Exponential Fundraising founder and 24-year fundraising veteran Jennifer McCrea has worked with CEOs, fundraisers and board members from a wide variety of nonprofits, including Millennium Promise, Acumen Fund, Donorschoose.org, Grameen America, Teach for America, Witness, Columbia University, Quincy Jones Foundation, Comic Relief, X Prize Foundation, VH1 Save the Music Foundation, Creative Commons, MIT Media Lab and many others. [...]

Urgency is a time-tested technique for fundraising. Turning the urgency dial to “Hot” in times of crises is entirely appropriate and necessary.  After the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunami in Japan, after scores of similar natural disasters, there is critical need for quick, decisive action and resource mobilization. A curious thing about this urgency business, [...]

I’m thrilled to announce that registration is formally open for the 2012 Course in Exponential Fundraising at Harvard. Please go to http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hauser/cef/  for a more detailed description of the program. A Course in Exponential Fundraising is a year-long engagement during which I work with 20 visionary leaders from the nonprofit sector who want to both dramatically improve [...]

In four separate meetings over the past week I was in the audience as speakers leaned heavily on PowerPoint presentations. Each presentation consisted of slide after slide of bulleted text copy. They used this copy as a talking point guide. One presenter just stood and read each slide as if the audience was either blind or illiterate. [...]

I have had two surgeries in the last six weeks. Yesterday, I spent a joyful hour making a list of the many ways people have been there for me during this challenging time: phone calls, flowers, books, poems, letters, food and visits. In an act of utter masochism, one of my friends even insisted on [...]

Celebration builds community. I don’t mean just celebrating the end of a campaign or a transformational gift.  I’m talking about frequent celebrations with your whole team – your board, your philanthropic partners, your colleagues. Celebrations are a way for members of your community to come together to honor what you’ve done and where you are [...]

Meet lonely George. George is a seasoned philanthropist.  Someone I’ve known for years. George leads a full, meaningful life that includes giving to a number of global organizations. But he revealed something to me recently that caught me by surprise: that his experience of giving is often profoundly isolating. Wait a minute. Isn’t giving a [...]

In a recent blog post Sasha Dichter quotes my friend Katya Andresen with something that really resonated:  “It’s impossible to talk about generosity without being vulnerable, impossible to be truly generous without opening yourself up.” So what does “opening yourself up” really mean and how does this add to the generosity equation? What does “being [...]

Failure to close your first gift, regardless of its size, is one of the biggest obstacles to your success in creating partnerships.  Of course, at first we need time and spaciousness with people to explore our respective interests and where they may meet. But we generally wait too long to invite people to join with [...]