If you are Christian who fundraises, this books is for you. If you are working for an organization that regards fundraising as a necessary evil, you might need to buy more than one copy!

I help congregations with generosity assessments - looking at giving trends and congregational values. It's joyful, challenging and sometimes vulnerable work (for both me and the congregation!)

One of the big questions I ask churches is: "Are you two or three funerals away from disaster?"

This is a great article on ending well for congregations. Denial seldom helps congregations move forward; facing these questions guides future direction.

"Young families can't give." Twice in a week I heard exactly the same statement from church leaders. I believe what they meant was "young families with housing costs, daycare fees and mouths to feed can't afford to give to the church." I surely hope it wasn't a theological statement excluding young families! Let me start with a story:

The woman beside me at yoga had 'no regrets' tattooed on her foot. I assume she means - live life to the fullest. Being literal-minded though, I wondered - what would it mean to have no regrets? For a ministerial screening program, I was asked "Is there anything about you, that if people found out, would be damaging to your ministry?" My reply - Absolutely! How could I be a good leader if I didn't have any regrets? This applies to all sorts of people - fundraisers, pastors, parents.

“We had so much fun giving that money away” What if a bequest policy at church was a joyful discussion of one final act of kindness?

The wisdom from Beatles' lyrics to Hey Jude “take a sad song and make it better” apply to charity finances. 

I’ve heard a couple of sad songs about charities running deficits in their operating budgets. Let's start with an organization I'm intimately involved with - my family. No matter what else is going on--university, saving for a big trip, fixing the roof--we put money aside each and every month to pay the bills. You probably do too. Paying the electricity bill is not glamourous but everyone benefits from attention to that little detail.

Imagining Abundance by Kerry Alys Robinson is part fundraising story and part spiritual autobiography. The book demonstrates how to integrate fundraising and spirituality. Robinson helped the Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale raise $75 million, starting not just from scratch, but from debt and diminishment.

Her central thesis is faith: fundraising requires a deep trust in God's generosity. How can we ask donors to participate in what God is doing in our ministry if we don't believe God is at work?

Is $20 enough to launch a capital campaign? Yes, yes it is, when the gift is given with eagerness and excitement. My devotional reading today told the story of a single mom's enthusiastic $20 gift to a church building project, a gift given as soon as she heard about it

The hand-written notes appeared a month before the prefab letters. It seems paradoxical, but apparently a personal note is much quicker to write than a generic boilerplate.

This little experiment has shown how important thank-you letters are. I feel like if I didn't give again to some of these charities, they wouldn't notice.

My husband and I inadvertently launched an experiment in charitable giving. We gave similarly-sized donations to a number of charities, and sent all the cheques on the same day. Here’s what happened.