That’s why taking advantage now of August being the National Make-A-Will Month is a great fundraising step. You have a significant opportunity to increase your nonprofit’s planned gifts by making your donors aware

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How Much Time Should It Take To Close a Major Gift?

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO How much time should it take to close a major gift? The short answer is less time than you think.   You see, I have observed that fundraisers spend far too long cultivating donors. Cultivation can even mask procrastinating over making the ask!   I hear this from fundraisers quite frequently: “I don’t feel like it’s the right time to ask this person for support. I am scared they will say ‘no,’ and then what will I do?  So, I keep ‘cultivating’ them.”  Such delays lead to protracted cultivation and solicitation period and likely a missed opportunity—or clarity

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Donor Advised Funds: Why Community Foundations Should Endorse the ACE Act

By Alan Cantor Watch a recent in-depth NPI webinar on the subject of Donor-Advised Funds Some people simply can’t take “yes” for an answer. How else can one explain how some community foundation leaders rejected the thoughtful set of reforms contained in the Accelerating Charitable Efforts (ACE) Act — a series of measures to reform Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) that would actually serve community foundations well? For years, the lobbying arm of community foundations — the Community Foundations Public Awareness Initiative — has embraced a business model in which it fights any form of reforms around DAFs, no matter how mild.

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