Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
The simple but difficult marketing flip
From, “Pay attention, I want you to buy what I made.”
to…
“I’ve been paying attention, and I think I can offer you what you want.”
— Seth Godin
I often say “If you want gifts, you must give them.” And what better time to consider what you have to offer as we approach the holiday of thanks(for)giving? The best gifts, of course, are those selected especially with the recipient’s desires in mind. In the philanthropic equation, this means thinking from your donor’s perspective, not your organization’s. Rather than saying “I want you to give to our annual campaign,” what about “I know how much you value justice and equity, and here’s a way you can live that value.”
As the busy calendar year-end fundraising season kicks into full gear, I’ve assembled more resources to help you focus and do your best work. Find a few things that speak to you, and… get clicking! Please give a shout out to my Clairity Click-it sponsor, Bloomerang, without whom I wouldn’t be able to set aside the time to collect all these goodies. I hope you enjoy these resources as much as I enjoy finding them for you.
Thank you for doing the world’s important work.
I am grateful,
Claire
P.S. If you find value in Clairification, your support via enrollment in ‘Clairification School’ is a blessing. You’ll be able to read every single article I’ve ever written, plus you’ll get access to all my webinars, monthly tips, bonuses and more.
Clairity Click-it, Your Nonprofit Ticket to…
FEATURE: HOW GRANTMAKERS CAN HELP
The way grantmakers develop funding priorities, application and reporting forms and procedures has a huge impact on fundraisers with limited time and resources. If you are on the giving side of the philanthropy equation, or have a close relationship with someone who does, you will find this information useful.
Click-it: Why We Need to #FixTheForm. GrantAdvisor conducted a large survey of nonprofits to find out what their pain points were with online applications and portals. They are sharing their results. You’ll be happy to learn there’s a grassroots international movement afoot to make the process more grantee-friendly. And if you have had a bad experience, you can write an anonymous review of a grant maker on GrantAdvisor.org. Use #FixTheForm somewhere in your review, and their team will make sure the feedback gets to the appropriate decision makers.
Click-it: Principles, Equity, Advocacy, Knowledge [PEAK]. PEAK Grantmaking is a membership organization of grantmakers, replete with grants managers sharing best practices and advice on their robust discussion boards. Many of the resources are free, and you’ll find plenty of practical advice plus a sense of what’s trending in grants management tools & portals.
Click-it: Stop saying that 80% of nonprofit funding comes from individual donors. It’s misleading.. Vu Le has been leading the charge for equitable grantmaking for some time. This article makes the point small organizations sometimes rely disproportionately on foundation revenue, and need start-up resources to build a base of individual philanthropy. They shouldn’t be “punished” for not being able to yet demonstrate this broad-based public support. You’ll find more articles on Nonprofit AF.
ARTICLES
Annual (Year-Round) Fundraising
Click-it: Push Through To Find the Next 100 Monthly Donors. I’m a huge proponent of monthly giving, yet see too many nonprofits’ programs stagnant. in this article for Nonprofit Pro, Amanda Cole offers a way out.
Click-it: How Greed Can Undermine Your Monthly Giving Program. “He who doesn’t honor the small, isn’t worthy of the big.” So says monthly giving expert Erica Waasdorp in this post, a cautionary tale, on the Moceanic blog. Learn how to set ask amounts, and how to pivot as appropriate.
Click-it: P2P fundraising: Your toolkit checklist. One of the best ways to leverage the power of your current donors, volunteers and social media ambassadors is through peer-to-peer fundraising. 4aGoodCause has you covered with a host of articles and checklists.
Click-it: Switching to Donor Love v. internal resistance. This guest post from Andrew Ross on the Tom Ahern newsletter is useful, because it gives you small steps to move the needle in your organization towards donor love. Think more from your donor’s perspective, and you’re likely to grab more attention. And investment.
Donor Retention
Click-it: Webinars: The Powerful New Tool for Connecting with Your Donors. Today I gave a keynote for an AFP chapter, and one question I was asked is what surprised me during the pandemic, and what’s on the horizon. To my surprise, I found myself answering “zoom interaction with donors.” And then… I happened on this article by Jeff Brooks on the Moceanic blog! It’s so spot on, plus it offers practical tips for putting strategy into practice. Were I you, first thing in January, I’d calendar working on your own donor webinar program for 2022.
