A great reminder from the No Small Change blog: Stop documenting. Start communicating:
The woman who sends you Rs 2,500 a year does not want to see the pipe you've installed from four different angles. She wants to see the happy face of child who now has water.
That's an important distinction that's lost on many nonprofits. It's important in the way you report back, and it's even more important in the way you ask for funds.
You won't get as many donors if you focus on the pipe. You'll get a lot more if you focus on the people the pipe well help. Better yet if you focus on a person the pipe will help.
Jeff Brooks, creative director at 
Could not agree more. Reminds me of the Magritte painting: C'est n'est-ce pas une pipe. It's not a pipe. It's the people who are helped by that pipe. Thanks for the reminder Jeff.
Posted by: Claire Axelrad (@CharityClairity) | 14 August 2012 at 22:01
Hi. I have been browsing your blog and find it a great resource for fundraising. My company, Charity Helpers, supports various nonprofits by providing vacations. If you ever thought it appropriate we would be honored if you could create a discussion around the idea of vacationing for charity.
We launched a site for non-profits to quickly build fundraising websites featuring $millions in donated vacations. To get started you can visit www.OneSpareWeek.com .
We’ve done all the legwork gathering vacations. Here are a couple example sites:
Komen – http://komenatl.onespareweek.com
PressOn- http://presson.onespareweek.com
I hope you’ll send me some feedback on our program and perhaps feature us in a future post or discussion. Thanks so much!
Mike Last
Posted by: Mike Last | 30 August 2012 at 08:27