The Future of Relationship Fundraising

CLASSIC ARTICLE - Few concepts have captured the imagination of development officers more completely than "relationship fundraising." But Ken Burnett, who wrote the book on the subject, calls it "just a currently fashionable piece of jargon." In this wide-ranging forum, drawn from presentations delivered at the 15th International Fund Raising Conference in Holland, Burnett looks at the checkered history of relationship fundraising generally, and cites three organizations whose donor-based approach really works. He is joined by Rich Fox, who argues that relationship fundraising may be all but dead by the year 2000- not because it's a bad idea, but because most fundraisers are doing it wrong. Judith Nichols, an authority on the relationship between demographics and fundraising, shows how one agency successfully moves its donors up the "loyalty ladder" with careful attention to their special concerns.