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Animal Shelter Fundraising is the ONLY three-time winner (2015, 2016 & 2019) of the International Business Excellence Award for Best Animal Welfare Fundraising Organization in the U.S.A.from Acquisition International. 

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My colleague always takes time to write thoughtful notes to donors to our university, and I am moved by the effort she puts into it. She takes the time to learn the names of each donor, and she researches their stories to craft each note.

I remember watching her write to a long-time donor who had recently passed away. She wrote about how much his donations had meant to the university, and how his legacy would live on for generations to come …

Until those last two sentences, you were probably appreciating this essay’s personal tone and clear writing. Now you’re likely wondering why the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s copy editor didn’t catch an obvious mistake: Why was my colleague writing to someone who was dead?

Well, artificial intelligence isn’t perfect. But considering the minimal effort I put in, it isn’t bad. To create the opening for this piece, I instructed the new text-generating artificial-intelligence system ChatGPT to “write a short, touching anecdote about watching a colleague who takes time to write thoughtful notes to donors to our university.”

Here’s the rest of the story ChatGPT wrote about my pretend colleague’s correspondence with the deceased donor: “She wrote about how his generosity had touched the lives of so many students, and how his memory would be kept alive in the university. I was so moved by her words and her effort to craft such an intimate and thoughtful tribute to this generous donor. It reminded me that our work has the power to touch lives in ways we never expected.”

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If you’re seeking funding, here’s where you can find resources to aid your search.

Candid

Maintains database of U.S. and global grantmakers/grants; operates research, education, and training programs. Its GrantSpace portal guides grantseekers through the nuts and bolts of foundation fundraising. Candid is the result of the February 2019 merger between the Foundation Center and GuideStar.

Animal Sheltering: Fund Your Program

List of companion animal funders compiled by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

Animal Welfare Funders

List of companion animal funders compiled by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Finding Foundations That Fund Animal Welfare

Grantseeking tips from the ASPCA. 

Grants for Animal Welfare Nonprofits 

List of animal funder resources compiled by Michigan State University.

Animal Welfare Requests for Proposals

Philanthropy News Digest (by Candid) listing of open RFPs from across the philanthropic sector.

Animal Shelter Operations Guide: Fundraising Plans

Guide from the American Humane Association (AHA) on the what, who, and how of fundraising in its various forms.

Funders within Animal Grantmakers

Search our listing of member organizations to see what grants they offer

information taken from AnimalGRantmakers webpage

March 2020 threw the entire world a curveball that no one expected - a worldwide pandemic. Nonprofit organiztions ran into a plethora of fundraising challenges. Capital campaign fundraising, in particular, suffered tremendously.

Here we are three years since the start of the pandemic and we are happy to report that capital campagn fundraisers are coming back - stronger than ever.

But just because capital campaign fundraising is back stronger than before, doesn't mean your capital campaign will automativally prosper because of the uptick in capital fundraising. You have to make sure your fully prepared for a capital campaign before embarking on this unique type of fundraising venture. Here is one critial tip to help you.

Assess your campaign before beginning a capital campaign. Are you asking the right questions before beginning? For example, do you have the organizational bandwidth to implement and execute a capital campaign? Do you have a successful campaign strategy? What is your need? Do you have a compelling case statement? Do you have enough of the right donors, and do they have sufficient capacity? Who are the campaign leaders?

This is where a feasibility study comes in. Before you can determine where to go or how to get there (i.e., the details of the campaign itself), you need to know where you are. This is what a thorough and honest study - from a qulified professional - will tell you. It will give you clarity on campaign leaders, key leadership gifts and amounts, time needed to secure leadership gifts, donor composition, communications, cultivation, acquisition, staff and board leadership strengths - AND weaknesses - community feedback about your proposed capital project.

The feasibility study is singlehandedly the most important document that can determine the success, or failure, of your proposed campaign. Proceeding without one is a sure fire way to create challenges for your campaign.

If you need help with your proposed capital campaign, mention this article and we will offer you a $1,000 savings off the cost of a feasibilty study AND make a $500 donation to your capital campaign at the conclusion of the study.

Email Tim.

Call Tim. 623.975.1234.

"Shelter Planners of America is pleased to partner with Animal Shelter Fundraising for your capital campaign fundraising needs."

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1106 West Randol Mill Road, Suite 300, Arlington, TX 76012

Phone: 817-265-8522

"Shelter Planners of America" is known nationwide as the most experienced and skilled animal shelter consulting service you can obtain. Our firm has been doing shelter planning for over 30 years and have worked with over 750 animal shelter groups. Our founder trained as an architect, worked in architectural offices for 6 years, then was then in charge of all animal shelter design consulting nation-wide for the Humane Society of the United States for 11 years. He also operated four different animal shelters, both non-profit humane societies and government run animal control, for a total of 11 years as Executive Director or President.  This real world experience helps us understand animal shelter design from the inside.

Aside from that one fatal giveaway, the overall effect is remarkably human. There’s pathos, a throughline, and embellishments that I doubt I would have come up with.

This was a fun exercise, but it was also eye-opening. It demonstrated to me the potential of language applications such as ChatGPT to change philanthropy in significant ways. Donor communications, proposal writing, giving profiles, donation reporting, press releases — and on the other end, philanthropic funding decisions — will, for better or worse, increasingly be influenced by A.I.

Although I now work in the advancement department of the University of Utah, I started my career as a data scientist. It was common in the field to look down on those who were overly enamored of A.I.’s potential to either destroy the world or build a better one. To many of us, A.I. was just a glorified form of what’s known as “curve fitting” — it could find patterns in data as any statistician would, but it wasn’t capable of higher intelligence. Early text models bore this out, producing paragraphs that were barely cogent and failed Turing tests, the method devised by the renowned computer scientist Alan Turing to distinguish people from machines.

More recently, the scope and scale of these models have given them a sophistication and set of capabilities that once seemed impossible. And while human-level A.I. is still far away, recent advances have shown that higher-order thinking is not necessary for some of its most important applications.

What does this mean for philanthropy? On the fundraising side, A.I. will create efficiencies and simplify work that was previously done by experts, such as gathering information about potential donors and developing marketing campaigns.

This article written by Daniel Haldey appears on The Chronicl of Philanthropy website

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Tim Crum

Founder and CEO

Animal Shelter Fundraising. LLC

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This hands-on book shares the stages, traits and even practices for successful structure of a capital campaign then shows you how to evaluate and prepare your animal shelter to embark on a successful capital campaign.

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BONUS OFFER: Receive 7 copies for only $100 PLUS your organization will receive a 60-minute webinar from author and capital campaign expert, Tim Crum. Once your order is placed, Tim will contact you to arrange a date & time for your personalized webinar.