Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
It’s gloomy out there… all the more reason your work of shining a light in the darkness matters! It is my honor to help you do your most important job.
Do you know how much the world needs your dedication and commitment right now? Be proud of what you do, and remember I’m here to help you be your absolute best!
Okay, let’s get into this issue’s topics!
I wish you a happy and healthy New Year, and thank you sincerely for doing the significant work you do.
P.S. If you missed my announcement, I’m delighted to inform you I’m taking on an expanded role as FUNDRAISING COACH for Bloomerang — and couldn’t be more pleased to have this opportunity to share even more wisdom with you! As you may know, they’ve been my Clairity Click-it sponsor, enabling me to bring all these curated resources to you for free over the past year. Nothing will change at Clairification. Clairification School is still open, and I hope you’ll consider enrolling if you’ve not already done so. I save my priority attention, coaching slots and discounts for my students!
REMINDER: If you deliberated signing up for my annual Winning Major Gifts Fundraising online course that kicks off January 22nd, tomorrow is your last day to register. If you do even some of what you learn, I guarantee you’ll more than make back your investment. So… why not make this the year you commit to rocking the most cost-effective fundraising strategy there is? (Added incentive to do it now: the price will likely rise next year).
Clairity Click-it, Your Nonprofit Ticket to…
Annual Giving
Click-it: The Pocket Guide to Fundraising Psychology [Download free e-Guide]. You may know how much I love applying principles of psychology, sociology and neuroscience to fundraising. So I was delighted to come across this resource from Classy, packed with the latest research on how successful nonprofits engage with their donors.
Content Marketing
Click-it: 10 Tried-and-True Content Formats for Nonprofits. This is a great article from nonprofit communications guru Kivi LeRoux Miller on John Haydon’s Social Media Marketing Hacks for Nonprofits.
Donor Retention
Click-it: Imagine: One Extra Call Each Day. What a great New Year’s resolution this would make – courtesy of Greg Warner of Market Smart.
Management and Strategy
Click-it: Keep More of Your Cash with Donor-Covered Transaction Fees. This is something to seriously consider, and Jason Wilkinson lays out all the whys and wherefores in this article on the Firespring blog.
Online Marketing and Fundraising
Click-it What the Heck Is an Adlob? 6 Tactics to Create a Multichannel Campaign. Hopefully you’ve moved beyond a single channel campaign and are reaching out to your potential supporters to meet them where they are. This article from David Torres of Heroic Fundraising will help you develop a resonant, integrated campaign.
Click-it: 10 tips to keep your fundraising emails out of the spam folder. Now is the time to plan ahead to assure all the work you do this year is worth your effort. And if your e-appeal lands in spam, you’ve wasted your time. Many good tips here from 4aGoodCause; I like ##1, 4, 9 and 10.
Major and Legacy Giving
Click-it: Major Gift Fundraising’s Most Important Fairy Tales. Learn what Wizard of Oz, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Goldilocks, 3 Little Pigs and Pixar’s Inside/Out have to teach fundraisers – all from me on the Bloomerang blog. And if you have new fairy tales to add, please let me know!
Click-it: How to do Major Gift Fundraising on a Shoestring. You do have to spend money to make money. Understanding and embracing this reality is your first step to success in fundraising – whatever your size. On the Bloomerang blog, I look at the other steps that must become a part of your reality.
Click-it: Upgrade ROI. This is a persuasive piece from Bill Jacobs of Analytical Ones showing why all nonprofits need to move towards developing major gifts programs in the current zeitgeist.
Click-it: Top 3 Reasons Why Major Gift or Legacy Gift Officers Don’t Have Enough Face-to-Face Meetings with Donors. Greg Warner of Market Smart offers a bit of a scolding, suggesting why you can’t just leave folks in a corner and tell them to “go get me some major gifts.”
NOTE: You still have one day to sign up for my upcoming Winning Major Gifts Fundraising online course that kicks off January 22nd. Don’t delay if you want to upgrade your ROI in the coming years! Or… I’m happy to talk one-to-one.
Trends
Click-it: Fundraising Trends and Tips for 2019 from the Experts, Part 3. You may actually want to read all four parts. I have a tip in this one I hope you’ll like. Compiled by Graves Fowler.
YOU
Click-it: Perfect is the enemy of good fundraising. If you’re a Type A perfectionist, you may want to read this article from Emma Lewzey of Blue Sky Philanthropy. Sometimes we really care be our own worst enemies.
Click-it: Self-Care for Nonprofit Leaders: What About Me?. Here is another brutally honest, self-reflective piece about the importance of self-care from Susan L. Axelrod on the Charity Channel blog.
YOUR NEW FEATURE: Clairification Insight
“What we are capable of doing and becoming is dependent on how we push ourselves – and how and who we call upon to further stretch and push us, fine tuning our skills and deepening our character. We all need mentors, different types of mentors for different situations at different points in our life. Yet, what remains constant, if we have done the initial work in seeing ourselves, and in seeing our chosen mentor(s), is that we find ourselves in the driver’s seat of our growth, nurturing a truly generative and relational model of supporting each other in becoming our best selves.”
—Rabbi Andy Kastner, Interim Executive Director, Jewish Federation of the East Bay. Excerpted from Where Are All the Mentors? From Being Seen to Seeing.
