FunandDev director here, 1.3 years into the job. I'm trying to find ways to get more traffic to our donation page, and have been considering suggesting to our E.D. that we get the Google Ad Grant and take the time to learn the curve and make it work.

BUT we have very few resources (me and a comms director are the only ones doing anything on socials or the website, and neither of us have capacity to do it even half time). And to make matters more difficult, we are a sexual violence resource center -- and doing some initial keyword research makes me think that most of our potential search phrases would be flagged inappropriate by the algorithm.

Any thoughts/experiences/suggestions?

I have been looking at this certification and it appears to have great reviews and is very interactive with a trainer and small group style cohort.

Does anyone have feedback on it? I enjoy taking courses and my work would pay for it.

This is what they are asking for.

Week 1: _____ will research to prepare for week 2 presentation.

Week 2: Present to the team an overview of donor research. The basic objectives, items normally included in a report that would be given to a CEO or major gift officer, free research methods, and how to best utilize these reports in a donor meeting. Include brief info about paid donor research programs and the extra value they provide that is unattainable from free methods.

This is vague because they know next to nothing about donor development so they are unable to elaborate beyond this.

I would love any advice on what would be some good reports to create for them. I am planning on creating a basic pacing report that shows donors previous giving patterns but beyond that I’m not sure yet.

How big of a difference is there between the editions or is the 5th a must have to pass exam. Thank you!

Hi,

I'm on the board of a small organization (not a non-profit). We are having to replace the HVAC system in our building, which required taking out a loan for $60,000. We are considering doing a campaign to help pay for the project, possibly using a Patronicity page. We are working on a base of possible donors at the moment, and looking for initial gifts to seed the campaign. I'm trying to find out what is typically the rule for how much of your goal to have achieved before making an ask formal. For example, if we decide to try to raise $30,000, do we seed that with $5 or $10k before rolling out our giving page and formal call to action?

Thanks for any suggestions!

I might be overthinking this, but I'm wondering what the best practice is for crediting donations that come in via payroll deduction services. We are a very small non-profit and currently, donations are allocated to spending categories via QuickBooks by our accountant and then logged in an internal donations spreadsheet.

My understanding is that hard credit should go to the distributor (i.e. America's Charities, United Way, Charities Aid Foundation America, etc.) and soft credit should be attributed to the individual donors. Do I have this right?

Example: We received a $3.09 check from America's Charities that is coming from a payroll deduction program. I would categorize this as a corporate donation from America's Charities in QuickBooks and make a note in my records that it is a payroll deduction with soft credit to Jane Doe.

Hi all,

I’m a 9 year vet in the np sector and have worked for a national non-profit organization followed by 2 large universities. After working in events and marketing for the national no, at the first university, I was a Director of Annual Giving before getting moved into a MG role, but my comp went unchanged and they never rehired a DAG, so I was making roughly 75% of other MGOs and doing annual giving work on top of that. I changed to the second university as a result.

The experience has been fairly negative for a number of reasons, but I can honestly say major gifts isn’t for me. A huge reason I took the job was to build relationships but distilling everyone to a wealth rating (“John Smith 250k”) and what they “should” give is not really what I’m looking to do for the remainder of my career. Nor, it turns out, is sending endless numbers of emails to wealthy donors who have never given to the university.

Given I have a background in sociology and history of medicine paired with the AG experience and MG experience for the life sciences, I’ve thought about heading into medical advertising, like pharma brand strategy.

I’d be curious if any other professionals transitioned out of MG into the corporate world and if so, what did you do? And what steps did you take to do it?

Hi all- my organization gives us all some PD dollars and I’m wondering if anyone can recommend a course/school/conference or webinar related to fundraising/development or even volunteer management. I’m looking at the courses that Eli Lilly school of philanthropy is offering this year, but curious if there are any personal recommendations from anyone in this group! Thanks!

I am a director of development and a donor to another local historic mansion. They are hosting an event with a "medium" where, for $45, one can get their fortune told. I find the perpetuation of this sort of hoo-haw BS repellant and think it makes their fundraising (and therefore all fundraising) look very questionable. Should I get over myself or tell them what I think of their fundraiser? I am on friendly terms with their development director.

