With the first blog post of 2010, I’m starting a series of posting questions I receive and my answers to them. Sort of a “Dear Abby” for fundraising. I’m calling it “Question Marc” — pun fully intended! It’d be great to have you take part. If you have a question about nonprofits or fundraising that [...]

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What happens when techie people decide to express their gratitude during Thanksgiving? TweetsGiving of course! Will you join me in tweeting your gratitude? You can find out all about it at: http://tweetsgiving.org/. Be sure to click on the “join us” link. But hurry, TweetsGiving is only November 24-26!

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Have you heard about Twestival? In one day last February, people all over the globe used Twitter to organize fundraising events that raised $250,000 for charity:water. Well it’s back! This time it’s Twestival Local. Hundreds of teams around the world will be raising money for hundreds of local charities. Even if you’re not one of [...]

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This is the time of year when all the nonprofit geeks gather at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference and when the rest of us who feel techincally savvy realize we’re probably just geek-wannabes. Even if you not in San Francisco, it’s very easy to keep up on what’s happening. To see the conference’s Twitter stream, simply [...]

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@Philanthropy pointed me to a humor piece in the New Yorker called Looking Forward to Your Check. The invitation to a fictitious fundraising event starts out with: The Benefit Committee wishes to remind all Subscribers that the thrill for those pledging as much money as they can afford to attend this Gala Charity Event will [...]

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I’m pleased to announce the Ask Without Fear! Radio Show is starting today! This radio show will be hosted through BlogTalkRadio.com at 11 a.m. (I chose 11 a.m. because it’ll be the start of the day for our West Coast colleagues and the end of the day for our European listeners.) Today’s guest is, Jay [...]

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The end of the year is rapidly approaching, so I thought I’d keep this issue of Extreme Fundraising light-hearted. Read this posting from Amy Kincaid and her Fundraising Breakthroughs blog gave me the fodder for this riff. This was posted on her blog: Quotable excerpts on the danger of “fundraising” galas by leading advisors to [...]

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Cher Hersrud of the The Resource Center in Fargo, ND posted these ideas to the CharityChannel CharityTalk list. (Posted with her permission.) A couple of examples of the non-event from North Dakota: a theatre sold tickets for a Dark Night – people stayed home, the theatre was closed – little time/money invested, pretty good return. [...]

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We’ve had an interesting discussion on the AHP email list on holding “non-events,” events that raise money but don’t have any real event. Rodger Wetzel from ND gave these great suggestions: One example: A Non-event Send out invitations that say something like: (Your organization) is holding its first annual Black Tie Non-Event. The event will [...]

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