Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Opportunties

“When we truly focus on the common good, service is a privilege—not a chore but a remarkable opportunity.”
Frances Hesselbein, President & CEO, Leader to Leader Institute

At Partnership in Philanthropy we’ve had some remarkable opportunities in the past twenty years. We’ve collaborated and partnered with funders, corporations, and individual donors to bring capacity building services to the nonprofits who need us.

And because much of that work has met with success, PIP has been asked to continue to serve as advisors, mentors, board members, and on-going consultants to continue and sustain our relationship with those nonprofits.

At times service can seem less than a privilege especially when the economic news continues to be uncertain, when individual donors are scarce, and corporations and foundations remain conservative with their funding.

I believe that opportunities come in all shapes and sizes and present themselves at the most inopportune moments. A good leader and more importantly a good leadership team will be driven by results and will seek out the creative, the innovative and the different to have solid results. And that’s where PIP can help.

Our capacity building programs help nonprofit leaders and nonprofit boards create results. PIP assesses, PIP plans, PIP works with an organization to create results from implementing an ongoing successful annual appeal to role play for major donor asks.

Recently a PIP client asked a major donor for a $100,000 major gift. She had done her prospect research and the PIP consultant had helped her role play an ask scenario. The major donor turned down the request but said I have $25,000 for you, would that be OK? To date, it’s the largest individual contribution received by this organization. The executive director said to me, she never knew how to ask for money and get a positive result, but that PIP and her consultant had made it possible.

But we at PIP know it was more than that. This executive director had passionately presented the donor with a remarkable opportunity, and she took it!