Giving Tuesday
Click-it: 7 Fundraising Ideas for Giving Tuesday 2021. You’re bound to find an idea or two you haven’t thought of in this article from Rally Corp. Plus if you like the idea of a free template to help you with campaign messaging, you’ll find one here.
Click-it: Your 1-week game plan for #GivingTuesday. The folks at FlipCause provide all the ingredients you need, including a practical checklist, to help you raise money on November 30th – even if you haven’t started planning yet.
Click-it: Giving Tuesday Resources. Qgiv offers a host of tools to help you with Giving Tuesday, including templates for email, text messaging and social media. If you’re participating, you’ll want to bookmark this page; they’ll be offering live updates throughout the day.
Major and Legacy Giving
Click-it: 4 Steps to Manage Your Caseload and Stay on Track. This is a critical time of year for major gift fundraising. The best time you can spend is directly with the donors on your caseload, and you’ll have the greatest impact for your organization by staying focused. How? The Veritus Group experts offer four distinct steps you can take. Click-it: 3 Campaign-Style Ways to Engage Donors BEFORE You Ask for a Major Gift. Amy Eisenstein reframes the way to consider a feasibility study as a major donor engagement tool. After all, asking for advice is one of the best ways to learn more about people. So don’t miss out on the opportunity as it presents itself.
Click-it: Skip the Ask and Make It a “Gift Conversation”. Learn from the Gail Perry Group how to shift your approach to “asking” by making your engagement with the donor more authentic, heartfelt and open-ended.
Online Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: s Your Nonprofit Ready for a Mobile App? How do you know when your nonprofit is ready for a mobile app? What are some of the typical activities, events, and functions needed by nonprofits for their mobile apps? And what are the standard requirements, costs and timelines associated with mobile app development? Here’s an overview of considerations by Thayer Tate in Nonprofit Pro.
Psychology of Giving
Click-it: Why You Should Move Away From Using Nonprofit Donor Personas And Toward Donor Identities. Personas only touch on a small part of your donor’s identity, maybe not a part with which they strongly identify. Or, worse, not a part that motivates them to support your nonprofit. In this article for the Bloomerang blog I delve into how to sleuth out and use donor identities to more effectively connect with supporters.
Technology
Click-it: The Qgiv blog always offers a ton of useful info, and this guest post from DNL OmniMedia is no exception. Often we cobble together databases, CRMs, mailing list servers, event software, web pages, monthly giving, P2P, texting and the like to the point we lose sight of what’s up and what’s down. This article addresses how to conduct a nonprofit technology assessment, givings your team a full inventory of your current nonprofit software suite, how systems are integrated, and improvements for more success in the new year.
Website
Click-it: SEO Keywords for Nonprofits: 5 Tips for Finding the Right Phrases. When people are looking for a cause just like yours to support, will they find you? Probably not, unless you’re taking proactive steps to optimize your website for search engines. The folks at Wired Impact offer a bunch of practical strategies here. Be sure to share them with the right people in your organization!
Year-End Fundraising
Click-it: Segmentation Secrets to Boost Revenue on Giving Tuesday and at Year-End. Donors have been shown to give 10% to 25% more when messages are personalized, so think about segmenting your mailing list by how donors are affiliated with you. Ryan Carpenter suggests six segmentation strategies on Nonprofit Pro
WEBINARS, PODCASTS, COURSES & ON-DEMAND AUDIO RESOURCES
If you can’t attend live, or are interested in sessions happening at overlapping times (I’m looking at you October 20th!), note many are available via recording – but ONLY if you REGISTER!
Annual (Year-Round) Fundraising
Click-it: Is “the Pyramid” an Outdated Model for Donor Engagement? [Listen to free podcast]. I was recently interviewed by Pursuant to discuss why I think the donor pyramid model is no longer well-suited to the digitally revolutionized environment in which today’s nonprofits operate. Want a more dynamic way to align fundraising, marketing, and technology to create a vibrant culture of philanthropy? Listen in!
