The number of persons over 50 is skyrocketing.  Of all the people who have lived to age 65 in the history of the world, more than half are alive now.  How does our increasing longevity affect major giving?  By focusing on bequests and planned gifts, we will actually bring in more money from a broader base of supporters than we ...

The oldest of the 77 million Baby Boomers turned 59 1/2 on July 1st.  They can retire without a penalty.  They can also  start to have more time to volunteer and donate towards major and planned gifts. Michael Finke, assistant professor of personal financial planning at the University of Missouri, my old school, researched some facts on these boomers that ...

John Nisbitt in his book, Megatrends, in the late ’80, said that for every new high tech development you had to remember to high touch the people involved.  Race forward to the present and introduce fundraising on the Internet.  What about high touch? In the NonProfit Times, May 15, 2005, there was an interesting article on that subject.  It was ...

The Philantropic Giving Index (PGI) Developed at Indiana U., is helpful in judging the success of programs and making decisions about fundraising staratgy. Since 1998 the PGI has surveyed a panel of knowlegeable  senior developmemt officers  about the current fundraising climate and what it will be like in six monthes. In Decenber ’04  it indicated that fundraising was going to ...