Mal Warwick is what diplomats would call the Old China Hand. He has simply done more than anyone else. He has raised money and taught others how to raise money on every continent except Antarctica. This year he developed the first online viral fundraising conference that reached 400 sites in 42 countries. He has helped create more progressive organizations than most activists join in a lifetime, including Business for Social Responsibility co-founded with Ben Cohen, the “Ben” of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. His marketing savvy has enabled scores of national and international organizations to grow and prosper, including the NAACP and the Global Fund for Women. As a die-hard progressive he has done the fundraising for candidates from Ron Dellums, formerly Congressman (D-CA9) and now Mayor of Oakland, to Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN5) and the soon-to-be-Senator from Minnesota Al Franken. Conservatively, Mal and his team have raised more than half a billion dollars for good causes and candidates.

That’s why Mal was the go-to guy for people starting to worry when the economy began to go south in 2008. He posted some ideas on his website www.malwarwick.com , then posted some more, and then expanded them in a new book “Fundraising When Money Is Tight. A Strategic and Practical Guide to Surviving Tough times and Thriving In The Future.” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009. www.jossey-bass.com Now in the second year of this recession, even giants like AARP, Common Cause, and the San Francisco Opera are laying off staff and reducing salaries. Smaller and more controversial organizations are feeling even deeper cuts. This is the book to help fundraisers do their very difficult work in this very uncertain economy.

You get a visioning exercise to help your leaders pick the overall strategy they want to handle what they expect will be coming in the economy. Then you get terrific nuts and bolts ideas on what to keep, what to cut, what to expand, and what to explore to make more money and spend less. Mal gives you tested advice to improve the very foundation of your fundraising: how to make the case for your organization. Plus you get a wonderful essay on creativity, comparing classic ads for the first Volkswagen bug and the Rolls-Royce.

The only caveat I have is that most of his examples are for very large organizations, since they represent his target market. For most smaller, newer, or more radical organizations, lines in the book like “if your organization’s staff is relatively small – say, fewer than 30 people in fundraising and marketing” will draw hoots of laughter from the reader. (p. 103) Most grass roots groups run with a handful of paid staff and a corps of committed volunteers, and the organizations thrive because everyone can and will do everything. Never mind. Warwick’s ideas will work for any organization – just make them fit.

I first met Mal when I had the honor of introducing him as the speaker for a direct mail workshop at the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) International Conference in Chicago in 1995. They had assigned him to the biggest room, and it was packed to the walls, with latecomers crouched under the coat-hangers in the back. If you don’t have a chance to hear Mal live, get “Fundraising When Money Is Tight” to keep your revenues coming in until the economy revives.