JGA Blog

By Sarah Tedesco, Executive Vice President, DonorSearch

Major gift fundraising is an important part of any nonprofit’s long-term strategy. We all know the 80/20 rule: 80% of your nonprofit’s donations come from 20% of its supporters. For many organizations, this has now become the 90/20 rule. But, finding enough people with the capacity to give major gifts and a connection to your organization can complicate this ratio.

With smarter prospect research, your major gifts officer has a better chance of securing those all-important donations with maximum efficiency.

Prospect research is looking at publicly available information to determine who in your community might be willing and able to give major gifts to your nonprofit. Some commonly considered data points include both wealth indicators and previous philanthropic behavior.

So how can your team best combine the insights of prospect research with your major gifts fundraising strategy? Our five best tips are:

Guest Blogger:   John Thomas, Writer/Strategist, JTPR, Inc.

Nonprofit organizations do amazing things. Things like curing diseases … feeding people … making art accessible to the masses … helping communities come together and fight injustice. 

by Angela E. White, CFRE and John T. Keith, J.D.

Happy New Year from JGA! As we ring in 2018, the biggest change in the philanthropic marketplace will be questions about the impact of the new tax law changes.

The much-discussed bill is the most significant change to our tax code since 1986. It will take several months for these changes to be implemented, particularly the changes to payroll systems and withholdings, etc. For example, the entire system of claiming personal exemptions on the W-4 will be gone. It seems reasonable to assume that all workers will need new W-4s based on a newly designed form, unless the IRS allows some form of automatic conversion, which is unclear at this moment.

by Angela White

Some time ago, I recorded a short video interview on why we advocate feasibility studies at JGA, and I find that those reasons continue to hold true.

Conducting a feasibility study prior to a campaign is a common and proven way to gauge what level of support may be achieved in a campaign and what strategies should be employed – not only to achieve a financial goal but, perhaps as importantly, to build both unity and momentum for organizational success. 

A feasibility study provides the opportunity for your current and prospective lead donors to dream big, to think through what the future will look like for your organization, and to share how they see themselves participating in that future.

As we have had some time now to absorb the data on 2015 charitable giving provided by the release of the Giving USA 2016 report, we thought it would be helpful to look at the implications of the data for those fundraisers involved in higher education advancement.

The 60^th edition of Giving USA, released June 16, 2015, showed continued growth in charitable giving in the year 2014. Americans gave an estimated $358.38 billion to charity in 2014, surpassing the peak last seen before the Great Recession. That total slightly exceeded the benchmark year of 2007, when giving hit an estimated inflation adjusted total of $355.17 billion.

A recent Boston Globe article has once again drawn attention to an issue we have been warned about for several years – a predicted mass leadership transition among nonprofits.

Though we have long been warned about the anticipated change as boomers retire from leadership roles at the nonprofits many of them started, it seems few nonprofit boards have taken the necessary steps to prepare.

While we all know many examples of extreme generosity through charitable bequests, a new CNBC survey of high-net-worth individuals paints a different picture.

Presidential involvement is a crucial component of campaign success | A campaign will likely be one of the most important undertakings of a presidency and can transform an institution. The following list outlines the president’s top responsibilities in ensuring campaign success.

During my years at JGA I have had the opportunity to work with several score development officers. When it comes to effectively soliciting gifts, there is one who I would put at the head of the class. This individual wishes to remain anonymous, so I’ll refer to him as “Joe.”