Last week, my newsletter was about CEOs having a top 10 list of evergreen donor prospects. That spurred great conversations with some of you about who exactly who should be on your list.

So let’s talk about it.

The good news is this: your top 10 are people you already know, and they already know you. You are not in the business of cold-calling strangers. You are the CEO, after all!

Many nonprofit CEOs I work with have something big in common: They don’t know who they should be cultivating.

Some don’t have a prospect list at all. Others technically have one… but couldn’t tell you who’s on it. And many are sitting on years of names in their database that no one is actively stewarding.

This is my Brooklyn Bo.

She’s fun, she’s smart, and she’s the youngest of my three girls.

I recently shared with my dad that picking up Brooklyn from preschool is the highlight of my whole day.

It’s something about her hug, I told him. She smiles so big…

You know the song.

But very few know the story behind it.

In 1939, Montgomery Ward (a major department store at the time) wanted to create a children’s holiday book to give away for free. Until then, they had been buying and distributing other companies’ books, but that year…

Today’s newsletter feels like I’m giving you my deepest, darkest fundraising secret.

When I tell you I’ve raised millions of dollars with this approach, do not underestimate how serious I am.

As an aside, you should know that overall, I don’t have much of a skillset. I can’t sing. If you see me wearing something fashionable, my mom picked it out. I’m not artistic. My cooking is decent, at best.

There’s a viral trend happening right now with female influencers, and I love it!

The videos all follow the same pattern: a woman shows a quick montage of herself doing things that require courage: speaking on stage, talking straight to the camera, taking up space, putting her work into the world.

Over the clips, a single line appears: “Girl, aren’t you embarrassed?”

We are nearing the end of a major home renovation. What started as a kitchen reno escalated into a full-blown half-of-the-house overhaul.

I washed our dishes outside in the hose for 9 weeks. And I’m a “cook every meal at home” kind of mom.

Been there? It was rough!

This weekend, my husband and I did the La Cava Tequila Experience at Epcot. Yes, we spent too much money. Yes, it was worth it. And somewhere between the extra anejo and the tiny cantina with four other couples, I realized something:

We were paying for access.

Not tequila. Not Disney. Access.

I’m in the early days of reading the Bible cover to cover. I didn’t set out to do that, but I sort of started in Genesis and now find myself in the middle of Exodus, so I think I’ll just keep going.

(It’s the NKJ version for inquiring minds.)

In smaller organizations, it can be hard to feel like we’re truly stewarding donors before we show back up again asking for something else.

Let’s look at the donor like a bank. (Crass but hear me out.)

If we’re only ever making withdrawals, eventually the flow of money from the bank will stop, and we’ll have to move on to a different bank.

Looking back on my career in higher education, one of my favorite roles was the four years I spent building affinity programs. What started as a ground-floor experiment quickly grew into a wildly successful program that transformed donor engagement at the university.

Last week, I mentioned the power of matching gifts in year-end campaign planning, and it sparked some great conversations about how nonprofits can use this strategy year-round.

This week, I’m focusing specifically on corporate matching programs. We’ll circle back to individual donors providing matches (and when to ask!) in a future newsletter.

It’s mid-September, and many nonprofits are already planning their end-of-year giving campaigns. And for good reason: Q4 giving can often make or break the entire year’s revenue goals.

In fact, nearly 30% of all annual giving happens in December. Even more shocking, 12% of all annual giving takes place in the last THREE DAYS of the year.

This week my daughter came home from school with a Bible verse that stopped me in my tracks:

Isaiah 6:8 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here I am. Send me.’”

This verse is powerful because it captures the moment when the prophet Isaiah willingly accepts his calling, even though he knows it won’t be easy.

When I read the verse, the first thing I thought of was all of you on the front lines of nonprofits.

Over the past decade, corporate giving has transformed dramatically. The old “slap our logo on your event and call it a sponsorship” model has gone the way of the dodo bird. Although that approach might still work for annual gala sponsorships, there’s a lot to explore in the world of ongoing, transformational corporate giving.

Have you ever noticed how the work we put off doing is louder than the work we’re getting done?

That follow-up email that needs sending.
The meeting that needs documenting.
Those donor letters that need signing.

… all of it!

Growing up in the ’90s, I was just a bit too young to really appreciate the .com boom. My family got our first home computer in 1998, and I put it to very important use: Barbie paint-by-number coloring pages and endless AOL Instant Messenger chats with my high school friends… at least when the landline wasn’t tied up.

The internet started as a novelty, just something fun to tinker with.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been following a woman on social media who’s working to pay off $100K in debt as a stay-at-home-mom. Her strategy? Side hustles. She takes online surveys, writes Amazon reviews, joins research studies - you name it.

But her most lucrative gig? She’s a mystery shopper for apartment complexes.

In my first real fundraising job, I always hit my goals.

Season tickets? Nailed it.
Sponsorships? Check.
Annual gala? On target.

And although it sounds really impressive, the truth is the goals were too low.

After a few years of this, I asked my boss to raise the bar. I wanted to see what I was really capable of.

It’s my third week sending this newsletter.

To you, it’s no big deal. You can read it, delete it, and move on with your day.

But for me, it’s a very big deal.