July 23, 2009 Kent Dove - A Blueprint for Fundraising Success in Any Economy

I joined an audience of AFP members and non-members for Kent Dove's recent webinar, "A Blueprint for Fundraising Success in Any Economy: Creating a Sustainable, Comprehensive
Development Model." Dove offers an amazing array of insights based on many years of successful higher education fundraising. Here are a few nuggets of knowledge for you to integrate into your planning:

1. Focus on assessing the needs, choosing the right methods for raising funds, and the best process for evaluating effectiveness


2. Volunteers are integral to a successful program. When engaging volunteers in fundraising, dedicate adequate resources and guidance to help them be successful.


3. Focus your annual fund development on acquiring new donors, getting donors to repeat, and upgrading current donors.


4. Above all, keep stewardship top of mind when creating your strategy.

While I found great value and nuggets in the presentation, I felt it would have been helpful to have more acknowledgement of the current recession and suggestions for countering its effects.


Dove's authored many books including, Conducting a Successful Fundraising Program, which has proven useful to me in working with organizations and budgets of all sizes. The book has a place of honor in my office. This book is included on the reading list for the CFRE exam.


I'm not suggesting, "Fundraising by the Book," but rather to utilize the best tools to develop a comprehensive strategy that will help your organization reach its potential.

Meeting Leslie Crutchfield, co-author of Forces for Good

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to meet Leslie Crutchfield, one of the authors of Forces for Good (http://www.forcesforgood.net/) at the Willamette Valley Development Officers (http://www.wvdo-or.org/ ) luncheon.

Named by The Economist as one of the top ten business books of the year, the book includes in depth case studies of what makes a successful nonprofit. From my reading of the book and Ms. Crutchfield's presentation, the insights really focus on leveraging resources and opportunities that create momentum and evangelists. The six practices reflect these ideas and also the significance of being able to think in a culture of abundance. What comes to mind is working together with other organizations to build more opportunities. The book's last chapter - Putting It into Practice - nicely summarizes what it will take to make the leap to different thinking. In the "Becoming a Force for Good" section, Exhibit 9.8 The New Nonprofit Paradigm helping the reader see how practices of High-Impact Nonprofits look when compared to previous practices.

I suggested to Ms. Crutchfield during the talk that foundations are influencers distinct from government individuals, non-governmental organizations, and businesses and be introduced into an illustration that I'm referring to as "Connecting the Dots." The diagram showed the interconnectedness of the primary influencers in shaping the six practices. I offered the suggestion since many foundations are working together on global health, public school education, and healthcare coverage initiatives - just to name a few. In that respect, they represent nonprofit networks working beyond themselves for the same change or cause. By doing so, they help operating nonprofits establish similar networks. She asked me to be in touch to share more information on some of these initiatives.