Last updated on January 18, 2023
My name is Gianfranco Pooli and I am the author of Digital Fundraising. I write about digital strategy for nonprofits and NGOs, based on my 15 years' experience. Here I share more about the project and about myself.
Throughout my career I have collaborated with different types of nonprofit organizations. The non-profit sector has also been at the center of my studies: alongside personal economic benefit, I want my work to serve a cause I believe in.
However I have always had a passion for entrepreneurship. Specifically, I'm interested in importing the marketing techniques used by business enterprises into nonprofits, to grow and become stronger digitally.
Alongside successfull experiences, I also had the opportunity to witness less structured situations. For example when the team tries many unrelated ideas, or changes too often direction according to the trends of the week.
Instead, growing on the web in a logical and structured way is possible: in technology they call it data-driven. Helping you make sense of your nonprofit's digital strategy is why I publish Digital Fundraising.
My name is Gianfranco Pooli and I am the author of Digital Fundraising.
I studied Philosophy at the University of Padua in Italy and I have a master's degree in Management of Social Enterprises at the University of Trento.
I worked for years in Milan for the publishing company VITA, the voice of nonprofit in Italy. In Milan I practiced and learned fundraising and digital marketing, thanks to the guidance of more experienced colleagues.
At VITA.it I managed e-mail newsletters for tens of thousands of contacts, and built service portals such as the job board VITA Lavoro.
I have also built Wordpress-based blogging platforms such as Afronline, the voice of Africa since 2009.
In Amsterdam I worked many years for the European Cultural Foundation as Digital Manager, focusing on digital strategy as the key to accessing new fundraising opportunities.
With the European Cultural Foundation I collaborated on grant applications, both as a giver and as an applicant, on fundraising events and numerous initiatives involving grassroots communities and activists across Europe - and beyond.
I recently launched my cultural initiative Alle Italiaanse, an online publication about Italian culture in the Dutch language. It's a website that I started in 2001 and have grown to 100,000 organic pageviews per month.
As you can see, I like to analyze and measure the digital progresses I make. This is why I write about Digital Fundraising: to clearly illustrate how to develop a digital strategy that makes sense.
I write from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I have been working and living for many years. You can contact me via the contact page of Digital Fundraising.