Announcing the Advancement Partners Summer Seminar 2013
by Adam Fairholm on 2012-12-12
Today we're happy to announce the dates for the 2013 Advancement Partners Summer Seminar: July 31st through August 2nd, 2013, at the University of Notre Dame. We're also excited about this year's theme: Quicker, Smarter, Stronger: Managing Super Hero Expectations With Mere Mortal Resources. Our focus will be on managing high expectations with the resources you have in your development office and school. It's going to be a great seminar, and we hope to see you there!
Categories: Seminars and Workshops
Advancement Partners Fall 2012 Newsletter
by Adam Fairholm on 2012-10-22
- Keep Focused on Fourth Quarter Philanthropy
- Fall Metrics
- Get Ready for the 2013 Summer Seminar
Categories: Newsletters
Advancement Partners Summer Seminar 2012 Recap
by Adam Fairholm on 2012-08-24
Earlier this month, we held the 2012 edition of our annual Summer Seminar at the University of Notre Dame, and this year was a huge success! Thank you to all of our attendees who made this a great three days.
Categories: Seminars and Workshops
5 Reasons to Attend the Advancement Partners Summer Seminar
by Adam Fairholm on 2012-06-12
The Advancement Partners Summer Seminar has been put on by Advancement Partners, Inc. for close to 8 years now and has become a premiere event for advancement and development professionals. The 2012 summer seminar is coming up this August 1-3 at the University of Notre Dame, and we've got a our best line up talks, speakers, and sessions we've ever had. Here at the top 5 reasons why you should attend:
Categories: Seminars and Workshops
Welcome to the New Advancement Partners Website
by Terry Fairholm on 2012-01-18
Today we're starting off 2012 at Advancement Partners with a brand-new website and a new look. This is our first major website redesign since 2008, and we've taken the opportunity to make some big changes.
Nov 3rd Chicago Workshop and Welcome to New Clients
by Terry Fairholm on 2011-10-31
There has been a lot going on at Advancement Partners over the past several months. We ended the summer months with our annual Summer Seminar at the University of Notre Dame, which was attended by over 26 schools and was a huge success.
Aside from our annual Notre Dame Summer Seminar, we hold free half-day workshops around the country. These are great opportunities to learn some new ideas, meet other Catholic development professionals in your area, get some help on a challenge you’re facing, or just refresh your motivation to make your advancement efforts a success.
Categories: Sample Category
Educate Your Board!
by Terry Fairholm on 2011-09-08
This year’s Advancement Partners Summer Seminar at Notre Dame was attended by 40 people representing 25 Catholic high schools from around the country. It was our best seminar ever. One theme that kept surfacing related to the Board. Many schools commented on how their Board members do not really understand development. As we begin a new year, make a commitment to educate your Board about development and their role in the process.
Categories: Planning
School’s Out – Now What?
by Terry Fairholm on 2011-06-13
As we enter the summer months, make sure to take some time off to enjoy the good weather with friends and family, relax and ‘sharpen the saw’, then get back to business! Summer is the time when you should be creating your development plan for next year. At the top of your list at this particular time should be your annual fund. All plans and preparations should be completed by mid August with a first mailing date in September. Remember, one of the best ways to increase your annual fund is to solicit the top prospects in person. Make a list of your top prospects and seek personal appointments with them to ask for their annual fund commitment. Move them up the giving pyramid – if they gave $500 last year, ask for $1,000 for this year, etc. Once your annual fund plan is complete and in progress, work on your major gift plan for the year. This element of your plan must compliment your annual fund plan – make certain to ask your major gift prospects for their annual fund commitment but think strategically! Ask for an amount that makes sense (do research and strategic thinking) but present the ask comprehensively. For example, if the right ask is $50,000 and we are proposing a 5 year pledge period, suggest that a portion of it be dedicated to the annual fund (say $3,000/year) and the balance to the project the strategic plan/case for support has identified as a top priority and coincides with your prospects interests.
Categories: Planning
2011 Advancement Partners Summer Seminar: The Power of Focus – How to Achieve Your Advancement Objec
by Terry Fairholm on 2011-03-28
The information brochure for our annual Summer Seminar was just mailed to you. If you did not receive it, please let me know and I’ll make sure to get you one. Also, if you received it but it was addressed to someone that is no longer with the school, please accept my apologies. We are in the process of updating our database which will be completed by the end of April. This year’s Summer Seminar will be unlike any we have ever done. We reduced the number of topics so that we are highly focused and we will address each in customized fashion for Board and Development Committee members, Presidents and Principals, and Development Directors. We will follow up by discussing the topics with the groups together so that each group can experience the topic from their own perspective and then from the perspective of the team – which is required for successful implementation and achievement. We encourage you to bring the whole team (President/Principal, Development Director, Board Chair, Development Committee Chair)!
