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Easy Does It

Customer Success Manager at Blackbaud Canada

12 Apr

Posted at 13:00h in Adapting to Your Environment, Blog, Easy Does It, Inspirational by
This week's blog is a guest post by Delphine Haslé, CFRE. It's one thing to talk about donor walls, but it's an entirely different journey to take it from inception to a successful conclusion. Let me share with you my experience at The Perley and Rideau Veterans' Health Centre Foundation. [caption id="attachment_1833" align="aligncenter" width="448"]Donor Recognition Wall Before - traditional donor recognition wall.[/caption]

1. Dream big, Think outside of the box

06 Apr

Posted at 18:27h in Blog, Easy Does It, Fundraising, People by
“I know I am supposed to connect with people, but I just don’t know how.” 49 Ways to Engage your communityI hear that from my clients a LOT. How do you build an authentic relationship with someone so you can “bring them closer” to the organization….when you’ve just met them? Fundraising gets a bad rap (in my opinion) when we try to “jump” over logical relationship steps. That’s the scenario where you’ve just been introduced to someone, and then in the next breath you’re asking them for a 5 figure gift to the organization. Nope. You can’t fall in love on a first date. So here it is! A list of 49 Ways to Bring People Closer to your organization.

25 Feb

Posted at 16:06h in Blog, Easy Does It, People by
What do vikings, pirates and sponsors have in common?I met these two beauties in London, Ontario at my daughter's fall ringette tournament. What the heck? What's with the viking hats? There were TONS of parents walking around the arena with these fashionista helmets.

This, my fundraising friends, is a FABULOUS example of sponsorship ACTIVATION.

The London Ringette teams are sponsored by Big Viking Games, a technology company located in the London area. Parents wear these helmets to get noticed, and provide some extra visibility for their sponsors.

Well. I'd say it's working pretty darn well. Wouldn't you like to have a group of keeners out there in the community celebrating your sponsor's brand?

27 May

Posted at 16:14h in Blog, Easy Does It by
stalled campaignYour fundraising plan is written, your volunteers have been trained and you are ready to go out to ask for a donation to solve an identified problem in your community. Everybody’s ready to go! Except nothing happens. It’s so quiet in your office that you can hear the crickets. Your phone isn’t ringing. It seems like your campaign has gone sideways…potentially into the ditch. Here are 10 practical tips for defibrillating your fundraising campaign back to life.

08 Jan

Posted at 11:13h in Blog, Easy Does It, Fundraising by
diceFull disclosure for this blog post: I barely passed statistics in university. I was an Economics minor that took the remedial statistics class. I memorized my formulas and squeaked my way through the course. Fast forward a few – almost 20 – years, and it turns out that I use statistics quite a bit in my daily life as a fundraiser. Thankfully I am not calculating statistics, but rather I use statistics to emphasize a point, demonstrate a need, or to highlight a social inequality.

Statistics – the big, the bad and the ugly

Not-for-profits spend a lot of time talking about big statistics:

04 Dec

Posted at 13:38h in Blog, Easy Does It, Fundraising, People, Zigging and Zagging by
Below is a recent letter that I wrote to Kivi Leroux Miller about my experience in one of her online classes.  My biggest take-away from Kivi’s class was that there are people out there that are struggling with the same issues that I am, and that we really should find ways to “share the space.”

Here are three suggestions for including peer-to-peer support in your daily work routine:

  • Pick up the phone and talk to a fellow fundraiser about a challenge you are having. Better yet, invite them out for lunch to talk in person;
  • Use a conference, or a learning opportunity to connect with a fellow fundraiser – someone with whom you would like to build a relationship. The fact that you like their energy, or their perspective is as good a reason as any to start a conversation;
  • Formalize any of the above-mentioned relationships into a bi-weekly or monthly call with your new colleague.  Use skype, or google hangout - so that you can actually see each other – and create a peer-to-peer safe environment where you can articulate short-term tasks or professional goals that you want to accomplish before the next peer coaching session.