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: Matching Gifts: The Secret to Boosting Revenue [Register for free flash class, 1-22-2019]. In this Donor Search webinar, Shelby Grossman from Double the Donation will discuss corporate philanthropy, with a particular focus on matching gifts. Join her as she will walk-through several examples of how to communicate with donors and increase revenue using matching gifts.
Click-it: Gender Matters: A Practical Approach To Grow Women’s Philanthropy [Register for free flash class, 1-24-2019]. This Donor Search presentation by Kathleen Loehr is designed to help participants become more aware of specific demographics and research data about women to spark more conversations within their organization about gender differences in charitable giving behavior. It will then provide examples of how to translate the research into adapted fundraising behaviors.
Boards
Click-it: The 4 Obstacles to a Diverse Board [Listen to free podcast]. Listen in as Joan Garry of Nonprofits are Messy takes a close look at diversity, why it matters and what gets in the way of building a diverse board.
Data Management
Click-it: How to Create a Custom Google Analytics Dashboard for Non-Profit Comms [Watch quick video]. Vanessa Chase Lockshin of The Storytelling Nonprofit offers up this practical “how-to” guide to help you track the metrics most important to you. If I can do it, you can too!
Donor Retention and Upgrades
Click-it: How to write a great thank you letter to your year end donors [Watch free video]. In this episode of Movie Mondays, Steven Screen walks you through what a great thank you letter should say.
Click-it: How to Upgrade Donors and Boost Revenue with Donor Surveys [Free on-demand webinar]. I’ve had some questions recently about creating donor surveys, so thought I’d share this webinar from the Qgiv Success Center presented by Rachel Muir and Rachel Clemens.
Grants
Click-it: Get to Know GrantStation [Register for free webinar, 2-5-2019]. GrantStation is an online resource for finding federal, state and private grant funding possibilities. Tech Soup presents Jeremy Smith and Sara Kennedy to take you on a tour of the GrantStation website to give you tips on the most effective way to use all these valuable resources.
YOU?
Click-it: Fundraising for Introverts: How to be Successful When You Just Want to Go Home [Register to listen to on-demand Master Class]. Network for Good presents three successful fundraisers who share their highlights (and lowlights) as introverts in a world of extroverts. Throw out your old way of thinking because introverts have special, highly valuable skills t when it comes to building relationships and raising dollars.
FREE DOWNLOADABLE MATERIALS
Annual Giving
Click-it: The Art of First Impressions: How to Combine Strategy, Analytics, and Creative to Captivate New Donors and Keep Them Coming Back [Download free eBook]. Get six guiding principles of an effective acquisition strategy, and more, from the folks at Pursuant.
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.
Major and Legacy Gifts
Click-it: Engagement Calls: how to get more meaningful conversations with donors [Watch free video; download report]. Greg Warner of Market Smart discusses what he terms “The Valley of Distrust” to explain why cold calls don’t work, and what you can do to overcome this chasm.
Special Events
Click-it: Events and Major Gift Fundraising [Download free white paper]. The Veritus Group tells the truth about ROI from special events. If your event fundraising is taking away from your ability to engage in more cost-effective strategies, give this a good read.
Storytelling
Click-it: Storytelling for ACTION [Download free e-Book]. Just “telling better stories” isn’t a magical key to fundraising success. You’ll learn from the team Steven Screen and Jim Shapiro at Better Fundraising which types of stories to tell, and when to tell them, to deepen the relationship with your donors and cause them to take action.
YOU
Click-it: Pizza and a Laugh—A Reminder about Your Nonprofit Financial Stress Level [Watch video for a free chuckle]. You deserve a laugh! If you haven’t seen this video imagining what it would be like if a pizza shop were run like a nonprofit, take a gander on the Nonprofit Quarterly blog. Enjoy.
Click-it: The power of laughing at ourselves at work [Listen to free TED Talk]. A sense of humor is one of the most important — and overlooked — tools in business, says Tom Fishburne, The Marketoonist. In this fun, light-hearted talk, the author and cartoonist shares how laughing at ourselves can build a more creative, productive and open work environment.
Did You Miss My Recent Articles?
If I know it, I want you to know it!
Here are links to my most recent articles. Enroll 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.
- Be Up Close and Personal with Major Donor Prospects
- BIG Tips to Raise BIG Money for Your BIG Mission
- 10 Approaches to Inspire Philanthropists to Help Your Nonprofit Cause
- Most-read Articles in 2018:
— Fundraising Silent Auctions: It’s the Items, Stupid. Velvet Elvis painting anyone?
— 7 Magic Words that Increase Charitable Donations. These really work.
— New Tax Law: How Worried Should Your Nonprofit Be? Why the sky wasn’t falling, and it still isn’t.
— 6 Keys to Rock Thank You Calls and Retain More Donors. Get thee an attitude of gratitude.
— What Do You Call a Development Staffer Who Facilitates Philanthropy? Donor Sherpa?
If you find value in Clairification, your support via enrollment in Clairification School is a blessing. I promise to pay it back, and continue to offer lots of specific advice to help you raise greater awareness, more volunteerism and passionate philanthropy.
Hope to see you in Clairification School!
