Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
I’m beginning again, as I often do, with a bit of borrowed insight, this time from a colleague’s newsletter:
If I had to sum up my advice for this week, it would be to don’t be scared.
There are many reasons to feel scared. I understand that and want to acknowledge that feeling.
However, we must remember that within our DNA is something deeply coded to be helpful, kind, compassionate, and focused on collaboration and community. These aren’t learned behaviors; they are natural, like breathing when the environment allows for them.
Much of what I’m going to ask of you in the coming weeks is to breath, to step back and ask questions, and to focus on helping those around you, especially those not afforded some of the privileges that someone likely reading a LinkedIn newsletter may have.
We got this.
— Tim Sarrantonio, Neon One
Good advice for stressful times.
And, of course, there’s usually more than one stressor. Right? Today, let’s just focus on your work in making the world smarter, kinder, more just, more caring, more peaceful and more joyful.
Which brings us to year-end fundraising – that crucial time of the calendar year when many nonprofits raise the lion’s share of their contributed income.
Hopefully, you can use some of the insights you glean in this week’s issue of the Clairity Click-it to help you. So, start digging through the curated content from across the web. I hope it will make your job easier, and more fulfilling.
As always, a big thank you to my sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to spend the hours of time hunting, gathering and choosing the resources I believe will be most useful to you. It is my sincere pleasure and honor to help you find the ideas, strategies, templates and tools you need to succeed.
Thank you for doing your vital work, and making our world a better place.
You’ve got this!
Claire
P.S. Your support via enrollment in ‘Clairification School’ means a lot, and I am deeply appreciative. It is my honor to deliver original articles direct to your in-box every week, give you on-demand access to all my webinars and archived articles, and offer up exclusive monthly tips, bonuses and more! It’s less than $2/week [If the enrollment fee is a hardship, please email me and we’ll work it out.]
Clairity Click-it, Your Nonprofit Ticket to…
ARTICLES
Annual (Year-Round) Fundraising
Click-it: Collecting Employer Information in Volunteer Registrations. Besides being able to assess matching gift potential, there are all sorts of other rewards to capturing employer data for your volunteers – many of which you may not have seriously considered. Double the Donation offers practical tips, plus examples, to help you effectively integrate this step into your volunteer sign-up process.
Culture
Click-it: Improving Your Nonprofit’s Internal Culture: A Mini Guide. Check out this mini-guide for 8 strategies you can experiment with to improve your culture – from the inside out. Per GreaterGiving, your culture will continue to evolve and change over time, so actively managing it and doing what you can to positively influence it are essential.
Events
Click-it: How to create an event recap that’s completely digital and interactive. An event without impact follow-up is like a tree falling in a forest with no one there. Big thud. To assure your event takes wing, and continues to build donor relationships long after the event, begin with a great, mission-focused recap. Learn how in this article from the folks at Storyraise. Remind folks what they learned and experienced. Show non-attendees what they missed. Thank them. Re-engage them. Repurpose your event content. Grab three examples of non-boring event recaps in this article.
Click-it: Event Page Essentials: Why You Need One & How to Perfect It. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. That’s why, per Eventgroove, you need an awesome event’s landing page. Learn why Facebook isn’t the best choice, how to create a great visual brand, how to use your event page to seamlessly sell tickets, how to optimize for SEO and mobile, how to track your results, and more.
Click-it: Immerse Guests in Mission + Watch Fundraising SOAR! Let’s face it. Some events are an endurance test for guests. They come away uninspired, often forgetting even who hosted the shindig. Don’t less this happen to you? The way around it? Mission, mission, mission. Here are some great ideas from the experts at Auctria to show – not just tell — your guests how much their participation means.
Major, Capital and Legacy Gift Fundraising
Click-it: The Truth about Wealthy People and Philanthropy Should Affect Your Fundraising. But Does It? This eye-opening article from Greg Warner, Market Smart, is useful in helping you to get inside the minds of many would-be major and legacy donors. This is important! You cannot facilitate passionate philanthropy unless you know where people are coming from. So, stop assuming you know. You may be surprised.
