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Aug 7, 2014

The Volunteer Myth

multi-ethnic volunteer group hands togetherGo to any fundraising conference these days, and I will bet you a $2-bill that someone will be presenting that the best way of lifting your donors’ performance is by inviting them to volunteer.

We’ve done a couple of research projects with volunteers, and I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.

I take that back. It’s a great idea if the volunteer experience is awesome.

Unfortunately, our research shows that too often donors have an awful volunteer experience. And rather than enhancing the relationship with the organization, it only demonstrates to the donor how incompetent the organization is. Not really the desired result, huh?

So if you are going to try to engage your donors with volunteer opportunities, make sure that you designate the resources to make it an awesome experience. This is no place to cut corners. If it’s not going to be an awesome volunteer experience, don’t bother. It will do you more harm than good.

First-half of 2025 Trends in Fundraising

I have four graphs that summarize what we are seeing across the fundraising arena. These come from our newest analytical report, The Single Largest Gift - Cohort Analysis (SLG-CA). I know, its name is a mouthful, but its insights are plentiful. Basically, the SLG-CA...

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Part IV: The Complexities of Implementation

This is our fourth blog on some things the nonprofit community should be thinking about regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI). Adopting new technologies is rarely straight forward. For example, remember your last CRM upgrade? How did that go? If you are like most...

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