Newton's Laws of Fundraising #83 - You never know who you have hiding in your mailing list!
Bruce doesn’t want to be on the board. But he will have lunch with us. That’s cool. We like lunch. So we get together with Bruce and “run names” for an hour. Do you run names? It’s probably called different things in different parts of the country, but around here that’s what we call it when we’re able to “run a list of names past a Big Shooter,” like Bruce. A past president of the local chamber of commerce, longtime businessman and former Board president for some of the t

Newton's Laws of Fundraising #86 - Hiring a Development Consultant Can Be Very Cost Effective.
Why Hire a Development Consultant? WHEN AND WHY DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO HIRE A DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT? A stereotype is that development consultants cost a fortune. Not all of us! Some of the capital campaign guys do. But the stereotypical high-priced consultant does not have to be the case. If you have specific goals, a specific dollar figure, and specific start-to-finish dates, you can add some real punch to your development activities for less than you think. For exampl

Newton's Laws of Fundraising #89 - Sometimes you have to get out there and make something happen
We've all been there. You've reached that place when there's no momentum anymore. Everything you have set in motion in your fundraising plan has, for whatever reason stopped. You're trying not to panic, but you feel like you're dead in the water. Like those Spanish ships of old that hit the "horse latitudes" of calm seas and had to start jettisoning everything important, including the equines, so they'd be light enough for the wind to catch their sails and start moving agai
