With so much gloom and doom about the economy here and in Europe, we can lose sight of the fact that nonprofits like yours are still working your magic in your communities. And guess what? There are a lot of people in addition to your current donors who have the financial means to support what you’re doing.

What if you’ve been dreaming about expanding by buying or renovating space, adding programs, or establishing an endowment? How will you know you’re ready for a major fundraising campaign and when to move forward with it?

On this week’s show, I speak with Rita Galowich, president of Fund Inc, a Chicago-based fundraising consulting firm to nonprofit organizations. Rita has run campaigns of all kinds for her clients and she knows, as all good fundraising consultants do, that there are criteria for success that must be understood and accepted prior to launching. We discuss those today.

I interviewed Rita last year about building an individual fundraising program and I encourage you to listen to that, too, because you’ll hear today about how important it is for your organization to have an established donor base before you initiate a big campaign. The other thing about that show is she describes how to develop fundraising skills that will serve you very well when it’s time for a larger campaign. Developing Individual Donors and Your Fundraising Skills aired a year ago, the week of July 25, 2011.