Just Asking Blog

  Latest news is that insurance companies may not categorize Sandy as a “hurricane.” What will that mean to everyone in the tri-state area, as well as those throughout the east coast who continue to be displaced and suffer damages of unimaginable proportions?   I can help you navigate through the red tape and help those [...]

The NonProfit Times, July 12, 2012, just covered my session at the Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference in Vancouver where I gave some serious and successful tips to encourage and motivate board members to ASK for money. Here is their coverage:   “What could make more sense than having successful business people on the board [...]

So here I am off of Metro North from NYC headed to Torrington, CT.  I checked into the Interlaken Inn, Lakeville, CT and they say “we can upgrade you.” SWEET! I’m here to speak to and reach out to the Community Foundation of NW Connecticut to see if everyone can embrace helping with Fundraising. I [...]

 Fundraising and Financial Advising…two interconnected fields but we have so much to learn from “each side of the house.” I asked Veronica Dagher creator and monitor of “Wealth Advisor” for Dow Jones at the Association of Fundraising Professional New York City Chapter’s NY Fundraising Day June 8, 2012 how fundraisers can help financial advisors to ask questions [...]

In a recent New York Times article it was reported that Jessica Dorrell, a former University of Arkansas Foundation Fundraiser used a $20,000 “gift” from the recently fired Arkansas football coach, Bobby Petrino whom she was having an affair.    Second reported fact is that Ms. Dorrell was hired by Petrino to be a student-athlete development coordinator.  She used this [...]

It only took less than a day, 1.3 million social media posts, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $250,000 “to the rescue” money to have the Susan G. Komen Foundation do a 180 degree turn from no longer funding, to we’ll continue to fund Planned Parenthood (PP). Let’s set aside the politics of why Nancy G. Brinker, founder and chief executive for [...]

In the past decade we have unfortunately experienced multiple world disasters, back, to back to back. With each tragedy and the toll it took on so many lives and civilizations, there came the call for support.  In some strange way it brought us closer in the fundraising community. I have experienced more countries and continents asking [...]

Here is an article on Asking and the ARTs where I served on a panel for Theater Resources Unlimited( TRU) in NYC…Worth your time reading…Doris Duke Foundation and Rubin Foundation and yours truly on the panel….here you go…. TRU PANEL: 9/21/11 ASKING FOR MONEY: What the Arts Need to Learn About Fundraising by Laura Italiano Asking [...]

So here I am at “Jumer’s Casino” at Moline, Il….no my friends if I lost $5 in the slots I’ve have to take on three back-to back speaking engagements on the red-eye flights out of the guilt I lost in losing this money. I’m here because of a great fundraiser I met in Boston 1 1/2 [...]