Books

Everything you need to know as a nonprofit board member to raise more money and help your organization succeed in meeting its goals.

Engaging and informative, this practical guide to fundraising contains valuable insights that nonprofit boards need to succeed in raising money in today's dynamic economic environment. While written expressly for board members, this useful handbook also provides advice to executive directors and advancement staff on how to partner with your board to build an unstoppable fundraising team.

A Fundraising Guide for Nonprofit Board Members shows you how to raise more money by building board leadership and skills in fundraising. This book covers it all—the board's leadership role in fundraising; how to organize and train your board to raise funds; building a team with board and staff; raising funds for operations, major gifts and capital campaigns; how to ask for gifts; plus a guide for conducting a board retreat that will lead to fundraising success.

• Demystifies the ask by providing a straightforward guide on how to ask for, and close, gifts
• Features case studies, real life examples, and checklists in an easy to reference format
• Offers sample materials for a board retreat on building the successful fundraising team

Entertaining, practical, and easy to use, this book will become a must-read for all board members, executive directors, and staff who want to build an effective fundraising team.

 

Things have suddenly gotten a lot tougher in the fundraising business. What began as a credit crisis on Wall Street has become a full-fledged global recession. Nonprofits have begun searching for new ways to make budgets stretch further, to do more with less, and to maximize their return on investment.

Part of the AFP/ Wiley Fund Development Series, Jump-Starting the Stalled Fundraising Campaign will help your nonprofit develop a strategic approach to fundraising in the weak economy. This very timely book will help you know how to tell if your campaign is in trouble, what short-term steps you can take to stem your losses, and how to avoid the Top 10 campaign mistakes. Author and nonprofit fundraising expert Julia Walker also guides you in how to make your advancement operation more efficient by cutting costs and outsourcing selected campaign functions. A concise and practical guide on to how to fix a stalled or broken fundraising campaign, Jump-Starting the Stalled Fundraising Campaign covers:

• Fundraising in a challenging economic environment
• How to analyze campaign results
• Identifying opportunities by building on strengths
• Getting back on track with changes in campaign structure
• How to re-engage board, staff, and volunteers
• Prospect identification, cultivation, and solicitation
• Communicating more effectively to attract additional support
• Building on opportunities for change across the organization

We don't know how long the economy will remain in a recession, but it certainly provides challenges for the immediate future. Whether you are the director of a development office, part of a fundraising staff, a nonprofit executive director or board member, or a fundraising consultant, Jump-Starting the Stalled Fundraising Campaign explores how to refocus your campaign with step-by-step guidance, practical tools, and clear strategies for getting your nonprofit's campaign back on the road to success.

 

Part of the AFP/Wiley Fund Development Series, Nonprofit Essentials: Major Gifts is a professional guide to major gift fundraising, concisely presented in a format that is accessible, lively, and easy-to-read. With in-depth advice from experienced fundraiser Julia Walker, this book takes the reader from the early stages of establishing a program through the core elements of all major gift programs, including:

• identifying and rating prospects
• preparing the case
• training volunteers
• cultivating donors
• making the ask
• providing recognition and stewardship for the gift.

Its nuts-and-bolts presentation focuses on how to create a prospect-centered program that develops the capacity to engage and solicit donors, effectively based on their unique interests and needs.

 

Preparation. Planning. Execution. It's all here!

Finally, a clear and compelling guide to the key components shared by all campaigns. Illuminating case studies, practical tools, proven strategies, and helpful hints displayed throughout the book highlight solutions to common stumbling blocks that can trip up even the experienced campaign professional. Emphasis is given to new tools available through the Internet, such as Web sites for prospect research and the use of electronic media to help make your organization's case stand out among the competition.

"I have not come across a better book on the overall strategy and techniques necessary for the planning and implementation of a capital campaign." --Gordon H. "Nick" Mueller, Ph.D. President & CEO, The National World War II Museum

"This book by Julia Walker provides a comprehensive and practical guide on fundraising essentials that should serve as the Bible for nonprofits everywhere. I keep it on my desk at all times."--Adrienne Brooks, formerly Vice President for Institutional Advancement, Xavier University of Louisiana