Erin Arnold Tuladzieck

Board members and nonprofit leaders — are you leaving money on the table? For the remaining three months of 2025, we urge non profits to meet with their donors about multi-year giving before the end of year.  By acting now donors can turn tax savings into campaign momentum for years to come. 👉 The combination of a lower deduction cap and the new threshold means pledges made in 2025 generate greater tax savings than the same gift will in 2026. Let the Numbers Speak for Themselves 2025              2025      2026 Gift Size    Tax Savings Tax Savings $       50,000  $   18,500 $      8,750 $    100,000  $    37,000  $   26,250 $   250,000   $    92,500   $   78,750 $   500,000   $  185,000   $ 166,250 $ 1,000,000  $  370,000   $ 341,250 $ 2,500,000  $  925,000  $ 866,250 $5,000,000   $1,850,000  $1,741,250 👉 If you are in a campaign which accepts multi-year commitments, pledging this year allows donors to secure today's stronger tax benefits while spreading payments over time. 👉 Strong market returns enable donors to gift appreciated assets - securities, real estate, and other holdings that both avoid capital gains tax and qualify for full deductibility under current rules. 👉 Donor-advised funds (DAFS) add another pathway: donors can "front-load" contributions to a DAF in 2025, receive the deduction now, and direct funds to your campaign in future years. Bottom line: 2025 is the moment to secure major, multi-year gifts. Carpe diem. TIP: If you are not talking to your major donors, other smart organizations are.

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Three straight years of declining direct mail revenue. So naturally they decided to mail 15% fewer donors. Record scratch......WHAT? And they had their most successful campaign in years($$ raised AND # of donors). Yep. They cut the file, but not randomly. Instead, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger used predictive AI to model their entire donor base and identify exactly who was most likely to respond to each campaign. The result? Their best direct mail campaign in years. More revenue. Higher ROI. Lower costs. Time saved. More ≠ more. Better targeting = better results. All executed within the friendly confines of their own CRM, updated weekly for full ownership and transparency. Nonprofits don’t need to guess anymore. The data is there. The tech is ready. It’s time to shift from “spray and pray” to precision and predictability. Can this be done across other campaigns? You betchya. Happy Tuesday y'all 😁

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One message from this year’s Pulse of Donor Relations report couldn’t be louder: donor relations is wildly underfunded. Over 60% of organizations rely on teams of fewer than three people to handle communications, reporting, engagement, recognition, and compliance. And budgets (not including salaries) lag even further behind. If we compare donor relations budgets to annual giving or asking budgets, the imbalance is shocking. We can’t expect donor retention to improve if we don’t resource the work that drives it. Read the full 2025 Pulse of Donor Relations report at https://hubs.ly/Q03X-qx30. #Fundraising #DonorRelations #Nonprofits

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Donor Experience is the New Stewardship The old stewardship model: send a thank-you, mail an annual report, invite them to an event. That’s no longer enough. Today’s donors want an experience. One that: 1️⃣ Feels personal 2️⃣ Connects them emotionally 3️⃣ Shows transparency and responsiveness Think beyond thank-you: ✅ Customized email updates based on giving interest ✅ Short videos from the field saying “Here’s what you made possible ✅ Polls or surveys to involve them in future plans 💡 Stewardship is no longer a task—it’s an experience design process. #nonprofit #maine #donorexperience #stewardship #fundraisinginnovation #philanthropy

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Are you missing key signals in your donor pipeline? When nonprofits power their moves management strategies with data, they unlock the ability to identify the right prospects at the right time, with the right messaging. Data-driven decision-making is a key differentiator for leading organizations. Level up your moves management approach with these expert tips - https://okt.to/f1iQyp

