Imagine building a huge organization on the back of “$5.38 buys a meal for a neighbour experiencing homelessness”, when a meal is just the doorway, not the destination.It’s a situation many nonprofits find themselves in. Their programmin...

Think asking for money is scary? Michael Mitchell has been there, done that, and sweated through enough awkward asks to keep the deodorant industry in business for a lifetime. After two decades of nervously asking for everything fro...

Fundraising appeals are packed with bad habits that refuse to die—bolded words, underlined sentences, multiple hard asks, and financial symbols littered throughout. The data is clear: none of this is actually helping.So what does?...

Monthly giving has been the buzzword of the nonprofit industry for the past few years. But most conversations about recurring giving lack substantial data and evidence about what really works to increase recurring revenue. While it ...

When emergencies happen, donors respond. But too often, that generosity fades just as quickly as it arrives. While acquiring new donors is important, how can we better cultivate and steward those who have already given? ...

Imagine the impact you could make if your organization had predictable, repeatable, and scalable revenue? In this session recorded live at the Build Good Summit, UNICEF Canada will share how they created and scaled Paddington’s Post...

In this short session with the Canadian Cancer Society and FundraiseUp, you’ll hear why people are less forgiving of nonprofits than they are consumer brands when they're letting go of their hard earned money. The nonprofit sector a...

This fast-paced excerpt from a workshop at the Build Good Summit dives into journey mapping as a powerful strategy to cultivate donor relationships and build a supporter-centric organization. <...

Most fundraisers ask: Who do I send this appeal to?  But the better question is, What appeal do I send to this person?We all recognize people are different—yet fundraising relies on a one-size-fits-all approach. Traditional segmenta...

Fundraising is at a crossroads. Donor trust is eroding, retention rates are plummeting, and yet, charities continue to rely on the same high-volume, bottom-of-the-funnel tactics—more asks, more urgency, more chasing. But what if the solution is...

The way we’ve been doing fundraising events might be all wrong. We often focus so much on what happens at the event that we miss the bigger picture: what happens before and after matters just as much—if not more. In this episode, w...

After longing for the kind of event we wanted to attend, we decided to create it ourselves.Today, Hannah and Mike walk through why we’re launching The Build Good Summit

Today we're celebrating our 100th episode! Come sit down for a fireside chat (complete with Diet Coke) to share the honest story of how this podcast started, where it's headed, and what that means for BuildGood—and for you.Mike gets real...

Today we’re launching the Build Good Summit, and introducing the first speaker—Nathan Hill from NextAfter.Nathan and the NextAfter team recently analyzed how the fundraising of 211 nonprofits impacts donor retention.And in today’s...

Today, BuildGood’s resident fundraising copywriter delivers a masterclass in how to craft fundraising copy that leads people toward greater generosity. Hannah Vermeer gets into simple, easy and effective ways you can chang...

If you’re tired of riding the revenue rollercoaster—where your nonprofit’s cash flow is always dependent on a few key fundraising campaigns during the year— your big opportunity is building a strong monthly giving programGrowin...

“Always be testing”. That’s popular fundraising advice. After all, the only way to get new insights to grow your fundraising is to try new stuff, test, iterate and optimize.  But ho...

Social media isn’t working for most nonprofits.If you’re watching your engagement drop while spending hours on content creation, you're likely about ready to give up on social media for good.And no one would blame you.That’...

In our ongoing series on new donor acquisition, we’re talking to one of Canada’s most sought after advertising specialists about how to use Google ads to boost your fundraising. Kevin Harwood manages more than $10m in ad spend for n...

We’re continuing our series on new donor acquisition—and today we’re getting into the basics of how you can use the Google Ad Grant to attract potential donors through digital content offers.The truth is, most nonprofits aren’t taking fu...

Have you ever used paid Facebook and Instagram ads to support your fundraising? Ads can supercharge your donor acquisition strategy, but they can also be a little scary if you’re just starting out—and if you’re new to digital market...

So you want to find new donors online?Then this is a foundational podcast episode for you to listen to.We’re beginning our series on online new donor acquisition with a master of digital fundraising: Jeff Giddens from NextAfter.

You need to retain donors if you want to grow sustainably—but you also need to find new donors. It seems simple enough, but we all want to skip to the “growing revenue” part without investing in both acquisition and retenti...

Many nonprofits want to see 10-20% growth (or more!) year over year—and are tasking their fundraising team to make it happen without a clear-eyed view of what it takes. It’s not that sustained growth is unrealistic, but it becomes h...

In today’s episode, we dive into the 5 key elements of crafting a winning and simple fundraising plan using the pre-loaded year methodology.It’s the same method we teach in the Fundraising Academy—and the same method we use with clients ...