“Your classes have been invaluable…

In my first year here we raised 47k with the EOY, my second year after taking just one of your classes I raised 100k, last year I raised 140K!

I am using the ask, thank, report, repeat system, and when I ran a survey to jump off my EOY campaign I found that donors like the personal stories, the student success stories, and they also mentioned that the communication was much better in the last 3 years,  I could not have done this without you!”

Jacklyn Stetson
San Juan Diego Academy

“My colleague and I went through your master class on writing a winning appeal letter a few months ago. We brought in more than $10,000 over our goal and a good number of lapsed donors responded to our letter!”

Sigorney Dorsey
Public Relations and Development Coordinator
Lutheran Social Services of the Virgin Islands

“I began Pamela Grow’s Basics and More year-long class last year when I suddenly was offered the position of Development director at our organization. Feeling somewhat unprepared for running a department (with zero staff) for a very large agency I started looking for a program that would give me a great base (and beyond) for the tasks ahead of me.

And when I found the “Basics and More” Ticket, I knew I had found exactly what I was looking for. I already knew Pam’s reputation and had been following her blog and emails for quite some time, so I knew she knew her stuff!

Starting the very first month Pamela laid out, in very easy chunks, all of the steps I needed to develop and write my first Case for Support. Not only did she give me the steps but she gave me real-time input that was invaluable.

Here I am a year and a half later, and our organization has had its most successful fundraising year ever!!

I would highly recommend this course to anyone in fundraising, from development directors to executive directors to associates!”

Laurie Schaefer
Director of Donor Engagement & Special Events
ACDS

“I signed up for the whole year of Basics & More classes in 2016, after joining the Board of a national non-profit. Since then, we have:

• Established a policy of hand addressing envelopes and hand-writing notes to our current (last 12 months) donors at each Board meeting;
• Established a policy of having Board members hand-write thank-you notes to all donors;
• Established a policy of phoning donors who give $250 or more, including sustaining donors on the anniversary of their gift;
• Created a Fundraising Plan;
• Segmented our donor database into six categories;
• Creating a Planned Giving plan and launched our campaign;
• Created a Case for Support (one of the most challenging assignments);
• Made our fundraising letters donor-centric and used storytelling as a model;
• Designed a series of end-of-year solicitations, starting with the fall fundraising letter and continuing through a series of seven emails, including one that is our annual ‘thank you’ (done as a limerick this year).

This was a lot to learn! I can say that we went from running a deficit for a several year period before I joined the Board, to having an additional $40,000 in our investment account, basically in a two and a half year period.”

Barb Prescott
Board Member

“Your book is incredibly helpful. I’ve started going through it and every page is filled with excellent advice and tips. Some of the people you quote, like Ken Burnett I know personally. He has been kind enough to put some of my old work on SOFII, I used to do fundraising and member recruitment for Amnesty and about 17 years ago helped found the Bhopal Medical Appeal.”

Indra Sinhah

“I am such a fan of what you are doing and your deep knowledge of fundraising. There are thousands of details to getting this work right and you seem to know almost all of them!”

Vicki Clarke
Director of Philanthropy
Central Region Heifer International

“Based on the excellent advice presented in your Monthly Giving course, we’ve increased our monthly donors by 242% in just 7 months! We’re excited to keep building on this success in the coming school year.”

Rachel N. Rodriguez, MPA, MSW
Development Director, Mountain Mahogany Community School

“There is truly NO better small shop resource!!!”

Dr. Janet Buchanan, CFRE
Vice President, Philanthropy
Carroll Lutheran Village

“After we implemented the simple Reply sheet recommended in one of your webinars after just three months we’ve already added 40 new monthly donors! Thanks so much Pam!”

Karen Shannon
Development Coordinator

“This is a great course for both novices and old hat fundraisers. Pam brings in the top fundraisers of the day and even if you’ve been fundraising for a long time they will give you new ideas to add to your repertoire. The techniques you will learn will help you not only in your year-end but all year round. I highly recommend this course for anyone who wants to have the opportunity to learn from the best in a condensed and cost-effective way.”

Emily Hewes
Development Director, CEPAD USA

“Last fiscal year we had our best year ever.  We reached out to lapsed donors and also segmented the database for our annual appeal.  The result was a 15% increase in the number of supporters (I currently prefer the word “supporter” to “donor”) who gave to our organization. Pamela, thank you for everything you do.”

Katherine DiGiulio, Ph.D., CFRE
Mission Advancement Director
Congregation of Notre Dame

“I am really loving your Power of Thank You (POTY) course, and finding it so useful. Thank you so much. It has such great material. I am busy re-writing our online thank you letters. Our physical letters are great, handwritten etc., but our email ones were bad. I had never even checked them! I took your great advice, and gave ourselves a donation, and saw what happened. One system had a good thank you, the other didn’t. Thank you so much for making us think about this. It is so good to study something and instantly be able to make changes.”

Gill Drakeford-Lewis
Community Outreach Coordinator
Hope for the Nations

“I always recommend Pamela Grow’s Basics and More for non-profits that want realistic and actionable advice on how to fundraise. Pamela and team understand what it’s like to work in a nonprofit

when you have multiple responsibilities and need to get stuff done in the easiest, most resourceful way. I like these programs so much I give them as gifts to friends and colleagues in the non-profit space. (And trust me, it’s a good gift!)”