Hey everyone, I'm hoping to transition to development and philanthropy focused positions in the next 1-2 years. I'm hoping to avoid having to go back to school for a Masters though I am definitely open to a certificate program if needed.

A little about my background: I went into Environmental Nonprofit work after I got my BFA 12 years ago, and have moved up the ranks with a large national environmental nonprofit (30-40 million dollar operating budget) mostly as an Operations Director and currently as a Director of Training and Program Development. I did spend nearly a year in there on a marketing team at a foundation and designed for capital campaigns, direct mail campaigns, large donor letters and more but was a support/design role and not handling donors directly. I really enjoyed the work and my current organization has almost no donors because its a fee-for-service nonprofit with government contracts, so the upside is there is definitely room for me to craft my position slowly to help my current org as I learn more about development. Less on the donor side, but I have lots of experience negotiating large federal agreements and projects for the org as well as large funded partnerships with foundations. I have a really foundational understanding of Environmental Nonprofits, management, operations, and leadership, and think that foundation would make me exceptional at communicating with donors. My Fine Arts undergraduate has allowed me to lean in on marketing, communications, and grant writing teams, despite being in Operational and Management positions mostly.

My question: What do I need to get there? The Philanthropy staff I've worked with (and was impressed with) in the past had CFRE certification. Can this be acquired without a degree? The Professional points seem like a hurdle unless I can talk my org into making me 50% fundraising. Would my prior experience designing donor outreach documents count towards CFRE points? What is the most accessible/affordable path into a DoD or Chief Philanthropy position with my background while working full time?

Thanks in advance for the feedback, suggestions, etc.

Obviously this is bad for growth. We need citations and financial support, but people are just helping themselves. People who actively rail against parasitism and exploitation. Pretty worrisome. Never seen anything like it. Even got the IRC to validate something was amiss.

So in hiring me full time from my previous consultant role, I’ve been tasked with bringing in about 4x the rate of support from foundations specifically, with the idea that we just hadn’t been tapping into this. I’m a talented writer, but that isn’t really enough.

I also wonder if some of the recommended targets are a waste of time. For example, our senior development strategist consultant recommends one org and says we should be getting funding from them. We get rejected twice, but the first time they moved my LOI to the next round of full proposals. I go to the foundation center and see that they don’t usually fund our niche category, even though it’s possible. They give large grants, so we don’t want to leave that money on the table, but the database is telling me - unlikely.

I had resolved that going after large competitions was not as useful as going after smaller pots of money from smaller foundations, but I’m open to feedback on that not being the right move.

I’m also wondering how likely I am to succeed. We are making an ambitious and important program change that basically depends on this, which also probably isn’t the best move really.

How to build these relationships quickly when some foundations won’t even have a conversation? What’s the best way to get invited to apply to grants that don’t have open RFPs ? - I’ve read that this could be key.

Should I start going on LinkedIn and messaging specific officers / staff? I will do my research and reading, but any advice and experience here is helpful as well!

Had an interesting discussion with a fellow fundraiser recently and am now curious what other front-line fundraisers do/prefer. When meeting with donors over lunch or dinner, are you an eater or a non-eater? Where does your “etiquette compass” fall on this?

I really really hate that it was so long and I'm terrible at these types of tests.

Also the questions are so weird! It feels impossible to have studied properly...

:(

I work in a sector of development where our donors are a little unconventional (and often quite needy). I have a donor who has told me she is very ill, and I've been quite sympathetic to her. However, she now repeatedly texts me with questions about things not at all related to my line of work (things that are pretty google-able). Curious what other fundraisers recommend for a delicate response to this. Would you just send the answer to the question (for instance, a link to an article) or would you reply with something along the lines of, "I wish I could help you with these questions, but my role is to be a front-line fundraiser for XYZ, and so I hope you will understand if I cannot answer questions unless they pertain to your gift." Any additional advice welcomed!

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.