Invest In The Rest Of Your Annual Fund Year With Bob's Mid-Year Review Annually during the months of December and January, Bob
Burdenski offers an abbreviated mid-year annual giving program review --
evaluating first-semester results, refining second-semester appeals and
considering particular fiscal year-end fundraising opportunities and
strategies.
Read more about Bob's Mid-Year Program Review
Robert Burdenski Annual Giving Launches Annual Giving Capacity Analysis With Marts & Lundy What's your institution's annual giving fundraising potential, what are the methods that will get you there, and who are your best prospects to solicit? Read more about this new collaboration.
Robert Burdenski Annual Giving Offers Data Mining Program Strategies Bob partners with data mining specialist Lo DeJanvry to add strategic prospect identification and segmentation to annual giving program reviews, products and services. Read more about this new collaboration.
Annual Giving in a Down Economy Fundraising is facing challenges, but your annual giving program has never been more valuable to your institution. Bob's new 25-point set of special discussion items adds a recession-specific focus to his annual giving program review. Among the enhanced review topics are data mining, new media, strategic cost management, new metrics and measures, the case for support during a recession, new roles for volunteers, and more.
"Thank you so much for all your good work. Everything went
exactly as hoped for and I really think we all feel that with your help we're
ready to make a few more big steps forward..."
-- Dede Huang, Director of Development Chinese International School, Hong Kong
"Thank you so much for filling me up with enthusiasm and passion for annual giving! It was a pleasure to meet with you and especially to learn from you. Keep working hard, keep inspiring people and thank you again."
-- David Meadows, Annual Fund Caller Manager University of Sheffield, UK "I just wanted to drop you a line and
say how much we appreciated your presentations. We came back buzzing and we’ve
completely re-strategised our annual fund campaigns for the next three years.
The ideas we gleaned have fallen into place very well, and we’ve already got
several original creative ideas, as well as the ones we copied and stole. Thanks again, and if you ever want a
few days in the mountains, just call us!"
-- Pete Wildman, Communications Manager The Woodstock School, Uttarakhand, India
"I read dozens of annual giving books, in my opinion Bob Burdenski’s books, CDs,
articles and website stood out above the rest hands down. Our Annual Giving
programs grew from $300,000 to hopefully over $1 million this fiscal year
because of Bob’s annual giving strategies."
-- Lucette Wildt
'98, Director
of Annual Giving Minnesota
State University, Mankato
Annual Giving in India: Bob with the advancment staff at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India (March, 2009)
Some of the ways in which institutions work with Bob Burdenski to improve their annual fund performance include the following:
Review the current annual giving program -- Bob's custom-tailored annual giving program review includes observations about the current program, examples from other annual giving program strategies at comparable institutions, specific recommendations for program enhancement and a work plan with suggested action steps and deadline dates.
Construct an annual giving plan -- For start-up programs or institutions in need of a new annual giving strategy, Bob helps to design a comprehensive program of donor acquisition, retention and giving growth.
Craft a better case for support -- Bob conducts writing seminars featuring effective annual giving case for support samples from institutions around the world. If your prospects are not responding to your annual giving letters, emails, phone calls and other appeals, perhaps you're not telling a compelling story!
Implement a leadership gifts program -- Institutions work with Bob to create a leadership giving case for support and related program materials, prospect tracking processes, cultivation and solicitation strategies, contact reporting and information collection, and stewardship and development of leadership giving society cachet.
Statistically analyze donor giving behavior -- Bob uses statistical analysis to examine an institution's year-to-year donor acquisition, retention, reactivation and attrition rates, complemented with narrative commentary and specific recommendations and examples for annual giving program enhancement.
Provide ongoing program training, goal-monitoring and current best-practice sharing -- Many institutions continue Bob's involvement after an initial program review to help with implementation of action items, staff training, seminars and an annual update of best practice examples collected from Bob's international consulting work.
Review alumni relations and membership programs -- Bob has long advocated the importance of affinity-building programs in providing a fundraising foundation. His affinity program reviews include observations about the current program, relevant examples from comparable programs, and specific recommendations for program enhancement and a work plan with suggested action steps and deadline dates.
Survey the prospect population -- Bob conducts email and paper mail surveys of alumni and other prospect populations, for the purpose of identifying demographically differentiable opinions, perceptions and attitudes related to an institution and its case for annual gift support. What programs and services to alumni desire, and what are their opinions of their student experience and of the institution today? Bob provides paper and CDRom statistical tables, written survey comments, and a narrative analysis report.
Add components to the existing program -- Bob has worked with institutions to implement reunion giving, Internet appeals, faculty & staff appeals, parent programs, corporate and small business appeals, student development programs, grateful patients, and others.
Define the optimal mix of central vs. unit-based annual giving programs and services -- For larger institutions, particularly universities, Bob works to objectively identify the right mix of centrally-provided economies of scale and unit-based strategies.