-Julie Lacouture, Good Ways Inc.

“I had great success with the last course I took with you. My first EOY appeal campaign (sent mid December, a 4 page letter and lots of ‘yous’:) came in 38% higher than the previous year so far! And envelopes are still coming in. Very exciting.”

Margo Reveil, Cook Inletkeeper

“If you are struggling with creative ways to connect with your donors, then Pamela Grow’s newsletter course is just what you need.

I took this course last year and was able to immediately put some of the ideas and suggestions I learned from her class to work. Donor-focused newsletters can bring in a lot of funds for your nonprofit if done right. Take this course and start off on the right foot. Otherwise, you’re leaving money on the table.”

Michelle Sanders Brinson
Nashville Rescue Mission

“We have really loved being a part of your program and learned a ton!! Please know you are a big part of our development team here at the Intervale Center, and we not just achieved but exceeded our community fundraising goals by $24,000 thanks for great advice and support from Simple Development Systems!!”
Mandy Fischer, Development Manager, Intervale Center

“I have thoroughly enjoyed and greatly benefited from all of the valuable classes you have offered! You are an amazing support for small nonprofits and I share your website with other nonprofit friends that I meet.”

Renee Scott, Executive Director, Gilead House

 

“I am so excited to say that after our coaching session, I was able to have an open and honest conversation with my ED. I advocated for a grant-writing consultant to come on so that I can spend more time loving our donors, and got the green light to co-create a plan to promote a culture of philanthropy that engages our Board and staff. Plus — I got a raise and a promotion! Thank you for everything, Pamela!”

“THANK YOU… for being the wind beneath my wings. These words seem so inadequate to express my gratitude for all that you have taught me this past year. Your emails are a blessing. I receive many from well-known CFRE gurus but NONE are as useful as yours. Most are content marketing pieces aimed at selling ebooks, Webinars, or expertise. Yours, on the other hand, have one simple goal — empowering people to raise money for causes they are passionate about.”

Rachel Ramjattan
NonprofitPlus

“We hit our Year-End fundraising goal and still have 2 weeks left! We implemented everything we learned in the webinars. Feeling so proud — best $250 ever spent!”

Lyndsey Butcher
SHORE Centre from Planned Parenthood Waterloo Region

“I just purchased your year-end fundraising course and it’s incredible!  And this is coming from a person who took SEIU‘s PAC from 9.2 million to 21.5 million in 24 months.  You are just incredible!”
Hayden L. Mora

“Last week, I received my first $100,000 gift. I have such great stories to tell about the good work we do. It’s easy to be passionate when you’re doing what you love.I do not have any staff and my board has set a goal for me of $1 million by December 31, 2014. I really received the reigns of the foundation in late October. Since then, I have raised nearly $325,000. My annual appeal was very successful.

Using your book, webinars, classes, etc. I am moving forward nicely!

As your emails always say, Yes, you have my back!”

Teri Donaldson, Executive Director, The Futures Foundation

“As the new Associate Director of Development at a not-for-profit senior retirement community, I was told that year-end giving was almost non-existent therefore, no real effort had been put into a campaign. The rationale was donors were bombarded with requests and we were always at the bottom of their list. Taking cues from Simple Development Systems (I purchased two years ago), I came up with a plan in mid-September and presented to my boss. Her words were, ‘Okay, what do we have to lose?’ The campaign used direct mail, email and social media. The direct mail had three pieces that dropped in late November, early December, and late December. I used a letter from the CEO, a letter from a resident, and a postcard — all telling a story. And it worked! Not only did the year-end giving increase by 54%, we raised awareness and received several compliments. HUGE win and, hopefully, a great start to our 2017 fundraising.”

Shelley Hill, Associate Director of Development, The Legacy Senior Communities, Inc.

“I wanted to thank you for this course. I wanted to share that for the first time in our five years, we raised over 100K in program revenue and I think it was in large part due to this course and what I implemented. I need to look further, but program revenue for Q42015 was 28.7k. For Q42016 program revenue was 42k! Amazing! I will be back for more learning from you…thank you for serving those of us who feel called to bring hope to the world!”

Brooke F. Sulahian, President & Co-Founder, Hope for Our Sisters, Inc.

“Simple Development Systems is AMAZING. I am so glad we signed up for it — it has been an incredible support for me and our Development Associate. We don’t have a senior development person — it’s just me on top of being executive director, and your program has had JUST the right approach for us. I feel like we are doing things more effectively and efficiently — the webinars, resources, newsletters/emails, it has all been terrific. I am recommending it to other folks right and left!”

Julia R. Wilson, Executive Director, OneJustice

“Breaking down the process into segments takes away the ‘overwhelm factor’ of a workshop or a webinar and guides you incrementally into achieving what you thought was impossible! You provided valuable insight into all angles of how to write a meaningful piece to insight reaction from donors. Great work!”

“I found the substance as well as the form of presentation very compelling. I intend to recommend it to some of my clients who desperately need annual fund enhancement. Also, I will use it with my graduate students at Brandeis University where I teach fundraising management—and have for the past 22 years.”

David A. Mersky, Mersky, Jaffe & Associates (Monthly Giving | The Basics & More!)