The Management Centre, a UK-based consulting group for non-profits, has published its Global Fundraising Confidence Survey for 2009 and from our perspective many of the results they highlighted weren’t too surprising.  Most notably, although half of the non-profits surveyed reported a decline in income over the past year, a third saw in an increase.

Among the reasons cited for decline was “poor crisis leadership” from the top, while — and this is what we want to stress most — the top listed factor for positive results was “increased investment in fundraising.” (Read on …)

Just a quick link to yesterday’s “Wizard of ID” comic strip.  One thing I like to mention in my lecture on online fundraising at NYU’s Graduate School of Philanthropy is how the internet has inspired greater vigilance by donors and required greater accountability on the part of not-for-profits.  Even if that increased reporting doesn’t take place online.

In my 15+ years working in and along with public broadcasting, there’s been a growing debate on the role of “membership” in individual fundraising and whether it should continue to be emphasized in pledge drives and direct mail — or even continue to be the model at all.  The generational argument is the one most often used — that Boomers don’t like to join things like their GI Generation parents did.  That they don’t like the perceived commitment but would rather just throw their money at something and take their tote bag and run.  And certainly many of those community bastion-type organizations popular in 50s and 60s civic life — the Lions Club and the Elks and their kin for example — have seen their numbers dramatically fall over the last few decades.

So, on public broadcasters’ websites, we don’t see “Join” or “Become a Member” as much as we see “Support this station.”  But is that still the right thing to do?  Has that tactic really borne fruit in the half dozen years or so since it was summed up best in a study that net consulting firm Adaptive Path did for PBS? (Read on …)