Books like Retention Fundraising — picked by fans

In this book, George Smith explores, defines, and illustrates the crucial role of creativity in communicating with charity supporters. I loved this book because it changed the rules for an entire trade and is still seen as the best book ever on creativity for good causes.

It challenges established thinking yet is packed full of ideas and solutions. From decades of running a successful advertising agency, the author honestly describes and analyses hundreds of effective and less-than-effective fundraising campaigns in a perceptive, often delightfully funny way.

It’s brilliantly written, quirky and provocative, plus packed with practical benefits for any professional communicator. This book should be on every world-changer’s bookshelf.

Thanking donors is one of the most important parts about fundraising—and the one that nonprofits epicly fail at.

Lisa Sargent is a masterful donor stewardship expert who leads readers into the joys of expressing gratitude. Despite what you may think, Thankology will actually help you and your donors enjoy your relationship. And a nice side effect is you will find yourself raising more money too.

Great service organisations depend on great fundraising, but so often the understanding of what’s really required to consistently deliver great fundraising performance somehow eludes many of the best causes. In defining what it takes to dependably deliver truly spectacular and sustainable levels of voluntary income, this book walks the talk, detailing case studies of persistent achievement that truly deserve the descriptor ‘great’.

In describing what great fundraising means in detail, Alan Clayton exposes organisational foibles and shortcomings that can all be overcome, and so points out practical ways towards increased income for any organisation, plus how to be a happier, enriched workplace too. 

Lots of inspirational, great things have been said over the ages by all sorts of people about the unique and essential process of giving to help others in need, an unquenchable, often undervalued quality of the human condition. Harvey McKinnon has researched in multiple unlikely places to unearth profound sayings and sound advice designed to spur the listener on to support a great cause or to lead others to support similar good works.

I loved the way, in his inimitable quirky style, Harvey delivers surprising yet helpful insights in an easily digestible format, with an inspirational, witty insight on every page. Among its many delightful surprises, Dolly Parton has more quotes included than Aristotle, Gandhi, and the Buddha combined.

I refer to it frequently just for a wise thought, a different take, a revelation, a chuckle, or a valuable insight. I’m never disappointed. You’ll want to keep this book close… show more.

I love this book because it is gloriously messy—which is exactly what our fundraising communication needs to look like.

Too many nonprofits hide behind sterile, corporate language that completely kills their appeals. Jeff Brooks teaches you how to write with raw emotion and urgency. If you write fundraising letters and want people to actually read them, this is mandatory reading.

This book will make you laugh for all ages readers. This funny school fund-raising managed by Ms. Sue has no other intention than entertaining. However, for me, it is a great value.

Funny and easy-to-read books help children build confidence as readers. If children read and laugh, they may ask to read another one. Fortunately, this book is part of the 12-chapter book series My Weirder School.

I think most fundraisers have one big fear--that your prospective donor might say “no!” Kent Stroman’s book can show you how to master the art of conversational fundraising. I love this book because it gives you the tools you need to have meaningful, productive, enjoyable conversations with both current donors and potential funders. This book gives you the benefit of learning from the input of hundreds of nonprofit leaders who identified their greatest obstacles to asking for major gifts.

Kent will equip you to seek and find larger donations and gain confidence as a fundraising staff member or volunteer. His 10-Step Staircase will help you become more comfortable, confident, and effective when asking and help donors truly enjoy the gift-making process. This book should be considered required reading for anyone involved with serious fundraising.

In Changing the World, Alex tells his own story, and it’s a compelling one, chocked full of useful lessons for anyone hoping to find a way to make a difference and take on any of the world’s seemingly intractable problems. It’s all here, from how to break in, to recognizing an opportunity when it presents itself and knowing how to take full advantage of it, to building an organization and populating it with the right people, and how to raise the dough to finance your dream. As to how to break-in, while he doesn’t say as much, I know Alex shares my view that the fastest and best way to break into international development work is to go and live where the problems of poverty live – which in Alex’s case was Bangladesh. There he apprenticed himself to a 100-karat visionary, authentic social entrepreneur, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.… show more.

What mother remembering her own labor wouldn’t be grateful to Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s essay, “What My Mother Never Told Me, or How I Was Blindsided by Childbirth and Survived,” for her shameless revelations about the most terrifying and grubby aspects of a safe, normal vaginal delivery. It’s just one of the brilliant and necessary essays in a book that kept me company through the hardest and funniest parts of being a mom.

Martin was a British Army officer who learned to speak fluent Pashto, and spent long hours talking with and gaining the trust of various players in Helmand Province. Based on those discussions, he has put together the only oral history of the conflict there available in any language. By starting in 1978, he clearly shows that the fighting thirty years later had much deeper roots, and that more often than not, the causes of conflict were not apparent to Western eyes.