Have you heard about Raymond Burse, the newly appointed interim-president of Kentucky State University who voluntarily reduced his salary by 25% in order to ensure that all university employees would make a minimum hourly wage of $10.25? That’s right, this HBCU president gave up a total of $90,125 so that 24 employees– some of whom were making $7.25 an hour – could receive a wage increase.
The First 48” is a TV crime show that stresses the importance of the first 48 hours to the overall criminal investigation. Create guidelines for “The First 72” to keep fundraising on track. Letting gifts “pile up” and processing them once every week or two may appear efficient, but this process may require investigation!
I did not ask anyone to do anything I would not do and I tried to keep the momentum going. I tried to create an environment where all my coworkers felt they had a vested interest in the success of the campaign.
We cherish our readers, though most are unknown to us. As writers you don’t always “meet” your audience. But, we did recently met a reader who embraced us sharing “I read your column all the time.” We were conducting a workshop for the ArtsMemphis community engagement fellows when Judy Davis came up to us and shared that she raised $45,000 using suggestions from our column. That caught our attention and we had to learn more!
One of the reasons we continue to see so much turn-over in fundraising staff is the pervasive misunderstanding of how fundraising works, shares Leyna Bernstein, founder of Leadership Search Partners. With this column we bring you excerpts from her column on Fundraising Fables.
Creating a structure that focuses on engaging the talent of seniors can yield financial and civic rewards. Such a structure can also serve as a formal way to “welcome home” those seniors who are returning to the community after careers in other parts of the country, or internationally.
If you want top talent for your nonprofit make sure you recruit in ways that result in an applicant pool that includes individuals 55 and over. If you want to attract and retain “seniors” as part of your team, take time to assess your own responses to seniors and look for organizational biases that could your workplace ‘uninviting.
Partnerships are long term relationships that develop over time. They are with agencies, not with personnel of any of the partners because individuals change jobs. You must get everything in writing, so when individuals leave, the commitments remain.
For an African American agency the stakes are higher, and the bar is raised higher because of the general lack of trust given to African American based agencies. You have to work harder with less, and maintain your integrity at all times. That is just the way it is and surrendering to it allows you to be prepared in the ways you need to be.
A private/public partnership benefits all parties working together for a common purpose that ultimately benefits the intended clients,” Cathy extols. “Each party has their own interest that has to be served in order to move forward. Collectively you have to be able to work as a team.
