GrantStation is currently in the midst of its Spring 2018 State of Grantseeking Survey, and as you can imagine with an expected 3,500 to 4,000 nonprofit respondents, I receive feedback early and often. One gentleman from a small nonprofit organization told me, “We were not eligible for the award because the funder required a paid executive director of $125,000 for two years, and a budget of $500,000 or more. Of course, if we had that […]

Today’s title might suggest morbidity, but actually it’s a tale of profitability. It’s a story about what happens to a donor’s money that isn’t spent during their lifetime. Let me start at the beginning.

The following article is cross-posted from Alliance magazine blog. Based out of the UK, Alliance magazine is the leading global magazine on philanthropy and social investment. As the largest infrastructure organization for sharing social sector knowledge and more than nine million data points about who’s funding what and where, the Foundation Center takes great pride in housing an equally sizable team of programmers, data specialists, designers, and other technologists. Unlike most of the tech sector, more than half of those team members […]

If you’re a fundraiser, it’s often helpful to think like a donor. When leading workshops, I encourage people to flip this mental switch. “How many of you have ever given away money to anybody for any reason at all?” Of course, all the hands go up. Then I ask people to pair off and talk about why they give. These small groups generate a long list of reasons; here’s one of the most popular. Giving feels good. […]