Click-it: The Keys to Launching a Recurring Giving Program [Register for free webinar, 11-18-2021]. Join Community Boost to learn how to launch a best-in-class recurring giving program, on a budget! Walk away with a strategy to build a successful themed landing page, a recurring giving program timeline, and an understanding of the top 7 marketing channels to promote and scale a recurring giving program.
Click-it: Fundraise Awesomer [Register for free webinar, 11-17-21]. Do you wear 10,000 hats every day, often wondering how you’ll ever find time to build relationships? OneCause hosts Patrick Kirby, who will help you ask better questions of donors; differentiate yourself from other organizations: find greater joy in your work, and create your own working fundraising framework to use the very next day.
Events
Click-it: Events in a Digital Age: How to Maximize Offline Events in an Online World [Register for free webinar, 11-16-21]. Join the experts at Firespring to learn how to plan your next event with digital in mind from day one. And you’ll get 5 digital must-haves to keep your event running smoothly.
Major and Legacy Gifts
Click-it: Managing a Successful Major Gift Program [Register for free webinar, 11-18-2021]. To be successful, your major gift program must be managed. Richard Perry of the Veritus Group reveals key management strategies learned over decades of experience. He’ll cover (1) the importance of understanding the economic side of major gifts; (2) how to properly strengthen and manage your donor pipeline; (3) how to tell if your system is as productive as it should be, and how you can manage all this without burning out.
Marketing
Click-it: What Nonprofits Get Wrong All The Time [Download free on-demand podcast]. On this Nonprofit Nation podcast hosted by Julia C. Campbell, Kivi Leroux Miller reveals why nonprofit marketers need to be C.A.L.M. and not B.U.S.Y. This is for you if you want tips to break down silos between development, marketing and program staff – absolutely essential to building a culture of philanthropy and assuring your constituents have a consistent, joyful experience.
Online Fundraising
Click-it: 9 Simple Steps to Write More Effective Email Appeals [Register for free webinar, 11-16-2021]. The awesome folks at NextAfter may know more than anyone else what works in online fundraising. Because they work with hundreds of clients, and they test and evaluate online campaigns. Learn to choose the right sender; optimize your subject line & preview text; structure your donation appeal copy, and craft a compelling call-to-action to increase donations.
Psychology of Giving
Click-it: How To Love Your Donors in the Philanthropic Psychology Way [Register for free webinar, 11-17-2022]. I’m a huge proponent of applying principles from psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics to fundraising. Jen Shang is probably the worldwide expert on this topic, and the folks at Stelter are hosting her for a rare free webinar on the topic. Don’t miss it!
Year-End Fundraising
Click-it: Surviving the end of the year while working at your nonprofit! [Register for free webinar, 11-18-2021]. Join Development Consulting Solutions for a holistic view of creating and implementing easy strategies for surviving the end of the year, personally and professionally, and setting up to have fun and thrive for 2022.
DOWNLOADABLE GUIDES, WHITE PAPERS & OTHER RESOURCES
Annual (Year Round) Fundraising
Click-it: Quarterly Mail Processing Report – Q3. If direct mail is part of your comprehensive fundraising strategy, you’ll want to check out the most recent data from the experts at Merkle. 2021 was a bit of a challenging year, but results were generally better than the previous year and are perking up again. It’s a comprehensive read, and will help you look really smart to your boss or board.
Did You Miss My Newest Articles?
- 5 More Strategies to Get and Keep Donors for Your Nonprofit
- 5 Strategies to Get and Keep More Donors for Your Nonprofit
- 13 Top Secrets of Donor Thank You Letters Revealed
- 7 Magic Words that Increase Charitable Donations
- Securing Matching Gifts: What Your Nonprofit Needs to Know
- 7 Strategies to Revolutionize Your Nonprofit Culture to Stop Losing Donors
Finally… if you have a question, any question…
Check out my free fundraising advice column on the Bloomerang blog! Ask your question here. Or email me with it directly. New this month, see Does Sharing A Campaign’s Fundraising Goal Drive More Donations?
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. NOVEMBER tips are live! If you’re not yet an enrolled student, you can get in on the fun here!
My motto is: “If I know it, I want you to know it.” Don’t miss out.
Please support my extraordinary sponsors (see below). Clairification School is affordable because of their generosity.