Click-it: 5 Easy Ways to Engage Donors in a Legacy Conversation. If you’re serious about developing a pipeline of legacy donors, you need strategies and tactics that go beyond a mere “tick-the-box” exercise. Building a robust legacy pipeline is about creating meaningful engagement that sparks curiosity and make donors excited to continue on this journey with you. Ligia Peña, the Globetrotting Fundraiser, shares five ways you can inspire potential legacy donors to take the next step.
Click-it: How to Build a Legacy Society to Cultivate Planned Giving Donors. If you’ve been thinking about establishing a more formal legacy giving program, this primer from the Nonprofit Learning Lab will help you solidify your resolve and think through all the steps.
Online Digital Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it:. How to Boost Year-End Giving With Text Messaging. The text messaging experts at Rally Corp want to make it easy for you to add this highly effective channel to your marketing mix. Learn how to boost your message and increase your donations with this simple year-end texting checklist.
Click-it: How a slide-up with gift array vs an exit-intent impacts donor conversion during high-urgency appeal. I absolutely love sharing A/B tests from NextAfter, and this one is a stunner – so, heads up! They began with the premise a slide-up with gift array for users on profile sites during a 2-day match appeal would achieve an increase in donor conversion rate and revenue because it allowed users to already begin the donation process, by selecting an amount, before they even arrived on the donation page. It worked! Conversions increased 45.5%. Take a look at what they did; think about what you might try. Small changes can have a big impact in the donation journey.
Strategy and Management
Click-it: Is The Generosity Decline Real? What To Do! Recent research reveals philanthropy to be shrinking. In this article for Bloomerang, I both lay out the facts and suggest ways you can take control of your own destiny through strategic philanthropy facilitation. Specifically, you’ll learn three ways to shift your culture to achieve your best results.
Click-it: The Nonprofit Productivity Report: How AI Can Redefine Workloads [Download free study]. Momentum conducted a study of nonprofit professionals to get a deeper understanding of fundraiser workloads and unveil key insights on job satisfaction and AI usage. Discover how you can empower your team and give them the resources they need to feel satisfied in their roles.
Click-it: The Impact of Learning and Development on Charity Staff: Performance and Job Satisfaction [Download free report]. This report from Fundraising Everywhere demonstrates the significant impact that access to learning and development has on fundraisers’ abilities to meet objectives, financial performance and improve job satisfaction.
YOUR FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Click-it: The biggest threat to free speech and democracy isn’t speech, it’s amplification. I started following Mark Schaefer a decade or so ago for his all-things-marketing brilliance. This piece really struck me, because it’s about the world we all live in. Damaging content can spread instantly, and globally. Whether fact or fiction. You have to deal with this at home, and at work. Dangerous stuff. Who shall we hold to account?
ONLINE CONFERENCE
Click-it: Build a Thriving Nonprofit Summit [Register for 3 Free Days: 11-6 to 8, 2024]. This online summit brings together 7 incredible speakers who will deliver powerful, actionable sessions covering topics like: Grant Readiness is a Thing; How to Engage the Right Board Members without Seeming Bossy; How to Raise More Online, and much more. Sabrina Walker Hernandez hosts, and speakers include Julia Campbell, Christal Cherry, Bryan Partee, Jess Campbell, Kate Kramer, and Kelly Stewart.
Click-it: Nonprofit Social Media Summit [Register for this online event, 11-13 to 14, 2024]. Join co-hosts Julia Campbell and NeonOne to learn what really works in social media, and what you can leave behind. This all-virtual summit will help you create actionable plans to integrate social media into your multichannel marketing and fundraising campaigns.
WEBINARS, PODCASTS, ROUNDTABLES & ON-DEMAND AUDIO RESOURCES
If you can’t attend live, or are interested in sessions happening at overlapping times, note many are available via recording – but ONLY if you REGISTER!
Donor Retention
Click-it: How to Defeat Fundraising’s Silent Enemy: Donor Attrition [Register for free webinar, 11-13-2024]. Get ready – now! – to retain all those donors you secure during the generous year-end holiday giving period. Join Jay Wilkinson of Firespring and learn why donors leave, what you can do about it, and how to use six key drivers to double the lifetime value of your donors.
Giving Tuesday
Click-it: 4 Ways to Simplify Your Day on GivingTuesday [Register for free webinar, 11-6-2024]. Abby Jarvis at NeonOne will go over some practical steps you can take to make your GivingTuesday go as smoothly as possible.
