Foundry Blog

Giving days have multiplied for over a decade. Giving Tuesday launched in 2012, DAF Day joined the calendar a few years back, and corporate “vote for us” contests have run in some form even longer than that. The nonprofit sector didn’t just tolerate this growth; it built infrastructure around it: toolkits, playbooks, matching-gift platforms, a […]

Somewhere right now, an organization is twisting a program to fit a funder’s interest instead of a community’s need. A mentoring program starts calling itself workforce development, because that’s where the money moved this year. A food pantry adds a wellness component, because a health funder likes the word. Leadership calls this being flexible. It […]

Your case for support is about you. It shouldn’t be. Somewhere on your shared drive there is a document called something like “Case for Support — FINAL v6.” Fourteen pages. It opens with the year you were founded. There’s a section on your theory of change, a paragraph on your executive director’s last three jobs, […]

You’re not in the relationship business. You’re in the transaction business. Fundraising is a relationship business. It’s in the training, the keynote, the white paper, the job posting, the opening slide, the board retreat icebreaker, and the exit interview of every development director who was just told she wasn’t the right fit. Nobody argues with […]

This week, somewhere on LinkedIn, a consultant posted a hot take. It doesn’t matter which week. It is always this week. “Hot take: keeping the donors you already have matters more than chasing new ones.” Four hundred likes. Ninety comments, most of them some variation of “say it louder.” A dozen reposts from development officers tagging […]