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Popular-ish...
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Free Subscription
YES!! Subscribe to our FREE, practical, how-to e-news. It's like an every-so-often micro-seminar in best practices."Your advice works and has made a huge difference...." Peter C., Australia Click. To sample back issues of this all-pro e-news. Click.
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See Critiques
 Read nitpicking critiques of actual donor materials sent to me for comment. Observe best and not-so-best practices at work. Learn from others' mistakes. Profit from others' bright ideas. Downloadable PDFs.
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Sample case statements
Downloadable PDFs from successful campaigns, to help you work out your case.
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Relax a moment. The blog from France. Entries from the other office.
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T-shirts with a wordy twist
See the whole cheeky line. For women, men, kids. U get to chewz yr fave style, color, size. Click. When there, click "view all products." ------ Fave how-to booksClick for omniscience. Latest: 4/3/09. ------ Wheildon readability research
Australian editor Colin Wheildon did his pioneering research in the 1990s. It's the only research of its kind I know. Reprinted with permission. View selected findings.------ The place in FranceWe have a 2nd office in a wine-making village, deep in the south of France. (Note to hopeless Francophiles: we do rent the place.) To take a mental vacation, click. Our village vineyards: 
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My (yawn) blog
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Talking points. Food crossed with politics? Whatever (and I mean that). Where I go. Who(m) I meet. Jump.
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Get your donor communications right
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The science and secrets of effective donor persuasion
 Table of Contents
" Dammit, man - you've written a book I wanted to write! Excellent, excellent stuff. Seriously, I'm going to have my staff and as many of my clients as possible read it." —Jeff Brooks Click to order the book directly from the publisher. Or order from Amazon.
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What Ahern actually does
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> WRITES notably effective donor materials for your nonprofit.
> CONSULTS on your materials, to improve their performance. I'm the guy brand name charities like Save the Children and Operation Homefront come to, to tune up their donor communications. Small shops, too! Call (US) 401-397-8104: the first chat is free.
> TRAINS you via books, workshops -- and this very website. I taught a hospital how to increase giving to their donor newsletter 1,000%, from $5K per issue to $50K per issue. What's your potential?
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December 2008 newsletter
Courtesy of Dale Carnegie
The secret's out: Become donor-centric, raise more money
Donors are beautiful. Their inner-most thoughts are gorgeous: "I hope to change the world. Relieve pain. Add something worthwhile to this spinning planet. Or to my community. I want to change lives. Help a stranger. Make a difference. Be good. Be worthwhile. Yes, I know there are 305 million residents in the United States alone. But, even so, I can, as an individual, make a difference right now. If I care enough. And if I can find the right charity." Are you the right charity?
In these troubled times...
New product: Talking points for funding emergencies
Credit freeze got you down? It is killing this symphony.
My phone rings. It's a favorite client calling: an outstanding symphony orchestra located in a warm climate. And here's their emergency: If they don't raise $1 million in the next four months, they'll have to close their doors for the first time in 80 years. It's that simple.
What a lousy time for a city's chief musical pleasure (and, face it, welcome distraction) to go away -- in the midst of the deepest period of financial insecurity since the Great Depression. The symphony survived that crisis. But will it survive this one? With prompt donor support, absolutely!
Prep your solicitors to wage a successful campaign. Give them fire in the belly talking points. Who writes those? We do. We write FORCEFUL talking points, the kind that move both heart and mind. Email your sad story. Let's see if there's a way to turn that frown upside down.
If you're a worried, frustrated fundraiser...
Read "In Defense of Raising Money: A Manifesto"
Read this. Feel better. Much better. Amazingly much better.
Sasha Dichter's passionate few paragraphs begin, "I'm sick of apologizing for being in charge of raising money." He works at a great nonprofit. It's changing the way the world fights poverty. So why do people think he's stuck in a bad job? Read his answer.
November 2008 newsletter
Would you buy a mattress from this charity?
Nonprofits love to write about what they do. Isn't that missing the point?
In advertising, the saying goes: "Features tell. Benefits sell." In fundraising, a comparable saying goes something like this: "Activities tell. Accomplishments sell."
Donors aren't buying your activities. They're buying your accomplishments. And that's where many nonprofit communications go wrong. Nonprofits talk way too much about their activities, and way too little about their accomplishments.
Learn how to "translate" activities into accomplishments in the latest edition of our helpful e-newsletter. Click here.
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Tom Ahern, tagline judge
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Nancy Schwartz has asked me to help judge her wildly popular Tagline Awards Program in the summer of 2010. Of course, I said yes. And I am advertising that fact because, of course, I am unbribable. Although some judges like homemade fudges; just saying. Download her 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Report.
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Ahern designated CASE "Faculty Star" twice
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Thanks to workshop participant ratings of 4.5 or better (on a 5.0 scale) at the 39th annual CASE/NAIS conference, CASE has designated me a Faculty Star in both 2009 and 2010. "It places you in the top echelon of all CASE faculty...."
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Ahern now on Warwick newsletter board
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Mal Warwick has kindly reprinted a number of my columns in his professional newsletter. In June 2009, he added me to the newsletter's advisory board.
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Inside this site
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 Lots of good advice and real-life examples you can learn from.
Welcome to our merry tribe of troublemakers!
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Secret to a profitable fundraising program? A great case for support
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 Want a case that donors will love? Read this highly practical how-to book. Special bonus feature: short chapters.
Table of Contents
"Why do you want my hard-earned money?" A good case richly answers that basic but profound question. "Okay," you say, "but you only need a case for a capital campaign." Wrong. Behind every successful fundraising program stands a well-argued, psychologically sound case that determines the contents of newsletters, websites, and your appeals. This is the how-to book every ambitious fundraiser should read. I've taken everything I've learned writing dozens of cases for all sorts of clients and campaigns ... and clamped it all between two covers. Buy it on Amazon or at the publisher.
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Joyaux University
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Simone P. Joyaux, ACFRE, author of Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last (2nd edition) is my far-better-known colleague and spousal unit. Visit her vast website, packed with useful information for fundraising and organizational development. Click.
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Links of interest
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Categories
 Nonprofit (17)
Of use to somebody (10)
Research (9)
Most Recent
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The Agitator
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Fundraising & advocacy strategies, trends, tips...with an edge. A deep (and deeply entertaining) repository of frank advice from top practitioners.
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Campbell Rinker
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Campbell Rinker is a top source of recent research on specific types of donors: hospital donors, Catholic donors, zoo donors, etc.
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CASE
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The professional association for college, university and private school fundraisers.
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Reprinting material
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Articles from this website, my books, and the Love Thy Reader e-newsletter are often reprinted: repeatedly in Mal Warwick's newsletter; as a frequent guest on the Texas Nonprofits resource website (txnp.org); once on the SOFII (Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration) website (sofii.org), started by the UK's Ken Burnett; in Canada Fundraiser on occasion; in South Africa, in Fundraising Forum, published as a public service by Downes Murray International; and the Network for Good Learning Center.
It's an honor and a pleasure. If you want to reprint anything on this website, please do. Of course, attribute; it's all copyrighted. Let your readers know, too, that they can sign up free for my e-newsletter by coming to this site. Drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you. |
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