Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
- Catch this Special Nonprofit Communications Edition (includes year-end fundraising messaging)!
This week’s Click-it is dedicated to the best ways to communicate your message as well as best ways to measure your success.
All of this is super important as we approach the year-end fundraising season.
- Make sure your message is clear, catchy and relevant.
- Use tools that make your life easier and assure that you get the biggest bang from your efforts.
- And measure what works/what doesn’t; you’ll never improve if you don’t know to what to attribute your success or failure. That’s just sad.
If you’re not the person who might benefit most from some of these articles, please pass them along to those who might find them useful. Be good to your team!
Communications
Click-it: Breaking Down Giving Barriers. Lori Jacobwith shares useful information from the “Money for Good” report from Camber Collective – all with an eye to helping you target different communications messages to different constituencies. She breaks donors down into 5 segments: Contented Benefactors; Busy Idealists; Cautious Strivers; Unaware Potentials, and Unengaged Critics. You need to be aware of donor attitudes and barriers to giving when crafting your fundraising offers; not everyone is motivated to give by the same things. What to do? Take some time now to identify one or two of your donor segments and work to overcoming their most significant barriers. Give the article a read; then give it a try. The more your message directly connects with your reader, the better result you’ll get.
Click-It: Sharing Progress and Communicating Accomplishments. The August 2015 Blog Carnival was filled with articles about how to share the impact of your work with your supporters. In case you missed it, check it out now. The information is timeless.
Click-it: Mastering Nonprofit Video. One of the best ways to share is through video storytelling. This is a great article from Joe Boland on Nonprofit Pro with a number of great tips for creating a fundraising and awareness-building video. On top of that, it links you to an award-winning video (Every year, NTEN, See3 and YouTube partner on the DoGooder Video Awards) from Unbound that is absolutely hilarious. And you’ll never forget the organization’s name.
Click-it: More than half of Google searches now come from mobile. So says Mashable.If you’re not optimized for mobile yet, what are you waiting for? Website, blogs, social media, email – more and more folks are opening your messaging from their phones. If they can’t read it, they’ll delete it. They won’t wait to read it later on their desktop.
Tools
Click-it: 3 Mobile Apps that Put Visual Content Creation in Your Pocket. The trend in communication these days is visual. Think about the popularity of Pinterest and Instagram. This article from Donna Moritz of Socially Sorted shows you how to create killer visual content without having to rely on high-end programs like photoshop or hire a designer.
Click-it: Top Rated Social Media Management Tools [Infographic] John Haydon offers you a way to strategically manage your social marketing. See the customer ratings of four different social media management tools: Hootsuite, AgoraPulse, SproutSocial and Sendible.
Click-It: Visual Listening: The Next Big Thing in Social Media. Another post from Debra Askanaze’s Community Organizer 2.0 blog, this one is a harbinger of the future where hashtags are no longer the only way to spot folks concerned about the issues with which you’re also concerned. The new thing is visual listening tools that make it possible to scan for logos and specific images. You know how important images are, don’t you? They increase engagement with your content by leaps and bounds – which is why a 2015 survey of nonprofits found 63% were focusing on creating more visual content, 68% on more video, and 58% on more infographics. (Read more from the NTEN 2015 Digital Outlook Report.)
Branding and Design
Click-it: How To Use Fonts Effectively: A Non-Designers Guide [Includes Free Font Pairing Resource Guide]. This post by Dre Beltrami of The Branded Solopreneur helps non-designers understand the effect of typeface in your communications. I believe you’ll be fascinated; I was. But then I’m a bit of a branding geek.
Click-it: 8 Rules for Creating Effective Typography Speaking of geeking out, if you really want to revel in learning stuff about typography check out this article from Joshua Johnson of Design Shack. It’s a pretty cool site with lots of design resources. Share with your team!
Metrics
Click-it: Social Media Metrics That Matter by Debra Askanase is an eye-opening article about the difference between “us-centered” and “user-centered” measurement. Rather than simply counting up all the actions users take, what about asking a more relevant question: “What actions are stakeholders taking that show that our organization matters to them?” If you’ve been tracking what Debra calls “vanity metrics” – impressions/views, social ad reach, your own Klout, and number of blog posts or social updates – know they may make your supervisor happy, but they don’t truly offer a picture of the value of your organization to its stakeholders. Read the article and view the chart below to learn to measure what matters.
Graph via Debra Askanase
FREE RESOURCES
Marketing
Click-it: The 2015 M + R Benchmarks Study [Infographic]. This is cool. Not only can you download a summary of their benchmark nonprofit online metrics (based on data compiled from 84 nonprofits), but you can input your data and get a free personalized infographic that compares your data to the benchmarks. This is a great thing to show your leadership and to help you set reasonable, realistic goals moving forward.
Fundraising
Click-It: Crowdfunding for Nonprofits: How to Add This Essential Tool to Your Fundraising Mix [FREE]. This is cool too! Join us for a free event to learn how you can incorporate crowdfunding to raise the bar on your fundraising initiatives. This is a great one-time opportunity, and the timing is perfect as you prep for end-of-year appeals, #GivingTuesday and even spring benefits! Our guest presenter is Dana Ostomel with DepositaGift.com. There will also be time for Q & A. Can’t make the live session October 22, 11 – noon PST; 2 – 3 EST? Sign up anyway to receive the recording! Crowdfunding is trending — now’s your chance to find out why!
Image courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net