Categories: Seminars and Workshops
Transformational Change
by Terry Fairholm on 2011-02-10
Often in the development business we hear the phrase ‘transformational change’. Frequently, it is used to distinguish between low to mid level change and extremely high level change. As it relates to Catholic secondary education, it is used to describe, for example, the difference between renovating the kitchen and building a new science and technology wing. While both may be needed, one will have low impact on the quality of the educational product; the other could elevate the school to a higher level of existence. Almost every Catholic school we have interviewed with or worked with has required the latter, a higher level of existence – transformation. The challenge is how to achieve that objective. Here are some ideas to consider in the pursuit of truly ‘transformational’ change:Categories: Implementation
The New Year
by Terry Fairholm on 2011-01-26
Remember the New Year’s Eve bar scene in the movie Forrest Gump when Lenore (one of Lieutenant Dan’s friends) says to Forrest, "don’t you just love New Year’s? You get to start all over; everybody gets another chance." In the business of development, the New Year marks the half way point of our school year and it gives us a chance to review where we are relative to our objectives for the year. Last year at this time I suggested that, at this point in the year, you should have accomplished the following:
Categories: Implementation
Major Gifts
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-11-01
On Sunday, October 24, 2010 my brother, Don, and I ran a half marathon in Niagara Falls. It was in honor of my Dad, Ron Fairholm, who had passed away in July of 2009. My Dad introduced us to running and we wanted to do something to honor him on his birthday so we trained and ran the 13.1 miles. What does this have to do with major gifts? While I was running (for 1 hour and 55 minutes) I noticed a t-shirt that another runner was wearing that read 'Do Hard Things'. That got me thinking about a lot but particularly our business.
Categories: Implementation
Advancement Partners Institutional Advancement Workshop Series 2010
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-10-12
Every year, we conduct institutional advancement workshops for Catholic high schools all around the country. On October 27th, we will be in St. Louis, MO at St. Louis University in the Busch Student Center, Room 351, 20 North Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63103; on November 4th, we will be in Mentor, OH at Lake Catholic High School, 6733 Reynolds Rd. Mentor, OH 44060.
Categories: Seminars and Workshops
Creating Your Major Gift Pyramid
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-09-15
When I am making campaign major gift solicitation calls, one important piece of information I share with prospects is the campaign pyramid (or gift chart). In my experience, one of the least understood elements of fundraising is how the dollar goal is actually achieved and what is really required to be successful. So to educate the prospect, create confidence and ensure them that, in the proper sequence, everyone in the constituency will be asked for their support, I review and explain the campaign pyramid.
Categories: Planning
Responding to the Challenge Wrap-up
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-08-10
On August 4, 2010, we kicked off our annual three-day summer seminar at the University of Notre Dame. This year’s theme was ‘Responding to the Challenge’. There were 33 attendees representing twenty-six Catholic high schools, one Catholic elementary school, one Catholic college, one archdiocese and one Christian school. We covered a lot of material - from strategic planning to branding and marketing, from prospect identification to personal solicitation and the annual fund. Our guest speakers were outstanding – Theresa Bramanti, Board Chair, Pope John XXIII High School, Katy, TX; Dan Reagan, Associate Vice President, University Relations, Executive Director Principal Gifts and Campaign Administration; Jim Oakey, Board Chair, Mercy High School, Baltimore, MD. All the feedback was overwhelmingly positive!
Categories: Seminars and Workshops
Philanthropy-Oriented Development
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-07-15
I'm often asked by the schools that we work with "How would you organize our development office so that we can make more money?" The reality in most of these situations is that these development offices are usually significantly underfunded and under-resourced. Even though the demand from the board room and business office is that more non-tuition money is needed - and fast, the budgets and resources allocated to the challenge often remain woefully inadequate. So how should you organize if the budgets don't get increased and the resources remain less than you would like? Optimal organization requires an alignment of the (limited) resources that are available, with the most strategically important activities - those that will maximize development revenues in the short term and the long term. If the activities are not the right activities, then it won't be possible to maximize development revenues. In many situations, schools are simply not focused on the right activities.
Categories: Planning
Advancement Partners on Twitter
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-07-06
A few months ago we launched a Facebook page as well as a LinkedIn profile. Now we're moving into Twitter as a way to connect with the Catholic education community. Follow us at api_consulting to get updates about new Advancement Partners content and other development news.
