CCAH Blog: Industry Voices

Kim Cubine, our president, navigates the fast-paced culture of the District like a native born Washingtonian. As comfortable as she is in the Washington D.C. metro area, did you know that she grew up in a setting much different than where she currently resides and works?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always looked past the national and been far more interested in events abroad. It seems many Americans share my passion, especially when it comes to giving.

What if I told you that you were in the top 10% of nonprofit marketing professionals – but that to make it into the top 5%, you’d have to join 63 others from your area who have finished reading this blog post?

When people succeed at something—anything—we tend to pat ourselves on the back and move on. We don’t spend nearly as much time and energy dissecting a success to figure out what went right as we do picking apart a failure to determine what went wrong.

Focusing on the negative—the failure—is human nature, and we evolved that way for the sake of survival. If we fail to understand what has harmed us in the past, we are doomed to repeat it, quite possibly to our own demise.

Following the year-end crush of fundraising, giving and buying, you may have heard from a few of your donors (supporters) who were not so happy with so much mail … or email… or calls. Let’s say they were disgruntled. Your first thought may be to apologize for the intrusion on their holiday fun and rethink every strategy you employed the last three months. Well, hold that thought and action.

Over his career, our co-founder and principal, Greg Adams, has acquired a vast amount of knowledge about the direct marketing industry. Better still, he never hesitates to pass it along. Last night, DMAW EF named Greg the inaugural recipient of the Educational Foundation Kay Lautman Mentorship Award for his work mentoring aspiring direct marketing professionals.