Victoria Recalde 10/18/24 Victoria Recalde 10/18/24

The Most Important Window to Convert Sustainers

For nonprofit fundraisers, the ideal donor is one who gives faithfully month after month, year after year. They are bought into the cause and they give on a recurring basis

However, for most charities, most donors do not start as recurring. Like so many others, they give a single gift in response to some sort of catalyst – an ask from a friend, a disaster, a moving appeal.

It’s on nonprofit leaders then to identify the right time and method to invite these single-gift donors into recurring, sustainable giving.

But when is the best time to invite a new donor to commit to a recurring gift?

The answer is unwaveringly clear – in the first 30 days.

Dave Raley 10/11/24 Dave Raley 10/11/24

How to talk to AI

Artificial intelligence has been a fantastic personal and professional help in my life.

I use AI tools weekly in at least a dozen ways, big and small. They help me communicate more clearly, work more efficiently, make better decisions, and do things that would take staff time or skills I wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

Dave Raley 10/4/24 Dave Raley 10/4/24

Two Years or 90%

“Dave, the way you’re wired, you are going to be good at stuff for about two years, or 90%, whichever comes first.”

I was stunned. Was that supposed to be a compliment??

I was 25 years old at the time, and I was having lunch with a consultant our agency had hired when he sprung this “wisdom” on me.

At the time, I couldn’t hear anything but a backhanded compliment.

Dave Raley 8/23/24 Dave Raley 8/23/24

The Problem with Retention

Recurring donor retention rates are different. If you know me, you know I’m fired up about the opportunity for nonprofit leaders and fundraisers to take advantage of the changing landscape of recurring giving driven by the Subscription Economy.

Neon One found that from 2018-2022, nonprofits had an average recurring donor retention rate of 78% – a dream for most nonprofits. I have one client with an incredible recurring retention rate of 86%. That’s nearly 9 of every 10 recurring donors that stick around year after year – and we’re not done improving it yet.

Retention just sounds nice. But that’s the problem. It’s too nice.

Dave Raley 3/1/24 Dave Raley 3/1/24

Expertise has a problem.

I’ve written about it before, so I’ll just summarize it here:

Expertise is often considered a precursor to innovation. Shouldn’t the most innovative ideas come from the people with the most expertise in that field? After all, they have a deep and nuanced understanding of how their field works.

The problem with expertise is that the more expert you or I become in any given domain, the more we accumulate knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. This deep expertise deservedly leads to a high level of confidence. But at the same time, it leads to narrowing one's perspective and being less open to new and fresh (read: unproven and unconventional) approaches.

In other words, if you are holding a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.Excerpt from The Problem with Expertise