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Faith vs. Magical Thinking: What it Means for Your Fundraising

Make sure to get your free copy of ‘The 10 Commandments of Catholic Fundraising’. It’s a book that highlights the ten tasks you should do to keep you focused on your mission and hit your fundraising target, every time.
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My fundraising started to kick into high gear when I better understood how it connected with my Catholic faith.  When we talk about faith in the context of fundraising, we often hear lines such as, “You just have to have faith. It’ll all work out.” “Do not worry about fundraising. What is supposed to happen, will happen.”

What do these phrases mean? Better yet, are they helpful?

Personally, I think such phrases demonstrate an incorrect approach to how we — as Catholics — should connect faith and fundraising.

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3 Ways Catholics Can Better Fundraise in 2019

Make sure to get your free copy of ‘The 10 Commandment of Catholic Fundraising’. It’s a book that highlights the ten tasks you should do to keep you focused on your mission and hit your fundraising target, every time.

Fundraising has changed dramatically in the past decade, and 2019 will be another year of new ways to ask for donations. The focus used to be on direct mail appeals. You’d collect a mailing list of people and mail them your appeal. That method is slowly being replaced by online appeals for two reasons.

The first is online appeals are dramatically less expensive. Mailing a letter would cost you around a buck and change, while an email usually costs less than a nickel.

The second reason is ‘return on investment’ or ROI Non-profits – especially ones with smaller fundraising budgets – find this new approach to be more successful. You can send 2,000 emails for the same price as it would cost to send a single letter. More requests equal more donations, and fewer costs mean more money back into the mission.

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A Catholic Priest’s Advice on End-of-Year Giving, “Don’t Ask”

Make sure to get your free copy of ‘The 10 Commandment of Catholic Fundraising’. It’s a book that highlights the ten tasks you should do to keep you focused on your mission and hit your fundraising target, every time.

End-of-year fundraising is on most Catholic causes and non-profits to-do lists this time of year. So I thought it would be a great time to share the advise a parish priest once gave to me. He had observed, after a few years as their priest, what inspired his parishioners not only to give but also not to give. He thought if he could only do more of what inspired them to give, then more parishioners would donate.

Year after year, he fine-tuned his process for end-of-year giving and was able to boost his weekly collection by 30%.

That’s really good, but when you read how he actually did it, it’s even more amazing.

Here is what one parish priest did:

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Three Smart and Easy Steps to a Better Advent Appeal

Practical steps any Catholic cause can take to improve their Advent appeal

Make sure to get your free copy of ‘The 10 Commandment of Catholic Fundraising’. It’s a book that highlights the ten tasks you should do to keep you focused on your mission and hit your fundraising target, every time.

The Season of Advent is coming, and you know what that means: end of year giving appeals. Writing a letter that inspires people to donate will be a defining factor in how much you raise.

Your letter must speak to people’s hearts, be concise and — most importantly — clearly state your request for a donation.

To sum it all up: your appeal letter must capture people’s eyes, hearts, and minds, and guide them all in the same direction towards sending you a donation.

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#IGiveCatholic – The Digital Wave That’s Raising Millions

November 27 is changing how Catholics raise funds online

Make sure to get your free copy of ‘The 10 Commandment of Catholic Fundraising’. It’s a book that highlights the ten tasks you should do to keep you focused on your mission and hit your fundraising target, every time.

If you are fundraising in November and December, you don’t want to miss this opportunity. One of the biggest trends in Catholic fundraising is the social media campaign called #iGiveCatholic.

This campaign is an online giving day that kicks off the charitable season and brings the Catholic community together to give thanks and give back. It is celebrated annually on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.

The hashtag, followed by the phrase ‘I Give Catholic,’ was inspired by the popular non-profit social media campaign #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving. In social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn), when a word or phrase is preceded by a hash mark (#) when it is used in a post, it becomes indexed by the social network and becomes searchable/discoverable by other users.

The #iGiveCatholic social media campaign is an online giving day designed to celebrate our unique Catholic heritage. #iGiveCatholic inspires faithful stewards to “Give Catholic” on #GivingTuesday.