The new EU data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force on May 25th and it brings with it an entirely new set of rules that nonprofits world-wide – not just in the European Union – will have to abide by. I’m not seeing a lot of discussion about it here in the US fundraising community* and that concerns me. [Read more…]
Secrecy World
This week’s article is about a new keen interest of many of us on the HBG team, and especially those of us in the HBGBookClub: offshore finance. HBG’s own Mary Taddia sped ahead of all of us and read the whole thing to share her insights and – I hope – pique your interest enough to join us in reading it! ~Helen
During my time in prospect research, I’ve had to familiarize myself with ongoing trends in the philanthropic and financial world. As a former English major, I am usually much more comfortable discussing the works of Gabriel García Márquez than I am talking about SEC forms. [Read more…]
Mass Millions 2017; The year in major gift philanthropy
Back in the early 2000s my team and I started a database of gifts of $1 million or more by individuals or family foundations to nonprofit organizations in Massachusetts.
A million-dollar donation was still fairly noteworthy 15 years ago, but in recent years the figure to hit for exceptional giving (and website PR announcements) has crept up to $10 or even $20 million for medium-to-large organizations. [Read more…]
Innovation in Philanthropy
Creativity abounds everywhere in the Third Sector, from service providers in the field, to fundraising offices managing more on a shoestring, to a new breed of funders (and well-established funders, too) thinking up new ways to engage with, spur forward, and support their philanthropic priorities. In this week’s article, HBG Senior Researcher Grace Chandonnet shares some of the interesting and creative ways funders are having an impact in the world today. ~Helen
Lately I’ve been thinking about the innovative ways that young entrepreneurs are actively engaging in philanthropy. As my colleague Elizabeth Roma writes, the philanthropy landscape is ever evolving and innovating and appears to be picking up the pace of change exponentially in recent years in what is being referred to as the New Gilded Age. Elizabeth touches on innovative philanthropic vehicles such as the Emerson Collective and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as well as B-Corps and impact investing. [Read more…]
What’s up for 2018
Here on The Intelligent Edge blog we usually concentrate on news, trends, and articles to help you get the most out of fundraising intelligence (or to help you be a better fundraising intelligence practitioner), and we don’t talk much about what’s going on behind the scenes here at the Helen Brown Group.
But we’ve got some exciting developments coming up in 2018 at HBG and I wanted to share them with you today because they’re pretty cool and they were all created with you in mind. [Read more…]
Rock Solid
This past year has been enough to make anybody’s head spin. What would have been the normal amount of news in one of 52 average pre-2017 weeks has been crammed into 341 news cycles of increasingly elevated astonishment. Nearly every day feels to me like watching a piranha feeding frenzy in the Amazon.
Will we end up losing our capacity to relax? Or to believe that we aren’t just missing something in our newsfeed if we don’t immediately see evidence that something shocking has happened overnight? [Read more…]
The Palm Beach Season
“Palm Beach – Flagler Museum Courtyard” Photo by Roger W via Flickr
This week, HBG Senior Researcher Kelly Labrecque takes us into the sunny world of the Palm Beach season, that period of time when the wealthy leave northern climates and head to the tonier parts of Florida. The charity ball scene this year will be very different from years past – what will it mean for the nonprofits who benefit from them? ~Helen
As temperatures in the Northeast drop below 40 degrees, so begins the migration of the wealthy to their seasonal homes to wait out winter. Perhaps the most famous of these destinations is Palm Beach. Part of an 18-mile barrier island in Southeastern Florida, the town is known for its pristine beaches, mega-yacht clubs, five-star restaurants, PGA-rated golf courses, and elite equestrian facilities.
For more than a century, Palm Beach has attracted and played host to the world’s rich and famous. While there, these “snowbirds” generate millions for charity and the local economy. As a result, charitable organizations have come to recognize Palm Beach as a philanthropic hub for the cultivation and stewardship of major donors. [Read more…]
‘Tis the Pre-Season
Blue and Red Flower Bed, photo by Petr Kratochvil
Giving Tuesday marks the opening of the Giving Season, that time of year when generous donors help plant the bulbs for change, and nonprofits nurture and grow them.
I’ve been planting bulbs of my own this past week (daffodils and crocuses; also testing out if lavender seeds actually work), and that activity gave me loads of time to think about how a little preparation now makes a world of difference in a period of time that’s not all that far ahead.
In the fundraising intelligence world, we can do that, too. Here at HBG, we’re talking with clients now about how they can be prepared for next year.
What is your team doing to be sure you’re filling the pipeline with new prospects who are interested in your cause? [Read more…]
More Giving, Thanks to Thanks Giving
When I read this week’s featured article by Kathy Mills on the Apra-Carolinas website, I knew I had to ask share it with you today. Kathy is Senior Donor Identification Analyst at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and I wanted you to read her description of the way that their prospect research and annual giving teams partner together.
They’re making relationship magic – joining their talents to give sincere thanks to donors, and it’s a great lesson – for this season and all year round.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, and warm thanks to Kathy and the kind folks at Apra-Carolinas for allowing us to re-share this!
The Impact of Thanking Annual Fund Donors
When I was younger, my mother forced me to write thank you notes to anyone who had given me a gift for my birthday. It seemed like a chore at the time, but as an adult, I came to appreciate when I was thanked for sending a gift – and I certainly remembered those that never thanked me. Today, sometimes a simple “thank you” seems like a dying art.
As nonprofit organizations, it’s critical that we thank our donors promptly. That $25 annual fund donor could turn out to be a $25,000 donor in the future if he or she feels appreciated right from the start. But every organization sends a thank you letter. What if you took it one step further? [Read more…]
Are the rich less philanthropic than we thought?
When we try to estimate a potential donor’s gift capacity, the fundraising tradition has been to use statistics from the IRS that show that, on average, Americans give around 2-5 percent of their income annually to charitable organizations.
That average is derived from people who itemized charitable deductions. Even though that’s an average, for those of us in prospect research that’s been a reliable percentage to use because, by and large, only people who benefit from itemizing actually bother to do it – and that’s wealthy people. [Read more…]
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