By Mary Walker, Petrus Blog Contributor

“If a man has a 100 sheep and one of them goes astray,

will he not leave the 99 in the hills and go in search of the stray?”

(Matthew 18:12)

When the shepherd left the 99 sheep to go after the stray, he had confidence that the ones left behin...

Here we go again!  We continue our Petrus Development Show Q+A series on important development topics, but we're changing things up this episode.  This week, Rhen interviews Tara Doyon, director of operations and senior consultant at Petrus, and Tara shares about all things major gifts.  Specificall...

By Rhen Hoehn, Director of Marketing

I'm often asked, “Why would I spend time and money to go meet donors for coffee when I can just send them an email or letter?”

Or, “Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to put a little time into grant writing, rather than meeting with people and hoping some o...

Welcome back to the Petrus Development Show!  We continue our Q+A series with Petrus president, Andrew Robison, and this week's discussion is about personality strengths and weaknesses and how those traits affect your fundraising.    

Show Notes: 

Andrew and Rhen begin their discussion wi...

By Mary Walker, Petrus Blog Contributor

I love the late winter —the time when football season isn’t quite over, and basketball season is ramping up. There are WAY MORE games on TV than are good for me to watch! 

On any team, players have “basic” responsibilities, but are also specialists. Eac...

While we start this episode with a joke, donor databases are a very serious matter.  As you'll learn in this Q+A with Petrus president, Andrew Robison, choosing the right donor database can make a world of difference in your fundraising capabilities.  

(A laugh for your day:  Q:  Where do dads stor...

By Rhen Hoehn, Director of Marketing

Every so often, it becomes necessary for a nonprofit to abandon their existing donor database system and move to a new one. 

The existing system may be too complicated for staff to use, or perhaps it's not sophisticated enough to keep up with the growing o...

We're continuing our Q+A podcast series with Petrus president, Andrew Robison.  In this episode, Andrew and Rhen discuss gift acknowledgment and donor stewardship.  While this may not be the most exciting part of a fundraiser's job, it's essential.  And, you might be surprised.  The act of thanking ...

By Rhen Hoehn, Director of Marketing

Have you ever had a donor call and thank you for thanking them so well?

Believe it or not, it does happen. It should be your goal to earn one of those calls this year.

Here is one simple, often-overlooked way to make it happen.

Just One Per Day

Th...

And, we're back!  After a Petrus Development Show hiatus, we return with an interview with Petrus president, Andrew Robison.  Andrew and Rhen, Petrus's marketing director, are back with a new episode about goal setting, and it's a good one! 

Listen to "134 - Eyes on the Prize (Goal Setting, Fund...

By Rhen Hoehn, Director of Marketing

Setting appropriate goals for a fundraiser can be overwhelming. Fundraisers have many different responsibilities, but they all lead to the same end goal - dollars raised.

Should we boil a fundraiser’s goals down to just the dollars raised for the year?

By Rhen Hoehn, Director of Marketing

As the holidays approach, we often spend time thinking about our resolutions for the coming new year.  We use new year's resolutions to highlight our personal goals and our vision for our individual future.  That said, organizations can also use the start of t...