Free Your Mind ... and Others' Pocket Books

An excellent article that every grantmaker should read ...

White Courtesy Telephone: How To Free Our Funder Minds ...

"We can start by contemplating, then rejecting, the following two widely held notions....

1. It’s my job as a funder to separate the wheat from the chaff, the bad nonprofits from the good. I reward the effective nonprofits by giving them money (for a few years anyway); I discourage the ineffective nonprofits by denying them funding.

2. Different funders have different missions and therefore different funding priorities. Thus it’s perfectly appropriate for some funders to forego supporting “overhead” and other organizational strengthening costs like board development, the upgrading of financial reporting systems, and the like."

And an excellent article that every fundraiser should read . . .

Donor Power Blog: Fundraising the hard (but effective) way

"... deciding to give money to a charity is an emotional process, it's much more to do with the heart than the brain. So a mailed appeal should aim to produce tears of sadness or outrage or anger. An event must produce laughter or comradeship or unity. You should try to give your supporters ... 'planned emotional moments,' moments when they feel like thanking the charity for the opportunity you've given them to do something they'd be unable to do without you."