Clairity Click-it: Free Holiday Gifts + Useful Fundraising & Nonprofit Management Articles

This week’s Clairity Click-it Holiday Gifts — wrapped up in my blog. OPEN THEM!

This week’s Click-it is more of a holiday season “Open-it” collection of gifts. For the second year in a row, I’ve gone shopping and will offer you one or more free gifts every week from now until the end of the year.

These are all good. And the first one today is a real doozy — a gift to me that I’m “re-gifting!”

Since I’m a terrible wrapper (usually I use newspaper), I’m wrapping up my gifts to you in the closest thing to newspaper I have at my disposal online — my blog!

Of course, I’ll still offer up a few useful and thought-provoking articles for you to chew on. Then…. Get ready to open your presents!

First, a few useful articles for you to click.

Year-End Fundraising

Click-it: What Can Make or Break Your Year-End Fundraising Appeal? This is a dynamite, brass tacks guest post by Gail Perry on John Haydon’s wonderful blog. If your letter’s not yet at the printer, read this and tweak your opening line and/or image. It will pay off!

Click-it: Can’t Scan it? Ban it! 10 Reasons Nonprofit Appeals Tank. In case you missed it, this is a guest post from me on Nonprofit Pro. My favorites may be #s 1, 7 and 8. Yours?

Online Fundraising

Click-it: 10 Creative Nonprofit Fundraising Ideas. Check out these inventive ideas from Richard Santos on the Fundlio blog. You may be able to increase your results by capturing folks’ attention and giving them an opportunity to get more skin in the game. Personalized websites? Birthday campaigns? Silly donor rewards?

So much to do at year-end, and so little time! Here are some tips to help you out:

Time Management

Click-it: 18 things successful people do in the first 10 minutes of the workday. This article from Jaquelyn Smith and Rachel Gillet on World Economic Forum Agenda begins ominously: “How you handle the first 10 minutes of your workday can largely determine how productive and effective you’ll be the rest of the day.” As you’re reading this now, you might be thinking “Whew! Already blew it for today.” Start tomorrow (after you read this article, of course)! I tried to pick a favorite, but really couldn’t. They’re all so good. Maybe #9?

Productivity

Click-it: The Email Habits of Successful People. Business Insider writer Rachel Gillet offers up strategies from top executives about how they handle their in-box crush. I like the tips from Linkedin CEO Jeff Weiner and Loews executive Jonathan M. Tisch (which happens to be a good fundraising communications tip as well).

You can get more productivity tips in my recent “Click-it” on Productivity and Self Care.

Click-it: November Nonprofit Blog Carnival: A Call to Abundance. Might you be more productive if you channeled an outlook of abundance rather than scarcity? Of gratitude rather than greed? Check out this collection of articles from a whole host of experts, and see what you might take away that will help you move forward with a greater spring in your step. [BTW: Every month the Carnival is hosted by a different person.  November was hosted by Pamela Grow; December will be hosted by Joe Garecht. Read the call for submissions and submit your post by December 29th to be included!

FREE HOLIDAY GIFTS GALORE!!!

OPEN-IT: I’m Not Going to Ask! [Free book download]. Today’s your lucky day! I absolutely love this book. If you’ve never read a book by veteran major gifts fundraiser Jerold Panas, you’re in for a treat.  Jerry has given me a special link to share this brand new eBook with Clairification readers. It outlines the 24 reasons board members and volunteers give for not being willing to solicit— and how to respond to them. Directly. This is a quick read, and it will be well worth it! Did I mention I love it?  Did I mention I also love Jerry? His wisdom has guided me throughout my career. Let him guide you as well. Merry Festivus! 

More Holiday Gifts for You!

OPEN-IT: Social Networking For Grown Ups [Free E-Book]. Get this from the folks at Socially Good, and learn there’s a difference between simply calculating ROI (return on investment) and ROR (return on relationships).

OPEN-IT: Bloomerang Webinar Archives. The wonderful folks at Bloomerang have put together a stellar group of experts delivering absolutely free fundraising and nonprofit marketing webinars. Truly, this is a gift that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving! [BTW: if you’re in the market for donor database software, check out their user-friendly, donor-centered product here.]

OPEN-IT: Inbound 50: The Top 50 Marketing Blogs. There are lots of marketing resources online, but how do you know which ones are worth your time? Read this list! If you want to know anything these days about digital marketing, these folks are your go-to resources. And all the curation has been done for you! I confess that I read a lot of these (they’re so good!), and they often provide me with great inspiration and insight that I apply to my nonprofit marketing and fundraising coaching and consulting practice. I’m also delighted to note that #29 is a blog to which I contribute a monthly column on social media for nonprofits. Go get on their subscriber list if you want to get regular tips from some of the best minds in social media marketing today.

Get Ready To Say Thanks

Your Key to Meaningful Donor Thank You’s — they make more of a difference than you may think!

As the end of the year draws near, be sure you’re taking the time to develop a “wow” donor acknowledgement program. Learn how with my newly revised and expanded How to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude and Keep Your Donors Guide. Your donors gave you gifts; now it’s your turn to give them gifts in return. I promise you, this will improve your donor retention. It will get you upgraded gifts. And… it can be a lot of fun. Grab the Guide here – 106 full pages; I’ve now got 60 creative thank you ideas to offer you! All Clairification products are guaranteed, or your money back.

Images courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net