Donor Impact Quotes

The bowl that emerged was one of those gifts whose first impact produces in the recipient's mind a colored image, a blazoned blur, reflecting with such emblematic force the sweet nature of the donor that the tangible attributes of the thing are dissolved, as it were, in this pure inner blaze, but suddenly and forever leap into brilliant being when praised by an outsider to whom the true glory of the object is unknown.

Emotions play the biggest part of moving a donor to give, but statistics and impact reinforce the decision to give to reduce donor’s remorse.

Collective impact (fig. 3.8) operates on the premise that much of conservation and donor funding has fallen short of meeting its goals of significant societal transformation because decision and implementation programs are too fractured and diffuse, generating competition among players rather than collaboration in what is often a zero-sum game.

The upshot was that by the end of the 1970s conservative nonprofits had achieved power that was almost unthinkable when the League to Save Carthage first formed. Enormously wealthy right-wing donors had transformed themselves from the ridiculed, self-serving “economic royalists” of FDR’s day into the respected “other side” of a two-sided debate. The new, hyper-partisan think tanks had impact far beyond Washington. They introduced doubt into areas of settled academic and scientific scholarship, undermined genuinely unbiased experts, and gave politicians a menu of conflicting statistics and arguments from which to choose. The benefit was a far more pluralistic intellectual climate, beyond liberal orthodoxy. The hazard, however, was that partisan shills would create “balance” based on fraudulent research and deceive the public about pressing issues in which their sponsors had financial interests.

One specific conflict that often arises between donors and investors is how to treat proprietary information. Donors often seek to place the intellectual property an enterprise creates (best practices, challenges, and process innovations, for example) into the public domain as quickly as possible. Focusing on social impact, they want the enterprise to build bridges to entry for other social entrepreneurs to replicate the model widely. In contrast, most private investors want to maximize their financial return by building barriers that prevent others from adopting a new business model or technology. Neither approach maximizes blended value. Instead, impact investors need to find new ways to integrate the imperative to replicate models for maximum social impact with the need to generate profits and achieve investment exits.

to satisfy all the crisscrossing priorities of multiple donors, organizations can end up tying themselves into a pretzel.

Being “real,” being transparent, and being open and honest about your organization’s efforts (both the successes and the failures) will help you build trust. Trust leads to commitment. Then it leads to retention, loyalty, major gifts, and planned gifts. True transparency in Engagement Fundraising includes such things as regular updates that provide value to donors by involving them with impact results and sharing stories from the field.

It goes without saying that charities need to use smart business strategies to meet their goals. Pyramid and populist fundraising don’t fit the bill because they assume all donors are created equal, and we know they aren’t. Instead, you should give priority treatment to the best donors and prospects. Doesn’t it make sense to use your precious time and valuable resources on finding and retaining more people who are not only passionate about your cause, but also have the capacity to make serious impact, instead of spending tons of money on low-dollar, low-capacity donors and then trying to move them up the pyramid?

Who would have ever believed that simply transferring fecal pellets containing gut microbiota from an “extrovert” mouse could change the behavior of a “timid” mouse, making it behave more like the gregarious donor mouse?

Private foundations have very few legal restrictions. They are required to donate at least 5 percent of their assets every year to public charities--referred to as "nonprofit" organizations. In exchange, the donors are granted deductions, enabling them to re3duce their income taxes dramatically. This arrangement enables the wealthy to simultaneously receive generous tax subsidies and use their foundations to impact society as they please.

Private foundations have very few legal restrictions. They are required to donate at least 5 percent of their assets every year to public charities--referred to as "nonprofit" organizations. In exchange, the donors are granted deductions, enabling them to reduce their income taxes dramatically. This arrangement enables the wealthy to simultaneously receive generous tax subsidies and use their foundations to impact society as they please.

Private foundations have very few legal restrictions. They are required to donate at least 5 percent of their assets every year to public charities—referred to as “nonprofit” organizations. In exchange, the donors are granted deductions, enabling them to reduce their income taxes dramatically. This arrangement enables the wealthy to simultaneously receive generous tax subsidies and use their foundations to impact society as they please. In addition, the process often confers an aura of generosity and public-spiritedness on the donors, acting as a salve against class resentment.

The creation of this digital collection, which brings together the entire body of research materials related to William F Cody's personal and professional life, will enable a variety of audiences to consider the impact of William F. Cody the cultural entrepreneur on American life and provide contextualizing documents from other sources, including audio-visual media that exist for the final years of his life. It will allow more scholars to study the man within his times, will provide new resources to contextualize studies of other regional and national events and persons, and will encourage digital edition visitors to explore and learn more about these vital decades of American expansion and development. The digital edition of the Papers will differ significantly from the print edition by including manuscript materials, photographs, and film and sound recordings, and it will offer navigational and search options not possible in the print edition. As Griffin's volume reveals, it took many people to make Buffalo Bill's Wild West happen. Likewise, there are many people whose combined efforts have made this documentary project a reality. All of the generous donors and talented scholars who have contributed to the success of this effort will be noted in due course. But in this, the first publication, it is appropriate to acknowledge that big ideas are carried to fruition only by sound and steady leadership. The McCracken Research Library was fortunate at the advent of the papers project that in its board chair it had such a leader. Maggie Scarlett was not only an early supporter of this documentary editing project but also its first true champion. It was through her connections (and tenacity) that the initial funds were raised to launch the project. Whether seeking support from private donors, the Wyoming State Legislature, federal granting agencies, or the United States Congress, Maggie led the charge and thereby secured the future of this worthy endeavor. Thus, this reissue of Griffin's account is a legacy not only to William Cody but also to all of those who have made this effort and the larger undertaking possible. In that spirit, though these pages rightfully belong to Charles Eldridge Griffin and to Mr. Dixon, if this volume were mine to dedicate, it would be to Maggie. Kurt Graham

Solving society’s most intractable problems begins with understanding what actually moves the needle. This allows resources and creativity to be focused where they have the most impact. Requests to support a social purpose are now regularly expected to include a solid demonstration of effectiveness. It may be a donor inspecting a nonprofit on a website like Charity Navigator, an impact investor evaluating a potential loan recipient, a citizen inspecting where his or her tax dollars go, or an investor evaluating socially responsible stocks. How impact is articulated may vary, but providing compelling evidence of results is now a make-or-break proposition for organizations seeking financial support.

Adam Grant has an answer. In Give and Take, he writes about the power of purpose to improve not just happiness, but also productivity. 50 His answer, like many brilliant insights, seems obvious once it’s pointed out. The big surprise is how huge the impact is. Adam looked at paid employees in a university’s fund-raising call center. Their job was to call potential donors and ask for contributions. He divided them into three groups. Group A was the control group, and just did their jobs. Group B read stories from other employees about the personal benefits of the job: learning and money. Group C read stories from scholarship recipients about how the scholarships had changed their lives. Groups A and B saw no difference in performance. Group C, in contrast, grew their weekly pledges by 155 percent (to twenty-three a week from nine a week) and weekly fund-raising by 143 percent (to $ 3,130 from $ 1,288). If reading