Categories: Site News
Prospect Identification
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-06-28
This Advancement Minute addresses the fundamentally important topic of identifying major gift prospects. As the video outlines, there are five key steps to identifying top prospects. I want to focus on just three of the steps in this blog:
Electronic screening: this is a critically important first step that all Catholic high schools should engage in. The cost has come down considerably and it is impossible to reach you major gift potential without this information. With the help of contemporary technology, we are now able to “make the target smaller” and identify where the wealth is within our database. If there are 10,000 constituents within your school’s database, over 90% of the wealth will be held by approximately 400 people. Knowing who those folks are and involving them in the school will set you in the right major gift direction.
Categories: Implementation
Fundraising vs Advancement
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-05-10
This Advancement Minute focuses on the difference between 'fundraising' and 'advancement'. Catholic schools need both but you will raise more money if you create a more comprehensive, advancement-based approach.
Fundamentally, they differ at the grassroots level. Fundraising is mass market oriented while advancement is individual oriented. This is a critical difference because it contrasts the eventual results. By creating a program to secure philanthropic investments from individuals you are entering the world of what is commonly known in the development business as ‘major gifts’. I refer to these types of gifts as investments but let’s go with the more commonly accepted term of major gifts.
Categories: Planning
Introducing the 'Advancement Minute' Video Series
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-04-08
Consider the following: 1) quite often, something that can be adjusted fairly easily can be the difference between mediocre and excellent, below average and above average, good and great; 2) we have less and less time to deliver results; 3) execution is the key to success; 4) we all have a very limited attention span.
Those realities, as they relate to institutional advancement, have led to the creation of the Advancement Minute, a series of one minute video information clips we have created that will be available for you (free) on the Advancement Partners website.
Categories: Site News
Advancement Partners at NCEA 2010
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-03-19
Come by our booth, #747, at the NCEA conference in Minneapolis April 6-8, 2010. It would be great to meet you and hear about your institutional advancement challenges! I will be there most of the week and will be "manning the booth"
Categories: Seminars and Workshops
Benchmarking for Success
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-03-04
We specialize in institutional advancement for Catholic secondary schools and have been working in this important market segment for over twenty years. Over that period of time, we have gained invaluable experience and have compiled some statistics.
We also make certain to stay current with market data. In that regard, I highly recommend that you read and become familiar with the findings in Dollars and Sense – Catholic High Schools and their Finances
Categories: Planning
The API Theme for 2010: “Responding to the Challenge”
by Terry Fairholm on 2010-02-11
Last year’s theme, 'Philanthropy in Challenging Economic Times', was appropriate since we were witnessing the most severe recession in most of our lifetimes. Raising money for our schools was challenging, to say the least!
This year we have chosen the theme, 'Responding to the Challenge', because it is important that we react directly and assertively to the challenges we are encountering in our advancement efforts. There is a new reality settling in and we must, therefore, be aware of what will be required of us in order to secure the critically important philanthropic funding our schools need to fulfill their missions.
Categories: Planning
Calendar Year-End Benchmarks
by Terry Fairholm on 2009-12-16
We are nearing the end of the calendar year and by now you should be well on your way to achieving your advancement objectives for this school year. A few benchmarks for you to consider: By now -
- You should have mailed two annual fund solicitation letters and should be receiving responses.
- You should be finishing up your top annual fund prospect personal solicitation calls.
- You should have conducted your first major special event of the school year.
- You should be preparing for your third annual fund mailing.
- You should have conducted at least eight major gift solicitation calls (in addition to the annual fund personal solicitation calls).
- You should have had at least four major gift cultivation meetings.
- You should have involved your Principal/President in key solicitation and cultivation meetings.
These are just some suggested guidelines for you to consider.
Categories: Implementation
The Advancement Year Has Begun – Have You?
by Terry Fairholm on 2009-09-15
The advancement clock began ticking on July 1- is your plan complete? Do you know what your objectives are for this year? Is you first annual fund piece ready to go? Have you made your first major gift solicitation call? Have you made your first cultivation visit? If you answered ‘no’ to any of those questions, you’re behind schedule – and there are no timeouts! You can’t stop the clock in this game. Step one is to get your plan together: annual fund, major gifts, special events, cultivation visits. The annual fund should have four personalized mailings – two in the fall, two in the spring; specific asks (“you did $100 last year, would you consider $150 this year?”); segmented (alumni are different than parents); and you must do personal solicitation of the top annual fund prospects ($500+).
Categories: Planning
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