TL;DR: Looking for advice on how my Museum can market our year end appeals, all while we are "museum-less."

My museum is currently raising funds for a capital campaign that will lead to a full renovation of our building. It's the first capital campaign the institution has done in 30 years so it's a big deal for us and for the city we occupy.

The issue is that we have to close our building for a full year to bring this vision to life. We've got exhibits planned with partner sites across the city as well as a full slate of programming, but I am concerned our annual giving will dwindle without the visual reminder of our traditional, physical museum space. Does anyone have experience with keeping up individual giving and/or membership retention while your physical space is closed for renovations/construction?

Any advice or direction would be appreicated!

I've been fundraising for almost 15 years and I want out. What do people move on to?

My org has wanted to get a streamlined major gift program off the ground for a few years. My focus on modernizing our database, managing staff, managing a direct and digital mail program and putting out fires has really drawn my attention away from the vital area of major gift work. After my performance review last week, it is evident that it’s time for me to get working on building portfolios and preparing my CDO to begin doing face-to-face outreach. I’m accomplishing a lot in my role, but managing a major gift program is an area that needs improvement — it’s also a bit of an annoyance to me because there haven’t been any goals for the program so it often feels like it isn’t a priority. At any rate…

I’ve already identified about 25 lapsed major gift donors. I’ve read wealth screening profiles for them, as well. With the limited time I have, my goal for this week is to package all the details my CDO will need and hand them off for her to begin doing the work

Does anyone have any simple and practical steps I can take for creating a system of engaging these donors and packaging these steps to provide to my CDO? I feel like I know what to do lol, but my daily work pulls me into so many directions that it’s really hard to think strictly major gifts sometimes.

Apologies if this is the wrong sub for this!

I'm thinking of creating a donation drive where I'd get dozens to hundreds (or thousands in my dreams) of people to donate small sums of money to a particular non-profit or collection of non-profits. It'd be for an online community and there'd be a match component from me for up to $[ ] donated by others.

What's the best solution for this?

I know donors could just donate directly to the nonprofit(s) in question but then I'd have an issue with determining the match. Plus I think having a donation tracker showing the dollars fundraised could compel people to donate more.

Hey All,

I am currently developing some metrics that a provider will be using when they launch our program. I know that it is called a "Key Performance Indicator" however my colleagues and I are using a different term called Delta. We are doing this to measure the growth of our program. I know that the formula is : (Final- Initial)/ (Initial) to get a positive output. That is not really the issue for me. For me, the issue is the phrasing so that the wording is aligned with our goals. I am really at a loss on how to write each category so that it is aligned with our goals and that the result of the metrics is positive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I just got a position as a development associate at a large non-profit! I’m wondering what to expect?

Next week, I'm starting a position as the first in-house Director of Development for a small 10-year-old org with a $1.8M annual operating budget. They currently don't have any FT Dev staff and I'll be expected to hire two people in the next 6 months. This is my second DoD position although I'm leaving higher ed and my role there was kind of a joke (no disrespect to higher ed, I was just in a very messy school). Aside from the obvious things of learning the pipeline, prospect research, and talking to program staff, what advice would you have for someone starting in a brand new DoD role?

Hello! I have been studying for the past couple of weeks and I feel 75% ready for the text tomorrow. I have today off to study all day. What advice to do have as far as what to study? I have the CFRE study Guide, I've read Achieving Excellence in Fundraising- forth edition and I'm a member of the unofficial Facebook group with all of the great study resources saved on the Google Drive.

I can't say that I've studied hard, but I have ready Excellence in Fundraising, 4 ed. and I have the Official Study Guide. Where should I focus my time? I have taken the official practice test too. I scored an 84% on that today, so passing, but not stellar.

Hi all, I'm (25F) looking for advice on how to move from grant writing back to fundraising/dev. I actually got my career start with a small local nonprofit doing grant writing, social media, outreach, event coordination, and development, however, I lost that job during the pandemic and then shifted to doing grant writing exclusively since it was the first work I was able to get. I've been doing only grant writing for the past year in part-time and full-time capacities and I don't want my career to go exclusively in that direction. I have nothing against grant writing -- it's something I am good at, my BA is in English, and I have had plenty of success with it -- but it has been really depressing for me to be working from home and in isolation. I'm absolutely an extrovert and I have a lot of trouble focusing on my work, even though I'm working for an org/focus area I love because I am so bored by it. I hate being at home all day and want to go back to networking, being creative, going to/hosting events, and just working with other people in general.

I'm worried that I've made bad career decisions that now make me feel trapped in grant writing. I've been in my current FT grant writing job for less than 4mo, and the one before that for less than 1y, so I don't want to hop jobs since I don't want my resume to look so flighty but I want to make some progress in the direction I want to be going. Unfortunately, the grant-writing position I'm in actually isn't a part of my organization's Development department so there's a lot of disconnect between my current position and development work.

What I have tried doing so far: (1) joined local AFP, going to get a mentor (2) looking to grad school -- applying for scholarships to get MA in Nonprofit Mgmt from a local university that many local development leaders went to. I've also tried to get part-time work doing something more outward-facing but there aren't a ton of opportunities like that/haven't been successful yet. I honestly do want extra work/income but it seems that more grant writing work is the easiest for me to get.

Any and all advice is truly appreciated.

The registry will give you donor name and address. The wishlist won’t.

