Building a successful individual giving program has four stages, which should be followed to succeed. Paying attention to this process will have lasting impact on your organization because individual donors make up over 80% of gifts to nonprofit organizations. Individual giving is a key part of a sustainable funding plan….
Category: Articles
Earning the right to send year-end appeals by Carl Sylvestre
In addition to ordering our gifts on-line just before the December 25th delivery “guaranteed” deadline, one of the new rituals in the age of the internet is to receive a year-end reminder from our favorite not-for-profit organizations reminding us that it is time for our year-end tax deductible gift. They…
Database Management: The devil is in the details by Carl Sylvestre
Imagine to your surprise that the best tool to improve your productivity is in the hands of the individual who you know the least. It all depends on the size of your organization and its culture, but in most organizations the data entry staff member is often regulated to the…
Special Events are Project Managements by Carl Sylvestre
The pictures are often glamorous. Everyone is smiling and stunningly dressed. There are also those heartfelt speeches. How could we not have them? There are so many people to thank for making it all possible. Welcome to this year’s Academy awards. Not exactly! I’m talking about one of the many…
Finding liberation in strategic planning by Carl Sylvestre
In reviewing the outcome of a recent campaign, a team raised the following question, “what if we had done this instead, what would have been the outcome?” Of course we will never know, the road we didn’t take doesn’t add up to anything. It never happened. What we can control…
Communications as an ecosystem by carl Sylvestre
It can work like a charm. A program is launched or the season is announced and everyone within the organization can talk with familiarity and enthusiasm about the general concepts. The message is clear and team unity has been achieved. I’m often invited to bring coherence to projects so that…
Opportunities in Crisis by Carl Sylvestre
It was sudden rush to the head. I knew that this was no longer business as usual. We were in a crisis. To comfort me, my old friend Oscar Wilde offered words of wisdom but in my haze I garbled the words. To lose one event partner may be regarded…
Managing ambitions with limited capacity by Carl Sylvestre
Many of us start the day with the expectations that everything that we set out to accomplish will go our way – a major deal will be sealed, there will be a long line at the box office for returns for a sold-out performance, or that many donors will finally…