United Way Volunteers

Great Ad. Traverse City Record Eagle, (c) 2014, http://www.record-eagle.com/

Great way to acknowledge volunteer time and inform public on the value of volunteering.

Great Ad: American Red Cross Heroes

Great Ad. Traverse City Record Eagle, (c) 2014, http://www.record-eagle.com/

Simple Gift Planning

Promoting planned giving need not be complicated.

Click here for a sample of a piece that could go into most mailings.

What Fundraising Approach Method Works Best?

Harold Seymour, Designs for Fundraising (Rockville, MD: Fundraising Institute, 1988) in the book by Michael Rosen, Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011)

1. Person to person (team of two calling on one).
2. Person to person (team of one calling on one).
3. Telephone (after a personal letter).
4. Personal letter (without a telephone call).
5. Telephone call (then send a follow-up letter).
6. Telephone call (without a follow-up letter).
7. Special event benefit.
8. Direct mail (impersonal letter mass produced).
9. Door to door.
10. Impersonal telephone (to unaffiliated people).
11. Media advertising.

Excellent Class on Giving and maybe get grant

About this Course

Giving With Purpose is offered by the Learning by Giving Foundation with support from Northeastern University.

The goal of this non-credit course is to prepare students to become more purposeful givers and engage more effectively with nonprofit organizations in their communities. Students will learn how to identify high-performing nonprofit organizations and fulfill their personal goals for giving. Six compact classes are comprised of lectures, interactive exercises, group discussions, and interviews with prominent philanthropists Warren Buffett, Doris Buffet, Cal Ripken, Jr., Soledad O’Brien, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (Ben and Jerry), and Tom Werner. Students will also be invited to nominate nonprofit organizations in their communities to receive real-dollar grants. A minimum of $100,000 will be distributed to the organizations ranked highest by students using a peer-review selection process based on course concepts.

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Employment Links

Michigan Nonprofit Association

NorthSky Employment

Monster for major gift fundraising

Michigan Talent Bank

Chronicle of Philanthropy

LinkedIn

Indeed

Philanthropic Journal

I would also check out some of the national "head hunting" firms
    Kittleman

    Paschal Murray

    Campbell and Company

    Lois Lindauer

    Korn Ferry

Ask for advice

From Marc Pitman's blog - excellent advice on building donor relationships. 

From/Thanks to Marc Warner on his blog - market smart. He has good daily reminders.

+++

How to effectively ask for advice

September 24, 2013 by Marc Pitman 4 Comments

Last week, I was at a meeting and heard a board member say:

"Ask a man for advice, and he'll give you money. Ask a man for money, and he'll give you advice.

Isn't that the truth? Think about the times you as a board member or nonprofit employee told someone you were asking for money. How often does that person think they're helping by giving you ideas for raising money instead of making a donation? "Oh, you should try a bottle drive." or "You know, what if you opened juice stores?" or "I bet if you sold these [fill in the blank of their product] we could raise some money for you."

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Good Capital Campaign Guide

Marilyn Bancel. CFRE
Preparing Your Capital Campaign
John Wiley and Sons, San Francisco, (c) 2000
ISBN 0-7879-5247-8

Excellent resource done in a fill-in workbook format to help in preparation of capital campaign.

Many of the strategies still true in a post 2008 recession world.

Boom Boom Fundraising

From the TC Ticker... Help Fund the Fireworks! March 27, 2014

The TC Boom Boom Club, first organized in 2011 to fund the city's 4th of July fireworks display over West Grand Traverse Bay, is now a nonprofit group hoping to build grassroots support for the annual celebration. Spokesperson Tim Hinkley says it costs $45,000 for a 30 minute show – an amount it hopes to raise via support from municipalities, businesses and individuals. The group had previously operated under the National Cherry Festival Foundation but now is a standalone 501(c)3 organization. "We really want to get a wide spectrum of people to participate," Hinkley says, adding that the group had 100 individuals and businesses support the event last year. "We want it to be a grassroots effort so people on the beach can say, 'These are our fireworks.'" Great Lakes Fireworks of East Jordan puts on the annual display.The company was one of a select few invited to participate in the world record fireworks display in Dubai this past New Year's Eve. Donations can be made at the club's website.

Welcome to my world

I have always wanted to put together a body of knowledge around philanthropy. This one is shaped in the context of my world in what I refer to Eden or the Grand Traverse Bay region of Northern Michigan.

It is rapidly becoming a mecca of film, food, wine, arts, seasons, transformation, innovation in thought and ideas, and spirituality in the context of beautiful water and nature.

Over the next decade this area will experience a growth of retirement people moving into the area to area bringing their own resources and demands for superior services.

The field of philanthropy in this region is represented by some 1,400 charities (please correct me if you have better data) and some 80 people employed in professional philanthropy "chasing" dollars, time and talent of an expanding pool of remarkable volunteers. These people will give if we meet their individual needs for commitment and creative use of their time.

It is my contention that there is more than enough money and time that can be donated. It only lacks the innovation and creativity for the professional philanthropic community to reach these people. In order to do this we as professionals will have to work together for the common good realizing that all of our donors will give to many causes of their personal interest and calling.

So here I go with ideas, resources, news, and other trivia that may be of some help to all that read this.

We truly live in exciting time and we are going to change the world and our region one donor at at a time.

Please note: I chose deliberately people doing white water rafting as the background because sometime it feels that way. But oh, the thrill....