Year-end non-profit predictions?

new year 2013Happy New Years Eve! Are you ready for 2013?

As I wrote in one of my posts last week, my consulting practice has gotten really busy and the “holiday hop” is always tough. So, I decided to dial back my writing a little bit the last two weeks of the year and coast into the new year where I will start publishing Monday through Friday again. Besides, according to my blog analytics very few of you read blogs at this time of the year, and I’m guess that is because you’re running around just like me.

One of the things I was looking forward to doing this week with the DonorDreams blog was “Year-end Predictions for 2013” with regard to the non-profit sector. I did the same thing last year on the following topics:

I obviously missed my window of opportunity, but what I’ve decided to do instead is even more exciting. Starting next week (January 7-11), I will circle back around to last year’s predictions and recap what actually happened and what might still lie ahead.

There was one year-end post and prediction that I made last year that I believe applies every year. It is rooted in the wise words of Benjamin Franklin, who is the Father of American Philanthropy. So, my New Years gift to you is a re-post of the prediction that your non-profit organization will have a very prosperous 2013 if you simply start asking with reckless abandon.

I hope you enjoy this retread post, but I know you will see that it one of those timeless posts that are always applicable.

I look forward to seeing you in 2013!

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The Final 2012 Non-Profit Prediction

This entire week we’ve been looking back upon 2011 for major trends, and then looking forward to 2012 with an eye towards making a few predictions. Today’s post speaks to a fundraising prediction that has been true every year since the birth of our country more than 235 years ago:

If you ask people to donate, then you will raise lots of money.

A few days after Christmas, a friend sent me an email with the following Benjamin Franklin quote from Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings:

ben franklin“It was about this time that another projector, the Rev Gilbert Tennent, came to me with a request that I would assist him in procuring a subscription for erecting a new meeting-house.  It was to be for the use of a congregation he had gathered among the Presbyterians, who were originally disciples of Mr. Whitehead.

Unwilling to make myself disagreeable to my fellow-citizens by too frequently soliciting their contributions, I absolutely refus’d.

He then desired I would furnish him with a list of the names of persons I knew by experience to be generous and public-spirited.  I thought it would be unbecoming in me, after their kind compliance to me solicitations, to mark them out to be worried by other beggars, and therefore refus’d also to give such a list.

He then desir’d I would at least give him my advice. “That I would readily do,” said I; “and in the first place, I advise you to apply to all those whom you know will give something; next, to those whom you are uncertain whether they will give anything or not, and show them the list of those who have given; and, lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will give nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken.”

He laugh’d and thanked me, and said he would take my advice.  He did so, for he ask’d of everybody, and he obtained a much larger sum than he expected, with which he erected the capacious and very elegant meeting-house that stands on Arch-street.”

Ben Franklin is considered by most people to be the “Father of American Philanthropy”. His advice is timeless and perfect for those non-profit executive directors and fundraising professionals who are stewing over what their 2012 new years resolution should be:

Don’t say “NO” for anyone.

Ask everyone if they want to support your mission
and invest in the outcomes and impact your agency produces.

Ask! Ask! Ask!

If you do this, then my 2012 prediction for you is that regardless of the economy and any other external influences your non-profit organization will thrive and you’ll exceed all of your fundraising goals.

Speaking of non-profit new years resolutions, do you have any? If so, please use the comment box below and share your thoughts because we can inspire each other.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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