Except for the few of us who work at our main office in Watertown, most everybody at HBG works from home. One of the (many) nice things about that is that you can listen to podcasts without bothering anyone else in the office (except maybe your furry 4-legged office-mates). [Read more…]
As the HBG Book Club group read about tax-free zones called freeports last week in Jake Bernstein’s page-turner, Secrecy World, it was a perfectly-timed coincidence that this fascinating Planet Money podcast came out on that very topic. [Read more…]
The new EU data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force on May 25th and it brings with it an entirely new set of rules that nonprofits world-wide – not just in the European Union – will have to abide by. I’m not seeing a lot of discussion about it here in the US fundraising community* and that concerns me. [Read more…]
During my time in prospect research, I’ve had to familiarize myself with ongoing trends in the philanthropic and financial world. As a former English major, I am usually much more comfortable discussing the works of Gabriel García Márquez than I am talking about SEC forms. [Read more…]
Back in the early 2000s my team and I started a database of gifts of $1 million or more by individuals or family foundations to nonprofit organizations in Massachusetts.
A million-dollar donation was still fairly noteworthy 15 years ago, but in recent years the figure to hit for exceptional giving (and website PR announcements) has crept up to $10 or even $20 million for medium-to-large organizations. [Read more…]
Lately I’ve been thinking about the innovative ways that young entrepreneurs are actively engaging in philanthropy. As my colleague Elizabeth Roma writes, the philanthropy landscape is ever evolving and innovating and appears to be picking up the pace of change exponentially in recent years in what is being referred to as the New Gilded Age. Elizabeth touches on innovative philanthropic vehicles such as the Emerson Collective and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as well as B-Corps and impact investing. [Read more…]
Here on The Intelligent Edge blog we usually concentrate on news, trends, and articles to help you get the most out of fundraising intelligence (or to help you be a better fundraising intelligence practitioner), and we don’t talk much about what’s going on behind the scenes here at the Helen Brown Group.
But we’ve got some exciting developments coming up in 2018 at HBG and I wanted to share them with you today because they’re pretty cool and they were all created with you in mind. [Read more…]
This past year has been enough to make anybody’s head spin. What would have been the normal amount of news in one of 52 average pre-2017 weeks has been crammed into 341 news cycles of increasingly elevated astonishment. Nearly every day feels to me like watching a piranha feeding frenzy in the Amazon.
Will we end up losing our capacity to relax? Or to believe that we aren’t just missing something in our newsfeed if we don’t immediately see evidence that something shocking has happened overnight? [Read more…]
“Palm Beach – Flagler Museum Courtyard” Photo by Roger W via Flickr
As temperatures in the Northeast drop below 40 degrees, so begins the migration of the wealthy to their seasonal homes to wait out winter. Perhaps the most famous of these destinations is Palm Beach. Part of an 18-mile barrier island in Southeastern Florida, the town is known for its pristine beaches, mega-yacht clubs, five-star restaurants, PGA-rated golf courses, and elite equestrian facilities.
For more than a century, Palm Beach has attracted and played host to the world’s rich and famous. While there, these “snowbirds” generate millions for charity and the local economy. As a result, charitable organizations have come to recognize Palm Beach as a philanthropic hub for the cultivation and stewardship of major donors. [Read more…]
Blue and Red Flower Bed, photo by Petr Kratochvil
Giving Tuesday marks the opening of the Giving Season, that time of year when generous donors help plant the bulbs for change, and nonprofits nurture and grow them.
I’ve been planting bulbs of my own this past week (daffodils and crocuses; also testing out if lavender seeds actually work), and that activity gave me loads of time to think about how a little preparation now makes a world of difference in a period of time that’s not all that far ahead.
In the fundraising intelligence world, we can do that, too. Here at HBG, we’re talking with clients now about how they can be prepared for next year.
What is your team doing to be sure you’re filling the pipeline with new prospects who are interested in your cause? [Read more…]
