A few weeks ago I attended a fantastic fundraising event for a missions group that creates community outreach centers to poor Chinese immigrants. The event featured the most remarkable dramatic presentation, where through a multimedia presentation of video, music, drama and dance, the nonprofit illustrated the plight of these immigrants, and demonstrated the simple, effective steps we can take to make a profound difference in their lives.
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Several trends presented in last week’s webinar – The Golden Age of Philanthropy Has Died. What Now? – were bouncing around in my head the following day as I read this article posted in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The article’s title, ‘Two Very Different Groups, One Fundraising Event’, captured my attention as it suggested alignment with a key strategy presented in the webinar: partnerships and resource sharing.
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I went to college in Los Angeles, and had friends who knocked down extra cash for the weekends as professional seat fillers. They knew producers who would hire them to dress up and attend big Hollywood awards shows—Grammys, Emmys, Oscars, you name it—to fill in seats so that the crowd always looked full for the cameras.They loved it. They saw some great entertainment, rubbed elbows with the biggest stars on the planet, and invariably returned with plenty of behind-the-scenes stories...
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An Executive Director of a youth ministry recently asked me to critique the script for ‘the Ask’ he’ll deliver at his organization’s upcoming fundraising dinner. My comments could be relevant to many ministries so I’ve taken the liberty to share them here. General suggestions: Speak from the heart and be conversational. Imagine you are in a 1:1 deep conversation with somebody. Speak like that!
Do your best to avoid language that is hard to understand or which...
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With end-of-year fundraising in mind, several ministries have recently asked about how to do a fundraising banquet. The quick reply? Anybody can use MIF's proven banquet model, thanks to an excellent FR dinner manual and an instructional DVD, both available at our online store.
The important sidenote: the MIF model assumes approximately six months lead time. Plus, November and December are rotten months to schedule fundraising dinners in light of packed holiday calendars, vacation...
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