by Eddie Thompson | Oct 17, 2014 | Charitable Estate Planning, Development Management
There’s an irrefutable law of nonprofit leadership: Consistent growth and long-term sustainability are largely dependent on an organization’s ability to monitor and maintain a healthy balance between 1) solicitation of gifts from discretionary income and 2)...
by Eddie Thompson | Aug 14, 2014 | Donor Communications
Over the last decade there’s been a lot of emphasis on quantifying and measuring the results of charitable gifts. More and more donors view gifts to a nonprofit as social investments and evaluate their giving decisions in terms of the ROI (return on investment)....
by Eddie Thompson | May 26, 2014 | Charitable Estate Planning
When it comes to planned gifts and bequests to your organization, a standard consultant’s reply is that organizations “have not because they ask not.” However, it’s usually not quite that simple. If success were based simply on the number of asks, then success would...
by Eddie Thompson | Mar 17, 2014 | Development Management
The 1972 crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 is the classic example of Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT), an aviation term used to describe a perfectly air-worthy aircraft under complete pilot control being inadvertently flown into the ground or an obstacle. When...
by Eddie Thompson | Feb 18, 2014 | Charitable Estate Planning
I wrote a paper in graduate school on the Harvard legacy and have been intrigued with the idea of it ever since. It’s a great example of several key elements of strategic giving—leverage, timing, and momentum. In other words, the greatest philanthropic impact is the...