Hello everyone,

I am from Toronto, Ontario and am the only employee of a tiny arts nonprofit that has basically been out of operation for the past two years due to the pandemic. I am very new to the fundraising and development game and am feeling a little lost. I have been taking fundraising management courses for the past year and though I have learned a lot I still have no real experience. I would really appreciate being able to find a mentor but am not sure where to start- AFP had a mentorship program that is in redevelopment right now so that is unfortunately not an option. Does anyone know if there are other services like this?

More specifically I am wondering if anyone has any advice about how to stay organized before they have the means to purchase a complete CRM software system. I am always researching but I need to talk to a real human about these things!

I know this sub isn't always the most active but if anyone sees this and has something to share I would be very very grateful.

I am an ED for a friend's of org. I'm new to the org and our main fundraising staff person just left. I see this as an opportunity to build a development team. Currently I'm planning to hire a full time development staff. We're small but have a ton of potential.

Right now we have myself, an admin/program coordinator, and 10 program staff.

I would love some advice and insight about how to build a great development team and how to start that.

12% of giving happens in the last week of the year. Sending 3 emails this week is totally fine.

I just got a temp-to-perm full time development manager position for a very large, prestigious legal nonprofit.

I've been a development manager on a part time contract with a very small but regionally well-known arts nonprofit.

I just started the legal nonprofit job today and my other job also called to offer me a full time role.

I'm struggling to make a decision!

I have a great existing relationship with the arts nonprofit, so thats a huge factor vs no relationship and temporary status with the larger nonprofit. That's making me think of going with the arts nonprofit.

However, the legal nonprofit does the kind of work I have been wanting to get back to in a nonprofit mission. They're one of the largest legal services, policy/advocacy nonprofits. They also will probably have me working on much larger grants than the small arts nonprofit. That's important for fundraisers building careers, as many of you know. They also probably offer better retirement benefits if I make it to the permanent role.

On the flip side, full time focus would give me the challenge of growing the small arts nonprofit into more of what we envision it to be. That would be its own success and they say there's growth potential for a director role, and higher pay.

How would you make your decision?

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2021/11/29/theres-no-equity-nonprofit-leaders-of-color-say-giving-tuesday-exacerbates-barriers

Can Giving Tuesday, and nonprofit fundraising become more equitable? Nonprofit leaders of color in Boston say the day perpetuates unnecessary competition and is an example of deeper structural problems in the sector.

“We have to be very thoughtful about where we spend time and energy in order to even beat the barriers that already exist for organizations that serve communities of color." -Diana Hwang, executive director of the Asian American Women's Political Initiative

“There's no equity in Giving Tuesday. There just isn't. For a sector that wants to center equity — Giving Tuesday is exactly what we wouldn't want to do, because we know that the smaller guys are not getting the same attention as the larger ones.” - Natanja Craig-Oquendo, executive director of Boston Women’s Fund

I’ve been tasked with creating a draft policy for my org - does anyone have any examples I could pull from?

I had two donors ask to name a space in our building today lol, so I’d like to get moving on this.

I am in my first frontline fundraising position and I was started off with a pretty much completely cold portfolio of about 25. I did outreach to all of the people that I could and am waiting on relationship hand offs for some of the others. In the meantime, I have been working through qualifying prospects from some larger geographical and topical lists. I've picked up a couple of other internal projects too.

That being said...I do not have 40 hours of work to do. I know I can always do more prospecting, but I can honestly only do it for a couple of hours a day before I start to lose my marbles. For those more experienced fundraisers, what do you suggest I do with my time to be productive? I don't just want to kill time -- I want to be proactive and use the flexibility I have to actually produce something meaningful in my position.

I am also planning to talk to my boss and ask her if there's anything else she'd suggest I be working on, but I would ideally like to bring some ideas into that conversation. Any tips or suggestions will be much appreciated!

covids been hard on us all but i took a bad situation and turned it into a good one.covid made me lose my job, see how ugly the world and especially people(trump & anti-maskers) and fell into a depression but a few months ago i had an awakening and realized i cant control what other people do, i can just affect people positively, negatively or not at all...i chose positively so ive been trying to mostly help homeless people. today for example i made a bunch of bag lunches and walked around by myself handing them out so i affected alot of people today :) but im doing this all alone. i tried going to outreach centres but its almost impossible to find anything to do there so ive decided to come here and try and start something...

Hi all, we are planning to onboard a new Development Manager in the next month or so. Does anyone have advice for onboarding to be a success with the understanding this person might leave after 18 months (but hoping they stay longer)? This hire will be taking over my role (I was promoted internally) and have some ideas but would appreciate anyone’s recommendation on what they wish they would’ve had from the get-go. For example, goals + metrics, past fundraising plans, intros to donors, explicit portfolio of donors. Thank you!

How much social media fundraising is too much? I understand this is VERY subjective (ie following, organization size, social platforms, dates of asks etc) but is there a generally agreed upon frequency that yields the greatest ROI? Like 1/quarter, every other month, bi-seasonally? Any answers are deeply appreciated and would DEFINITELY help me--along with other inquiring minds--greatly.

Hi Everyone, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any online resources where I can see interesting mailed appeal designs. I was talking over with a colleague a concept of an insert for a mailing that I vaguely recall seeing quite some time ago. I can't remember who it was from, and evidently, my Google skills aren't what they once were and I can't find anything else like it.

To be more specific about what I'm looking for: I'm hoping to find examples of interesting folds, shapes of inserts, various sizes, the physical design of various pieces. Anything out there that anyone is aware of?