Grants
Click-it: Ask Us Anything About Grants & the Grants Lab [Register for free, 30-minute Q&A]. Join HayDay Services for this Grants Lab designed to take the guesswork out of writing successful grant proposals.
Technology as Tool
Click-it: Revolutionizing Nonprofit Fundraising: The AI Advantage and Ethical Considerations [Download free, on-demand podcast]. Griff Bohm of Momentum is a guest on the Nonprofit Hub Podcast and shares his insights on the revolutionary role of AI in nonprofit operations. This episode sheds light on how traditional fundraising roles are evolving, providing a fresh perspective on the opportunities and misconceptions surrounding AI in creating effective donor engagement strategies.
Year End
Click-it: Year-End Donation Pages: 5 Tactics to Grow Donations and Maximize Revenue [Listen to recorded discussion with Q&A]. Nathan Hill from NextAfter and Adam O’Brien from iDonate unpack 5 specific strategies that can improve the performance of your year-end donation page. Learn how to grab your donor’s attention, hold their interest, and inspire them to respond more generously to your end-of-year campaign. Great stuff!
DOWNLOADABLE GUIDES, PAPERS, TEMPLATES & OTHER RESOURCES
Data and Trends
Click-it: Generational Giving Report [Download free resource]. Bloomerang asked over 1,000 donors of all ages to tell them how they discover nonprofits to support, how they stay connected to those nonprofits, their fundraising event habits, donor retention preferences, and more! Get tips on how to account for donor preferences in your follow-up and retention efforts.
Click-it: Latest Fundraising Effectiveness Project Data Shows Uptick in Giving. Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s latest figures were just released, and Amanda Cole of NonProfitPRO outlines everything you need to know. Most especially, you’ll want to redouble your donor retention efforts.
Major, Capital and Legacy Gifts
Click-it: Creating Strategic Plans and Goals for Every Major Donor [Download free paper]. In this paper, the Veritus Group shares a step-by-step process on how to put together a strategic plan for each major donor prospect. Once MGOs start working on this process, they realize that not only is it possible, but it’s necessary for them to stay on task.
Psychology of Giving
Click-it: The Science of Generosity [Read free paper]. If you or others within your organization fear asking for gifts because you feel you’re “taking” something from donors, you should definitely read this excellent paper from the Greater Good Science Center about how giving offers donors real benefits. IMHO, if you don’t offer people opportunities to give, that’s actually a disservice. Because you’re preventing people from experiencing the true joy that comes from giving. Not going to lie, this is a long piece. But it’s chock full of well-researched info, and worth the read.
Did You Miss My Newest Articles?
Here are links to the most recent articles on the Clairification blog. Remember, your goal is not simply to squeeze money out of people. It’s to give donors a squeeze and a hug for being caring and generous. This will make them feel good, which will move them to continue sticking with you.
8 BOO BOO’s! Are You SCARING Nonprofit Donors Away?
How to Project Manage Your Nonprofit Story
Top 10 Strategies to Transform Reluctant Fundraisers into Ready Philanthropy Facilitators
6 Strategies to Convey Your Most Emotional Fundraising Appeal Story
24 Secrets to Instantly Improve Your Annual Fundraising Appeal
5 Strategies to Get and Keep More Donors for Your Nonprofit
Finally… if you have a question, any question…
Check out my free fundraising advice column on the Bloomerang blog! Ask your question here. And bookmark the Ask an Expert page for any time you have a question! Here’s one: Can A Check Dated In One Calendar Year Be Credited To A Different Calendar Year For Tax Deduction Purposes?
REMINDER for Clairification School students: Don’t forget to log in to your “My Clairification/Subscriber Dashboard/Monthly Tips” to grab your exclusive, timely tips for each month. Your NOVEMBER tip is live! If you’re not yet an enrolled student, and don’t have direct, immediate access to ALL my blog articles, monthly tips, webinars, podcasts and much more, you can get in on the fun here — and grab your BONUS! Don’t miss out. Please.
And now, some pics from the past two weeks I just feel like sharing. Hope you enjoy!
Sometimes we all need a little help finding direction.
A grandchild-friendly cheese board I created. 🙂
Go with the…
Timely message… use your voice, the one so many before us fought for us to have.
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