In the process of applying for a government grant proposal, we often talk about the need to address the specific agency’s hot buttons and issues in our proposals. But how many of us address the way in which reviewers of our proposals make decisions? Over the past twenty years, there has been a great deal …
Finance/
Financing & Loans
A Guest Posting by Mari Lane Gewecke (The second of two guest postings on this subject) A client contacted me after being approached by a donor database sales representative with a proposal to solve their donor retention challenges by replacing their current database. The feature in the new software that most interested my client was …
A Guest Posting by Ken Ristine (The first of two perspectives on this subject, by two guest writers. The second piece will post this Thursday.) Ever since desktop computers became common, nonprofits have found it a challenge to evaluate and adopt new technology. During the early years my major questions of organizations requesting grants for …
I admit it: program budgets, operating budgets, budget narratives, budget justifications, and audited financial statements are not some of my favorite things. Fortunately for me, and possibly many grant managers, developing program budgets and other financial information needed for grant proposals is a team effort. Previously, I outlined the financial information to include in your …
Innovative Fundraising for Nonprofits: Who’s Behind the Ideas? An e-mail was sent to me recently… “I have read that when setting a donation goal for each major donor prospect you should project 10x their largest single gift. Is this a good rule of thumb?” This is yet another of the several similar hard-to-believe instances over …
If Implemented As Proposed, Changes Could Cut CFC Revenues to Nonprofits by at least 50% HELP SAVE THE CFC !! POST YOUR COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED CFC REGULATIONS The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has proposed massive changes to how the Combined Federal Campaign works. There are more than 40 pages of proposed regulations, and …
This is a companion piece to my posting, Who/What is a Fundraising Consultant, from last year at this time. First, simply, a fundraising consultant is not someone who does “it” for you, and s/he is not an insider (i.e., staff, board, etc.). A fundraising/development consultant is (must be) “an objective outsider.” You can, for example, …