When it comes to year-end appeals, the important thing is focusing on those who have not yet given this year.
Development Committees | Setting the Standard
In development, we get out what we’re willing to put in. How are you utilizing your board members and committees? There’s untapped potential – let’s tap into it in 3 ways today!
Wartime Priorities
You are the general of your ministry organization. It’s time to enter the war room and not reemerge until you draw up war plans. What does this mean? Two steps, endless possibilities!
Noteworthy Meetings | Tools of the Trade
When you ask a question, there is power in the answer. Are you listening? Are you harnessing it? One notebook has the potential to guide you to do just that!
Bored with your Board?
I often hear complaints from development and advancement directors and teams working with faith-based nonprofit organizations, schools, and missions. “Our board doesn’t get involved.” “Our board doesn’t contribute.” You’re bored… with your board. At times, this can be completely confounding. The Christian mindset is to build one another up, to defend the widows and the […]
To Delegate is to Disciple | Leading Well Through Mentorships
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.” As leaders, we carry the amazing responsibility of raising others up to stand on level ground, and even to push them above and beyond. In so many areas of our faith, we are encouraged to think […]
Growing Pains
May I be blunt? I don’t really have any interest in you learning for the sake of learning, though I’m the first to admit I have a teacher’s heart. I’m more interested in what you and your team are going to do with the skills, tactics, and tools we discuss. Keeping this in mind, let’s […]
Discipline Can Be Deceiving
From the outside, as I hiked with several leaders after a long and productive day, it likely looked like I was a diligent, structured, disciplined person. I say this because several people commented on just that. However, that was merely a reaction to evidence available at the moment. I love discipline. I admire it. I […]
Growing as a Leader | Doing More With Teams
As leaders, it’s imperative we deal with both success and stress in healthy ways so as to not discourage future generations of leaders. One of the most common questions clients and colleagues ask is, “How can I do more with a team?” I’d like to suggest today it’s not what the team can do, but […]
The Exception is Not The Rule
From the thousands of interviews with major donors and from the constant conversation with our major donor advisors that I have, there is one word that keeps coming up. Flabbergasted. They will say that they are “flabbergasted” at the size of gifts they are being asked for in a first meeting. Too many operate with […]
Importance of Influence During 2020
The ongoing work to grow giving that saves and changes lives is just a set of skills and disciplines. Why, then, is it so daunting in any season, but especially so amidst these extraordinary challenges for 2020. Along with countless other skills each of us have picked up in 2020, development leaders must add growing […]
Are You Thinking Big Enough
When it comes to resources, I think many of us often feel constrained. We don’t have enough giving or we don’t have enough money. We know what we think we need, and we know what we hope for to meet these needs. We may even have a vision in our minds, but others wear it […]
Building the 200
As we grow increasingly intentional in 2020, I want everyone to call to mind those on your list of people you’re shepherding. Ideally, you call to mind your master list of the 100 to 200 people you’ve focused on relationally this year. As development directors, the most we can interact with yet still create and […]
Going Virtual in a Viral World
We are living day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute, or so it seems, when it comes to event planning in our current pandemic circumstances. It’s springtime and for many leaders this season is synonymous with the big event. The large gathering. The fundraising mothership. But, we can’t. So what can we do? […]
Reframe to Regain | Bringing Purpose to Perspective
The higher your degree of ownership, the higher your standards. I’ve found this to be true both in my professional and personal life. I’ve also found these standards to be hindering… or rather I once did. If nothing else, I want your takeaway to be this: You have options. Oftentimes being an achiever is a […]
Positioned to Achieve | Resetting and Hitting Giving Goals in These Unusual Times
How do you know that you are putting yourselves in a position to achieve giving goals in these remarkable times? No one can see the future, but we can lean on God’s promises and steward well what we’ve been given to predict our financial future. Today I want to look at two areas to place […]
Keeping the Faith | When Leaders Need Encouragement
Earlier this week, a member of our team was approached with an amusing question. Her younger son asked why we celebrate Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and even Grandparent’s Day … but not “Kid’s Day” in America. Not wanting to sound bitter or patronizing, she simply replied that every day is a day to celebrate awesome […]
Momentum Motivates
I know exercise is good for me. I know I feel better when I workout. I know my physical health directly connects to my mental health and attention paid to one directly benefits the other. So why do I stop? Why do I have days or even weeks where I don’t exercise at all? Why […]
3 Steps Emergent Leaders Need to Take
With the end of the year approaching, you are in a unique position for your ministry. I’d even go so far as to say the strongest position you could possibly be in come December. If anyone has giving decisions remaining to make before now and the end of the year, they are likely to find […]
Strength Training | 3 Steps to Stronger Ideas
Strength stands on the shoulders of those who came before us. Years ago, I learned a formula that has changed my life. As a driven individual I can be guilty at times of being so focused I settle for nothing short of perfection. There was a time when I would rather have taken no action […]