Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
Here’s a collection of seasonal reading – free nonprofit tips and tools galore!
Once again I thank my generous sponsor, Bloomerang, for their continued support of my curation of useful content for you – all so you can facilitate passionate philanthropy to make our world a better place.
If you find one or more articles, webinars or free downloadable guides useful I’ll be happy. And if you find Clairification helpful, I hope you’ll consider enrolling in Clairification School to get a full year’s worth of all the wisdom I have to share!
My motto is: “If I know it, I want you to know it.”
Let’s get right to this issue’s links!
Thank you for doing the important work you do.
P.S. I try to make most of my content as close to free as humanly possible. If you’re on the fence about enrolling, see what others say about why they’ve joined. And if you’re not happy, I’ll refund you. How’s that?
Clairity Click-it, Your Nonprofit Ticket to…
Annual Giving
Click-it: Introduce your nonprofit to new supporters with a welcome email series. With a welcome email series, you can turn new supporters into donors, and new donors into recurring donors. Get the skinny from Ronald Pruitt of 4aGoodCause.
Content Marketing
Click-it: Worthwhile Nonprofit Newsletters: Content Donors Adore. Check out my article on the Bloomerang blog to learn two ways to justify putting in the effort to create a really relevant, useful and timely newsletter donors will love. Plus get at least five actionable tips!
Major and Legacy Gifts
Click-it: Top 2 Cringeworth Things Some Fundraisers Say to Major Donor Prospects (And What They Might Want to Say Instead). Great advice from Greg Warner of Market Smart.
Click it: A Planned Giving Conversation Between Stelter Brothers. Some insights about what works, and what doesn’t, in today’s crowded marketplace. From Nathan and Jeremy at Stelter.
Management and Strategy
Click-it: 10 Creative Ideas for Nonprofit Staff Retreats. Some terrifically useful ideas from Joan Garry Consulting.
Online Marketing
Click-it: 8 Ways to Grow Your Nonprofit Social Media Followers. Get some useful tips from Richard Nolan on the Guidestar blog.
Click-it: Donor-Centered Digital Communications: How Do You Create a Value-for-Value Exchange? Check out this article I wrote for Bloomerang about creating a meaningful emotional experience for would-be supporters using online content.
Online Fundraising
Click-it: Appeal Volume and the Impact on Online Donor Retention. Every year M+R conducts research on the state of online fundraising. Here they summarize and analyze some of the results. Here’s the big take-away: sending more messages tended to go hand-in-hand with higher retention.
Trends
Click-it: 12 Examples of Nonprofits Using Augmented and Virtual Reality. Some fascinating stuff, from Maddie Grant at Social Fish.
FREE AUDIO-VISUAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The more you learn, the more you grow.
Finding webinars you’d like to attend that overlap? Note that for many of these webinars you can obtain a copy of the recording if you’re unable to join live – as long as you register!
Annual Giving
Click-it: 10 Email Fundraising Elements Learned from 218 Real Experiments [Free on-demand webinar]. CauseVox and Brady Josephson of NextAfter teamed up to bring you this primer of the key elements of a winning fundraising email based on real-life examples.
Online Social Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: How to Become a Multichannel Fundraising Rock Star [Free on-demand webinar]. Get some tips from the experts at Blackbaud and Mary Hendley from Workshops, Inc.
Click-it: Three Must-Follow Nonprofits on YouTube. Abby Jarvis of Qgiv presents three examples of nonprofits successfully using YouTube to show the impact of supporters’ philanthropy.
Click-it: Be Found: The Secrets of SEO for Nonprofits [Register for free webinar, 7-12-18]. Jay Wilkinson of Firespring will cover the basics of search engines, why they matter, the tools every nonprofit should use and outline the 6 steps to mastering SEO
Storytelling
Click-it: The Path to a Great Story [Infographic]. Paste this useful summary of what makes a story resonate and stick next to your computer! From the folks at Stelter.
Trends
Click it: 5 Trends Shaping a New Reality for Nonprofits [Register for free webinar, 7-26-18]. Jay Wilkinson of Firespring joins host Bloomerang to explore new realities shaping the way forward for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes.
YOU
Click it: The Secret Thing That Is Holding You Back In Your Nonprofit Career [Free webinar, 7-12-18]. Join Mazarine Treyz and host Bloomerang to explore how to build trust and make your fundraising office more effective.
FREE DOWNLOADABLE MATERIALS
Content Marketing
Click-it: 2018 Social Media Content Calendar: How to Organize A Year of Posts the Easy Way. From the folks at Co-Schedule.
Donation Processing
Click-it: Putting the Mission First: How Nonprofits Can Benefit from Outsourced Donation Processing [Download free white paper]. This may be useful if you’re finding your current method of direct mail processing stressful and less than cost-effective. From the experts at Merkle RMG.
Donor Research
Click-it: The Ultimate How To Guide for Conducting Nonprofit Donor Surveys [Free download]. This comes from Tim Chaten at Market Smart. It’s filled with powerful, bite-sized chunks of valuable research and tips along with awesome checklists and charts.
Online Fundraising
Click-it: The Digital Donation Revolution: 5 Online Fundraising Tactics that Actually Work (and Reduce Costs) [Download free e-book]. Today’s digital donors are approaching their philanthropic priorities with a subconscious expectation—leaving organizations under increased pressure to deliver an Amazon-esque experience. The folks at Pursuant suggest how you can accomplish this feat.
Trends
Click-it: Annual Internet Trends Report [View slide deck].This comprehensive review has everything you need to know about the digital economy. While not nonprofit-specific, the insights from Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins are nonetheless pertinent as we all operate within the current zeitgeist. Did you know more people begin product searches on Amazon than on all search engines combined (p.62)? Or that more than half of America’s top 25 public tech companies were founded by first- or second-generation immigrants (p. 290)? You can also view a video and transcript of Meeker’s presentation of her findings.
Website
Click-it: 19 Form Design Best Practices to Get More Conversions (Download + Examples). If you want to influence more folks to answer your online calls to action, this is important stuff from Neil Patel on the Daily Egg blog.
Did You Miss My Recent Articles?
Here are links to my most recent articles. Enroll in ‘Clairification School’ to get access to every single article I’ve ever written – with new ones delivered weekly straight to your in-box! You’ll also get free monthly tips from your own “My Clairification” dashboard.
- Accountability: One Big Secret to Reach Your Fundraising Goals
- Use Stories to Knock Down Nonprofit Marketing and Fundraising Siloes
- And then they came for me…
- Top 10 Excuses Keeping Your Nonprofit from Blogging?
- Why Creating Donor Engagement Opportunities Boosts Fundraising
- Transactional Nonprofit Work vs. Transformational Donor-Led Progress‘
- Are You Leading Your Nonprofit Backwards?
And so ends another Clairity Click-it. If you find value in Clairification, your support via enrollment in Clairification School means a lot!
My motto is: “If I know it, I want you to know it!”
Hope to see you in Clairification School!