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🚨 Most fundraisers don’t have a momentum problem. 🚨 They have a follow-up problem. You have a great meeting. The donor is engaged. There’s excitement. Potential. Traction. And then?…nothing. No next step. No quick recap. No thoughtful touchpoint to keep the energy alive. Here’s the truth: ✅ Momentum isn’t magic—it’s maintained through follow-up. ✅ A simple, timely follow-up beats a perfect, delayed one—every time. ✅ The fundraisers who win? They systemize it. Make it routine. Build it in. 📊 Donors who receive timely, personalized follow-ups are far more likely to give again—and at higher levels. Because follow-up says: 👉 You were heard. 👉 You matter. 👉 We’re moving forward. So: 📌 Leave every meeting with a clear action step. 📌 Then DO IT. Quickly. Simply. Purposefully. You don’t need to be brilliant. You just need to be consistent. That’s the art of the follow-up. And it’s one of the most powerful tools in your fundraising toolkit. #Fundraising #DonorEngagement #FollowUpMatters #MajorGifts #NonprofitLeadership #DevelopmentStrategy #CapitalCampaigns #Stewardship #MomentumMatters

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Far Side of Fundraising Tip of the Week Stop trying to sneak up on potential donors. The more fundraisers pretend they're not fundraisers, the more prospective donors they scare off. Let donor know who you are but also let them know that: 🔸 You seek to earn their support 🔸 You will learn from them whether or not they give 🔸 You will work to align their interests with your' organizations aspirations to better serve 🔸 You will try to provide the kind of experiences that money can't buy 🔸 You will be their advocate throughout the process and, if they should give, long after

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There are no rules or benchmarks when it comes to the value of online donors, direct mail donors, monthly donors, or anything else in the world of fundraising. There are reference points which can and should provoke important questions, but the benchmark which matters most is the nature of your non-profit’s individual program and donor base. Just because something has been done a certain way doesn’t mean it’s beyond reproach but it does mean you should be careful about assuming what your program should look like based on the success of others. Testing and experimenting with no expectation of return is a healthy mindset which can inform broader shifts, but making large scale changes based on industry trends is playing fundraising roulet. Sure you could end up looking like a genius if the ball lands on black, but what if it doesn’t and don’t we owe our donors more than treating our programs like a roulet wheel? I think of this analogy everytime I read a think piece about the aging out of donors (the average donor hasn’t aged in 40 years and has a much longer life expectancy today) or the imminent death of check writing. Both statements have their merits but if your program is built on the backs of 80-year old check writers you might want to consider if that’s a feature instead of defaulting to it being a bug. Fundraising is a supply and demand industry. There’s a massive demand for quick fixes, shiny objects, and digital transformation - New is the most potent word in marketing for a reason and nonprofit leaders aren’t immune from its seductive nature. Therefore it shouldn’t be surprising that the new and the next is what dominates the nonprofit conversation, but that doesn’t make those solutions right for longterm growth. What isn’t there a big market demand for? Incremental learning, diversification, and acquiring donors in a way which primes them for investing in broader aspects of your institutional impact. And yet, these are the solutions which have the ability to exponentially grow revenue over time. It’s the tortoise and the hare, stock picking versus investing in index funds. There may not be a huge market demand for slow and steady, but there is an insurgent community of fundraisers and companies who are proving out slow and steady every day. Ultimately, it’s the job of nonprofit leaders to descern the signal from the noise and build a culture based on trusting the process.

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Grant writing isn’t just about answering questions. It’s about telling a compelling story backed by strategy. Yet too many great nonprofits lose out on funding because of simple, avoidable missteps. After reviewing and writing dozens of proposals, I’ve observed three common mistakes that can cost you more than just money. They are: 1. Writing for yourself, not the funder: If your proposal doesn’t speak directly to the funder’s priorities, it won’t land you the grant no matter how powerful your work is. 2. Lack of clarity and evidence: Impact must be measurable. Avoid vague statements and back up your claims with real data. 3. Ignoring sustainability: Funders want to know their support creates lasting change not a short-term fix. Which of these have you encountered (or maybe even made)? This week, revisit one of your past proposals and ask yourself: Would I fund this? What can I do better? #GrantWritingTips #NonprofitFunding #FaithDrivenImpact #NonprofitLeadership #CapacityBuilding #ImpactStorytelling

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