Creating a Legacy: Building a Planned Giving Program From the Ground Up

This book explores if, when, and how to use planned giving as part of a fundraising strategy. Includes tips and practical examples, as well as the dos and don'ts associated with building a well-integrated planned giving program

A Systematic Plan for Firearms Law Reform

Tragedy after tragedy has drawn the nation’s attention towards gun violence. Yet the murder of 20 school children in Newtown, CT has done more to drive the national dialogue on gun control than any preceding mass shooting, not to mention the endemic murderous violence that plagues city streets day in and out. President Obama has responded by calling on Congress to (1) close background check loopholes; (2) ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; and (3) improve mental health services. All of these measures are necessary to curb gun violence. Yet, in a nation with more firearms per capita than anywhere in the world, they are not sufficient. Violence is depicted and even glorified in the media; law enforcement lacks the ability to track stolen or illegally traded arms; and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is vastly deficient (and not always consulted before a sale). The public health threat of firearms—whether through inner-city violence, mass murders, suicides, or inadvertent firearm discharges—is tremendous, and reasonable firearm restrictions are both critical and in high public demand. Yet Congress has stalled comprehensive gun safety legislation for years (e.g., mandatory trigger locks, fingerprint and tracking technology, training requirements, limits on mass sales). Moreover, President Obama’s renewed call for change does not touch on these strategies. In short, federal, state, and city officials lack the basic tools needed to detect, prevent, and punish firearm related crime. Before Newtown becomes another sound bite, it must inspire the greatest bipartisan courage to at least stem the mass shootings and street killings that our newly found individual right to bear arms has made so prevalent

Cultivating Lifelong Donors: Stewardship and the Fundraising Pyramid

This handbook helps nonprofits build long-term giving programs that span the entire supporter lifecycle, from engagement through the end of life. It highlights strategies for engaging new supporters online, investigates the characteristics of loyal donors, examines the importance of developing personal relationships with transitional giving prospects, and discusses donor cultivation

Camper perceptions of wilderness vs measured biophysical impacts: Comparisons on Wunambal Gaambera Country in the Northern Kimberley

‘Wilderness’ is conceptualized in a variety of ways, yet a fundamental dualism between ‘humans’ and ‘nature’ is often prominent in many wilderness ideas. Generally, from a biophysical perspective, wilderness refers to ‘pristine’ natural areas, remote from large population centres, modern technology and their impacts. Recreationists, especially campers, often idealise and seek wilderness to escape from their increasingly structured lives. However, anthropogenic biophysical impacts and management infrastructure for campers may detract from the attributes key to a camper’s ‘wilderness’ experience. This study investigated the relationship between camper perceptions of wilderness and biophysical impacts at a pair of remote managed and unmanaged campgrounds on Wunambal Gaambera Country in the Northern Kimberley, Western Australia: Mitchell Falls campground (managed) and Walsh Point campground (unmanaged). Rapid assessment methods quantified biophysical impacts at the two sites. An onsite, self-complete questionnaire was distributed to all campers at each campground to quantify the desirability of twenty attributes associated with campers’ ideals of wilderness, as well as perceived wilderness quality of the campground they were visiting. Biophysical impacts were present at both sites, with a higher litter count and greater vegetation damage at Walsh Point. Attributes aligning with ‘nativeness’ and an absence of human impact were consistently desired by campers from both sites; yet Walsh Point campers desired solitude and an absence of management more than Mitchell Falls campers. Hence, ‘strong purists’ were more prevalent at Walsh Point, and ‘moderate purists’ dominated at Mitchell Falls, indicating that different types of campers were attracted to each site. Despite these purism types, and the extent of biophysical impact at Walsh Point, the site received a higher average wilderness rating than Mitchell Falls, indicating that campground biophysical impacts were not significantly associated with perceived wilderness quality at either site. Artificial noise, particularly the helicopter noises at Mitchell Falls, influenced campers’ perceptions more than biophysical impacts did. This study demonstrates the complexity and often paradoxical nature of the relationship between camper perceptions of ‘wilderness’ and campground biophysical impacts

Effects of Discharge in Residence Time Distributions in a Small Headwaters Wetland in the Ipswich River Watershed

The Ipswich River Watershed, a 401 km2 watershed located in northeastern Massachusetts, has been observed to be undergoing increasing urbanization with resulting increases in nutrient loading, in particular, nitrogen. Nitrogen uptake occurs in a 1st-order process which is dependent on the concentration of nitrogen as well as the amount of time the water containing nitrogen remains within the wetland, which is described as the residence time distribution (RTD). To better understand how discharge affects the RTD of the wetland, a number of tracer studies were conducted between May 2011 and August 2011. Additionally, fluxes into and out of the wetland were calculated for this same period to estimate groundwater flow into or out of the wetland in order to understand interactions of groundwater with the wetland. The RTDs calculated from four tracer studies suggest that lower discharges result in longer detention times and higher discharges result in shorter detention times, though the results are not conclusive. Estimates of water budget fluxes suggest that the direction and magnitude of groundwater flow may change depending on whether the wetland is at base flow or flood flow