Author Archives: Stephanie

Based on your past experiences you may feel that a traditional donor wall is expensive, cumbersome, challenging and time consuming to update and costly to clean and maintain. In fact, a large donor wall program can be a full time job for one of your staff for a couple months every year. If the donor […]

A capital campaign when a nonprofit organization wants to raise a substantial amount of money for a specific purpose within a certain time period. The campaign could be for many reasons; building a new facility, expanding programs, or bringing in new technology, all with the purpose to help the community. If this sounds demanding, you’re […]

While surfing the web, I came across an interesting article that I would like to share from Software Advice, Inc. “While many nonprofits value small donations from givers, the data shows that up to 75 percent of an organization’s revenue comes from major donors, or individuals who give $1 million or more. But acquiring these types […]

Determine your objectives. Try to imagine how your donors would like to be recognized for their gifts, ask yourself these questions: Were promises made to donors about how they should be recognized? How many donors do you currently have? How many donors will you have   in five years? How many categories do you need? How many […]

The article from Nonprofit Hub reviews the top 5 marketing upcoming marketing trends for 2015.  We provide a link to the full article at the bottom of the page. 1. Mobile is hot. Still. We’re almost starting to sound like a broken record, but if mobile has not been a priority for you, now’s the time […]

I’ve heard horror stories from clients of past donors bringing family and friends to show them their plaque only to find it missing. If you haven’t been with your organization from the beginning there maybe plaques you are unaware of. We have surveyed facilities and found donor plaques in storage rooms, behind file cabinets, you […]

The plaque shown below was originally cast in the mid 50’s and had since tarnished and became an unusable eye sore. Donor Signs, Inc. cleaned and sanded the plaque, freshened up the brass letters and border, then finished it with a new protective clear coat. The main improvement was the removal of the existing name […]

The ability to clean a donor wall is critical and often over looked. Often times, people focus solely on the design without planning for future upkeep. The design can be aesthetically pleasing yet difficult  and costly to maintain and update which puts a huge strain on the budget. When planning a donor wall make sure you […]

While doing my own research, I came across useful information that I would like to share from GrantSpace.org, ‘Foundation Center’. They review some of  the most successful ways to find individual donors to contribute to your foundation. It’s no surprise that old fashion networking in the community is the best way. But, the article highlights four […]

The good news is if you live in the Northern Plains of the United States, you are most likely seeing an increase of over 10% in charitable funds. However, if you are living in the Southwest, you may not be so lucky. The Southwest has been hit the hardest by the Great Recession and is […]

You finally land that big gift and the donor insists on outrageous recognition, how do you tell them NO. Not long ago we designed a project for a client who had a donor that insisted an image of their dog appear on the plaque. Our client didn’t know how to respond and allowed it, much […]

You have to live with the new donor recognition system for many years. This means the system needs to be flexible to accommodate new donors and allow for growth. We have 5 key strategies to help you through the process:  Be certain you KNOW ALL THE COST REQUIRED TO ADD NAMES to a donor wall. This includes […]

We’ve been planning, designing and implementing donor recognition for organizations all over the country since 1993. We’ve become pretty good at it, and by it, I mean by helping our clients solve problems, clean up messes, and increase the number of donors and giving amounts. If we’ve learned anything its that donor recognition is fussy […]