Category Archives for Opinion


Covid-19: Reopening with Resilience, Realism & Trust

Memorial Day – the traditional beginning of summer – looked like no other this year.  But with it came the news that, in many parts of the country, people began to look at the gradual reopening of our economy.  Somehow the word “reopening” is too facile a term to adequately describe what we have all […]

Covid-19 Week 10: How to Make It Easier

Welcome to Week 10 of our Covid-19 fundraising blog.  When this all started, we didn’t realize that we’d be at it for ten weeks.  Writing a weekly blog is harder than we first imagined.  Life is like that sometimes. Saying you are going to do something is often easier than actually doing it.  Let’s face […]

Covid-19 Week 9: Don’t Jump to Conclusions

Don’t jump to conclusions based on the spate of donor surveys that are starting to surface, and attempting to gauge the effects of coronavirus on the future behavior of donors.  The results are at best inconclusive, and at worst alarming.  Take, for instance, the recent Campbell Rinker study that was publicized in The Chronicle of […]

Week 7: Living with Covid-19 and Not Knowing

It is week seven of the great shutdown and there is still so much that we don’t know.  We ended our post last week with the acknowledgement that we don’t know, but we were going to find out.  Well, having spent some time thinking about it, knowing is difficult to achieve.  We all believe we […]

Covid-19 Week 6: Lessons Learned

Raise your hand if you know more about the Spanish Flu of 1918 than you ever dreamt you would.  If “goodbye” has been replaced by “stay safe and stay healthy.” If you have grown weary of the phrase “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste” or some variation thereof.  What else have we learned […]

Covid-19 Week 5: Zoom in on better etiquette when video conferencing

It is the second day of week five in Covid-19 Fundraising, and like you we visited with family and friends over the past weekend via video conferencing to share Easter/Passover Holiday greetings.  We’ve also been using Zoom for virtual happy hour with friends and colleagues over these past weeks, and it is becoming clear that […]

Covid-19 Week 3: Working Through the Stages of Change

It is week three of Covid19 Fundraising, and we are starting to know more.  We now understand that we will have several more weeks of this new normal ahead.  We should be actively focused on working through the stages of grief and change and hopefully getting settled in to move our organizations forward.  This is […]

Covid-19 Week 2: Shelter In Place and Seeking Balance

It is week 2 of Covid-19 Fundraising, and most all of us are now working remotely and struggling to maintain a focus on mission and purpose as well as to balance the pressures of our new work environments.  Are you finding your work hours are just as long?  Are you shifting your thoughts from thriving […]

Hey Fundraisers, Let’s Roll …

It’s pretty hard to view the future of fundraising and our role as fundraisers when we are forced to work from home, but this recent post from the UK’s digital fundraising guru Howard Lake gives us some sage advice for how we should face our work today. So, Hey Fundraisers! Avoid distraction, Love Thyself, and […]

Covid-19: What Should We Be Doing Now?

To assist out clients, colleagues and friends in this uncertain time of Covid-19, GoettlerAssociates is going to do what we believe our clients should be doing . . . communicating.  We are pleased to offer our take on the quickly changing development landscape, with this News That Matters opinion post.  Here are three quick thoughts: […]