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Julie Whelan Capell | Last month, I did a little myth busting about phone calls and millennials. If you read that post, you know that most younger donors have very distinct ideas about when to use texts versus emails versus the phone. But those are just the means of communication. What about the best MESSAGES […]
Julie Whelan Capell | How many times have you heard that millennials (and younger cohorts) would rather get texts than phone calls or emails? The truth, as in many things, is complicated. It’s not that you should never make a phone call to a millennial, but you need to understand when to use a phone […]
Julie Whelan Capell | ‘Tis the season for annual appeals, and that means it’s also the season for sending thank you letters to donors. If you’re like most nonprofits, you’ve put a lot of thought into the appeal letters, but your thank you letters will be a tired rehash of the one you sent last […]
Julie Whelan Capell | Last month in part four of this series, I discussed what to do in an ask meeting with a donor. Today, in the fifth and final installment in “Making the Ask,” I give you ideas for how to follow up with major gift donors after the ask meeting. Immediately after the […]
Julie Whelan Capell | This is the fourth post in my series on major gifts fundraising. If you need to remember what I covered in my previous posts: Here are some ideas about how to figure out who you need to meet with Here are tips on getting prospects to accept a meeting Here I […]
Julie Whelan Capell | Here we are, part three in my series on “Making the Ask.” In May, I gave you some ideas about figuring out who are your major gift prospects. In June I reviewed how to get the ask meeting and today I’ll talk about preparing for the meeting. Before I get into […]
Julie Whelan Capell | Asking for major gifts is not as hard as many people think, but it does require quite a bit of preparation. As I discussed in last month’s post, first you need to figure out who you should be meeting with. Once you have a prioritized list of qualified prospects, the next […]
Julie Whelan Capell | Asking for money. If you’re a leader (staff or volunteer) of a nonprofit, eventually you’ll have to ask people for money. It’s part of the job description. I’ve often worked with clients who want to pass this job off to their development staff. That’s okay for some prospects, but the biggest, […]
Julie Whelan Capell | I’ve been a fundraiser for a loooooong time–more than 30 years. In that time, I have heard many variations on statements like these: “Fundraisers are like used car sales people, they just talk at you until they wear you down” (that was my boss, the CEO of a large nonprofit. I […]
Julie Whelan Capell | Contributed by Julie Whelan Capell, MWA Associate It’s that time of year when nonprofits start to think about annual reports. We have a couple of clients who still do a printed one, but they are in the minority, and the reports they print are getting shorter every year. I want to […]
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