Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
This is a two-fer ‘Clairity Click-it,’ designed to keep you in good reading and learning form for an entire month! As usual, I’ve collected and curated a bunch of great resources – my gift to you — and I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy finding them for you.
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Clairity Click-it, Your Nonprofit Ticket to…
Annual Individual Giving
Click-it: How multichannel cultivation impacts year end giving. If you’re not testing, you’re likely not improving. This is a fascinating piece of research from NextAfter showing the results of sending a post card prior to sending an appeal vs. not sending the post card. In this case, the former increased year-end giving by a rate of 204.1%! Think about what you can test this year!
Click-it: 8 elements every online donation email receipt needs [infographic]. Print this out, paste it on your wall, and refer to it every time you create an online donation receipt. Thanks to the folks at 4aGoodCause for this awesome cheat sheet!
Content Marketing
Click-it: Are You a Nonprofit Content Marketing Idiot? Check out my latest guest post on Maximize Social Business. It’s all about making content marketing a core, not ancillary, fundraising strategy. Every step of your donor’s journey relies on how well you master content marketing. Or don’t.
Click-it: Ignored Your Blog for Months? 13 Tips for Getting It Back on Track. I’m a huge proponent of blogs for nonprofits. Do you have one yet? Did you have one once, but haven’t really used it much lately? This article wasn’t written for nonprofits per se, but the tips are useful nonetheless. You can also download some free headline hacks on the Smart Blogger site.
Donor Retention
Click-it: Team Donor. An Ode to Donor Love from John Lepp at Agents of Good. An excellent mantra for your entire organization.
Click-it: 3 Strategies to Stop Losing Nonprofit Donors. See my guest post on the Nonprofit Fundraising Digest. Learn. Plan. Do!
Events
Click-it: How Much Should You Charge Event Sponsors? This is full of useful tips from Chris Baylis of The Sponsorship Collective.
Management and Strategy
Click-it: 3 Signs You’re Not Ready to Be a Data Driven Nonprofit. Do you do a good job scrutinizing your fundraising metrics? Or is it difficult to do a complete analysis? Check out this article by Zach Shefska of The Fundraising Report Card.
Click-it: Lifetime Value: What It Is & What It Isn’t. If you joined us last week for Zach Shefska’s webinar on meaningful metrics, this is a great follow up. Even if you missed the webinar, it’s still useful (albeit wonky) stuff.
Online Social Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: How to Create a Nonprofit Social Media Toolkit for Your Online Fundraising Campaign. Julia C. Campbell always shares awesome tips, and this is no exception. BTW: You can also grab a free chapter of her new book, Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits here.
SOMETHING DIFFERENT: YOU
Click-it: 3 Simple Updates to Your Linkedin Profile That Boost Your Marketing Career Prospects. Looking for a new job? You can’t afford to ignore your LinkedIn profile. Get these tips from Media Street to heighten your visibility to potential recruiters.
FREE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The more you learn, the more you grow.
Note: 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!
Board and Donor Engagement
Click-it: Getting Beyond the Board: Engaging Your Community as Donors and Champions {Register for free webinar, 6-22-17]. Terry Axelrod presents for Bloomerang on how to deeply engage individuals in the broader community who can in turn engage others and perhaps become your next board members.last week
Donor Retention
Click-it: Why Stewardship is Your Most Powerful Fundraising Tool [Register for free webinar, 6-20-17]. Keeping existing donors is way less expensive than acquiring new ones. Donor Search presents David Mersky, who’ll show you how to build and manage an organization-wide donor stewardship plan.
Click-it: Missing From Your CRM: The Quality Data Showing What’s Killing Your Retention [Register for free webinar, 6-22-17] Donor Search and the Agitator sponsor this session that shows you how to take a 360 degree view of your donors by collecting the right behavioral and transactional data.
Major Gift and Legacy Fundraising
Click-it: Charitable Gift Planning E-Course [Register to access free video series] Market Smart is sponsoring this free educational series by Dr. Russell James. It covers everything you need to know about the law and tax aspects of charitable gifts.
Online Social Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: How to Report Live from Nonprofit Conferences and Events [Register for free webinar, 6-13-17]. Heather Mansfield at Nonprofit Tech for Good covers special skills and tools needed for live reporting, and presents ideas for building a pre- and post-event planned. Share with your social media managers! last week
Whole Ball of Wax!
Click-it: What Really Happened with Last Year’s Charitable Giving in the U.S.? [Register for free webinar, 6-19-17] This is your chance to hear a summary of the latest Giving USA 2017 findings and ask any questions you may have. It’s a great way to look ‘smart’ and ‘in-the-know’ to your leaders, plus it will help you see trends of which you should be aware in your planning.
FREE DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES
Board Development
Click-it: Help! My Board Won’t Listen to Me! Some straight advice from Simone Joyaux on the Moceanic blog
Marketing Communications
Click-it: 2017 Nonprofit Communication Trends Report [ Download free report] If you feel you could be doing a more effective job with marketing (and who couldn’t?), this report from Kivi LeRoux Miller and her team at Nonprofit Marketing Guide offers a ton of valuable insights and advice – including how marketing teams are being structured (four different models).
Online Social Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: 199 Amazing Free or Cheap Online Tools for Nonprofits [Free downloadable guide] From Wild Apricot, this includes advice to help you determine which tools may be best suited to your particular needs.
Special Events
Click-it: Special Event Timeline and Checklist [Download for free]. This is a super useful guideline from John Haydon.
FEATURED CLAIRIFICATION RESOURCE
Your 5-volume Donor Retention Bible – at a discount! Or get each guide separately, depending on your needs.
Summer is a great time to spend on strengthening relationships with donors. For me, the best place to begin is with gratitude. You truly cannot thank folks too often! Donors need, and deserve, lots of positive reinforcement.
Ready to exceed the average 2016 retention rates of just 23% of new donors and 60% of ongoing donors – 46% retention overall? Then get my Donor Retention and Gratitude Playbook. I promise you’ll find dozens of actionable tips to help you retain and upgrade more donors. The Playbook comes with a 30-day, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee.
