Author Archive

Corporate Matching of Employees’ Gifts to Your Organization

by Tony Poderis & Joyce Braun Poderis · 3 Comments
Filed under: Sources & prospects 
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A number of resources provide listings of companies having gift programs that match contributions made by their employees to non-profit organizations. According to the grantor’s guidelines, such matching funds could be general in nature for support of almost any type of accredited non-profit favored by an employee, or a company might limit its matching funds, [...]

Membership Campaigns: The “How-To”

by Joyce Braun Poderis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Managing campaigns 
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You want to introduce a membership campaign, preferably as part of the Annual Fund Campaign. Your objective is an expanded and reliable base of donors who renew their support year after year. Good thinking. Give yourself a pat on the back: An effective membership campaign can be one of your greatest assets and building it [...]

Pro Bono Services for Your Organization

by Tony Poderis & Joyce Braun Poderis · 2 Comments
Filed under: Sources & prospects 
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Pro Bono: “Especially for the Public Good” (Merriam-Webster) The dictionary definition of pro bono fits well with non-profit organizations, which themselves are also for “the public good,” according to the IRS description of how they must be created and operated. And the good, in the case of pro bono work, is what countless non-profit organizations [...]

Developing a Communications Strategy For the Development Operation

by Joyce Braun Poderis · 5 Comments
Filed under: Fund-raising planning 
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If a nonprofit organization wants to maximize its contributed income it needs a coherent, executable development plan, and that plan must have a viable communications strategy. What we’ll be talking about here is not an organization’s overall communications strategy – how and what it does to present itself to the public at large. Rather we’re [...]

Metrics Can Be a Grant Writer’s Nightmare

by Joyce Braun Poderis · 13 Comments
Filed under: Development team 
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Let’s pretend you’re the person in a nonprofit organization charged with seeking grants and that your boss is going to hold you accountable to one or more of the following standards. You must get _____ proposals “out the door” every_____. You must get ___­_% of the grants for which you submit proposals approved. You must [...]

Challenge/Matching Gift Programs for Your Fund-Raising Campaigns

by Tony Poderis & Joyce Braun Poderis · 5 Comments
Filed under: Fund-raising planning 
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Challenge Grants Can Multiply Your Success Challenge grants are indeed challenging to fulfill, and once secured, they are unusually rewarding opportunities for non-profit organizations to greatly energize and enhance their fund-raising campaigns. They can significantly increase the chance to raise more money than would be possible otherwise. Challenge Grants may be utilized to jump-start a [...]

Debt-Elimination Fund-Raising Campaigns

by Tony Poderis & Joyce Braun Poderis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Fund-raising planning 
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How can your organization raise the money it needs to pay off: Money borrowed from a lending institution? Unpaid invoices from vendors, suppliers, and contractors for the purchase of a capital asset? Money borrowed from a lending institution? Accentuate the Positive Surveys tell us that people give to charitable organizations as an “investment” of their [...]

Wearing Those Development and Marketing “Hats” at the Same Time: A Bad Fit and a Headache

by Joyce Braun Poderis · 2 Comments
Filed under: Development team 
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Wearing Those Development and Marketing “Hats” at the Same Time: A Bad Fit and a Headache Introduction For decades, I have heard about, observed, and have had personal relationships with scores of individuals who attempted to wear the Development and Marketing/Communications/PR “hats” at the same time and who for many years—mostly in vain—struggled to perform [...]

Foundations: Are They ReallyWhere the Money Is?

by Joyce Braun Poderis · 2 Comments
Filed under: Short Takes 
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Why is it that the new and emerging non-profits all too often see foundations and other grant-making entities as their first and best source of funding? Why do they think that's where the easy money is to be found? Is it because foundations are required by law to contribute a specific percentage of their assets [...]