Articles by CharityChannel Members
CharityChannel members who have years of experience in their field may apply to join a Contributor's Panel. Once accepted to a panel by the panel's editor, the member will work with the editor to determine article topics and to prepare an article that is ready for publication. With tens of thousands of colleagues in the CharityChannel professional community, this is a key opportunity to give back to your profession by sharing your hard-won expertise and wisdom.
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Four Things Your Board’s Vice President Could Do Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordWednesday, August 31, 2011 (1 years 257 days ago)
Here are some great ideas for enriching the role of the board vice president in ways that provide added value to the board.
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Is Your Organization Ready to be Rated On Its Performance? Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordWednesday, September 23, 2009 (3 years 234 days ago)
There is a snowball already gathering momentum and mass on its way down the hill in the USA and your board needs to pay attention to it now.
That snowball is the growing movement by independent intermediaries to develop simple rating systems for the very complex world of nonprofit performance and social impact. The goal of these intermediaries, spurred on by funders, is to provide accessible, online rating systems to steer philanthropic dollars to the “best performing” nonprofits.
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Banishing your expectation of board fundraising, or why does it feel so good when I stop? (Part 2) Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordThursday, February 24, 2005 (8 years 81 days ago)
In the first part of this article, I suggested that it was time to for us to let go of the axiom that "board members must fundraise." In my experience, this "truism" has led to unproductive board-bashing by staff. It has devalued the extremely important job of the board to create an organization that is worthy and trustworthy of support -- with a strategic vision for community betterment, a commitment to results, and wise stewardship of its resources.
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Banishing your expectation of board fundraising, or why does it feel so good when I stop? (Part 1) Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordMonday, February 14, 2005 (8 years 91 days ago)
If there's one staff frustration about nonprofit boards that I've heard over and over again, it is "my board won't raise money."
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Ten worst reasons for selecting your Director of Development Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordWednesday, May 12, 2004 (9 years 4 days ago)
Many board members participate in the process of hiring development staff. As a cautionary service, I thought I'd share with you my top ten list of tempting, but ill-advised reasons for selecting your director of development.
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Advice to Businesspeople Who are New to Nonprofit Boards Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordThursday, March 11, 2004 (9 years 66 days ago)
Congratulations! You've just joined the board of directors of a charitable nonprofit. If this is a new experience for you, you are in good company. More businesses today seem to encourage (even push) their staff to get involved with nonprofit service.
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When a Donor Makes a Bigoted Remark -- Part II of II Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordTuesday, January 28, 2003 (10 years 109 days ago)
Diversity experts agree that it is important to speak out and interrupt slurs or hateful speech.
According to
Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, "every day somewhere in the United States, at least eight blacks, three whites, three gays, three Jews and one Latino become hate crime victims. Each week, a cross is burned." Of course, bigotry is not exclusive to the United States.
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When a Donor Makes a Bigoted Remark -- Part I of II Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordTuesday, January 21, 2003 (10 years 116 days ago)
It doesn't make any difference how many sensitivity and diversity training workshops you've attended, there's nothing like the test of having your beliefs and training collide with your job responsibilities.
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Ensuring Your Future: A Partnership of Thoughtful Planning and Successful Fundraising Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordTuesday, November 19, 2002 (10 years 179 days ago)
I frequently encounter organizations that are having a difficult time raising money (no surprise to those of us in the nonprofit world); and, when we begin exploring the reasons for the difficulty, it's not long before I discover that these organizations don't have any clear plan for the future.
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Designing Donor Benefits -- Tax Implications in the USA Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordTuesday, October 15, 2002 (10 years 214 days ago)
In previous articles, we discussed some essential concepts to keep in mind when designing donor benefit and recognition programs. A very important issue, too often overlooked by inexperienced fundraisers, and most certainly by volunteers, are the US-IRS tax implications of donor benefits.
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The Role of the Governing Board (Part 2) Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordThursday, September 19, 2002 (10 years 240 days ago)
This two-part article suggests that the role of board can be distilled into three elements:
- to create the promise of desired community change
- to set parameters for institutional health
- to ensure that the promise is kept and health is maintained
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Essential Elements Of A Donor Recognition Program Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordTuesday, September 10, 2002 (10 years 249 days ago)
For many organizations, designing a successful benefit/recognition program to inspire donors and recognize their giving is a challenge that can be fraught with danger.
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The Role of the Governing Board Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordThursday, September 05, 2002 (10 years 254 days ago)
This two-part article suggests that the role of board can be distilled into three elements:
- To create the promise of desired community change;
- To set parameters for institutional health; and
- To ensure that the promise is kept and health is maintained.
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Major Gifts are Not Just for Bricks and Mortar -- Packaging the Invisibles and the Intangibles Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordSaturday, July 20, 2002 (10 years 301 days ago)
Most of the organizations I have worked with, either as a consultant or as their Director of Development, haven't had building or equipment needs upon which to base a capital/major gifts effort, but all were able to institute effective major gifts programs.
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SHARING THEIR DREAM -- Listening, A Tool For Acquiring Major Gifts Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordTuesday, July 02, 2002 (10 years 319 days ago)
Baseball legend Yogi Berra once said "You can observe a lot by watching." Well, as a fundraiser, I paraphrase Yogi, and suggest that "you can hear a lot by listening."
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Is It Time To Abolish the Board Fundraising Committee? Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordThursday, June 06, 2002 (10 years 345 days ago)
A colleague recently asked: How can you make the most of your board's development committee meeting? Here's my completely unconventional answer to that question.
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Cultivating Major Donors (Part 2) Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordTuesday, May 07, 2002 (11 years 10 days ago)
"We need $1,000,000, and I just discovered a newspaper article about this really wealthy person I've never met before. I called her up and she agreed to meet with me. I was so incredibly convincing that she pledged $1,000,000, right then, to our campaign." Wow! Dreams really can come true!
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How Passionate Is Your Board? Contributed by:
Gayle GiffordThursday, April 11, 2002 (11 years 36 days ago)
Imagine sitting with the founders of your organization at their very first meetings. What were they talking about?
CharityChannel's WE REVIEW
CharityChannel members who have been admitted to the WE REVIEW Contributors Panel are eligible to receive recently-published books from a variety of publishers (and some self-publishers) to review. Reviews are not limited to books published by CharityChannel Press, the publishing project of the CharityChannel professional community. If you are interested in reviewing books, you are welcome to apply. Note that, even though WE REVIEW has been publishing reviews for over a decade, it has recently been reorganized and re-launched. We took the opportunity to remove prior reviews, since our focus is on newly published books.
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Effective Donor Relations Review by:
Gayle GiffordFriday, February 17, 2012 (1 years 86 days ago)
In this time of economic uncertainty and heightened competition for the discretionary dollar, charitable nonprofits simply cannot afford to neglect their donors.
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