Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
It’s said March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Whatever the weather in your neck of the woods, treat yourself kindly this month. You deserve it! After all, you’re doing the world’s most important work. This is no time to feel BAA BAA BAAd. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself).
Why not begin your month with some inspiration and free tips and tools? Clairity Click-it is my gift to you (with a shout out to my 2019 sponsor, Bloomerang)! I curate articles, webinars, podcasts, white papers, e-books and whatever else I can find that I believe will be useful to you in your quest to facilitate passionate philanthropy.
Questions? Just ask! Email me directly at claire@clairification.com. Enjoy!
Clairity Click-it, Your Nonprofit Ticket to…
Annual Giving
Click-it: How to start a monthly giving program for your small nonprofit. This article by Sandy Rees of Get Fully Funded may be the best summary I’ve seen of how to get started with this absolutely essential strategy. Did you know you can boost donor retention from 45% to 90%, on average, by simply getting folks to enroll in monthly giving? Read this! DO this!
Click-it: How Can You Calculate If Your Monthly Donor Program Is Growing? Erica Waasdorp of A Direct Solution gives you an actual formula to use.
Click-it: How do you raise member dues prices? You may find this article from MembershipWorks useful if you have a membership program. You can also use the tips for determining when to raise event ticket prices and/or giving society levels.
Content Marketing
Click-it: 7 Nonprofit E-Newsletter Best Practices. Just happened on this practical article by Ilma Ibrisevic on the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. You can also apply many of these tips to all your email communications.
Click-it: 3 Ways to Use Your Form 990 as a Marketing Tool. Per this article on Bloomerang, if you haven’t been thinking about your Form 990 as an awareness and trust-building strategy, you’re missing a valuable opportunity. If your finance department fills this form out, make sure you offer to complete the narrative sections!
Donor Retention
Click-it: 3 Strategies to Stop Losing Your Non-Profit’s Donors. Check out my guest post for Garecht Fundraising Associates where I offer three common-sense strategies you can enact right away so you’ll raise more money this year.
Events
Click-it: 5 Essential Facts to Learn About Your Event Attendees. Take this approach, suggested by Mary Cahalane of Hands-On Fundraising to your next special event. It will make it more likely you’ll convert attendees to future donors.
Management and Strategy
Click-it: Become the Nonprofit Leadership Change You Want to Be Using Neuroscience. This is Part 1 of a two-parter I wrote for the Bloomerang blog on using principles borrowed from other disciplines to better understand what influences decision-making and motivates giving. Here I look at different ways to lead. In How to Use Neuroscience to Become a Strategic Nonprofit Leader I look more closely at ways to change the way you lead to become more strategic and effective.
Click-it: Hold These 4 Fundraising Truths to be Self-Evident. This article on the Bloomerang blog is about pre-conditions which must be met before you’ll be able to successfully exercise your fundraising strategies. Are you speaking and living these truths?
Click-it: Spring Cleaning Part 1: Raise More Money by Doing Less. Love this idea from Front Range Source. It’s like tidying up and making sure the strategies you’re using ‘spark joy’ — for you AND for your constituencies. If not, time to give them away. 🙂
Online Social Marketing and Fundraising
Click-it: Online Fundraising: 5 Tools to Make Your Efforts Easier. I really love practical stuff, and this guest post from Abby Jarvis of Qgiv, on the ever-useful Hands On Fundraising blog, has it!
YOUR SOMETIME FEATURE: Clairification Insight
Click-it: Clearing the table. Seth Godin weighs in on why sharing with your networks, peer to peer, can be more effective in building your brand and community than spray and pray marketing and fundraising techniques. He also talks about centralized control, what Google promises/delivers/doesn’t deliver, and more. Think about it. And think about the best way to stay true to yourself and your core mission.
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!
Content Marketing
Click-it: Relationship Building Content: How to strategically use the right content to build donor relationships [Register for free webinar, 4-4-2019]. Join Vanessa Chase Lockshin of The Storytelling Nonprofit to learn how to step up your game!
Donor Retention and Upgrades
Click-it: How to Segment Your Donors [Listen to on-demand interview]. Chris Davenport of Movie Mondays and Steven Shattuck of Bloomerang talk about telling different stories to different types of donors, and how targeting different segments makes a difference. Learn some of the possibilities for database segmentation here!
Major and Legacy Gifts
Click-it: 9 Useful, Proven Strategies to Get the Major Donor Visit [Register for free on-demand webinar]. If you missed this presentation I offered with Market Smart, now’s your chance!
Online Fundraising
Click-it: 10 Steps to Online Fundraising Success [Register for free webinar, 4-12-19]. Want to be more effective with digital fundraising? Join Ronald Pruitt of 4aGoodCause for this special free session.
Website
Click-it: Put Your Website to Work: A Deep Dive Into Digital Trends [Register for free webinar, 4-9-2019]. Firespring webinars are always packed with actionable tips, and this is an area where they have deep expertise. Tune in if you want to make your life easier.
FREE DOWNLOADABLE MATERIALS
Donor Retention
Click-it: Why Half of Your Donors are Disappearing: How Smarter Stewardship Can Improve Retention [Grab free white paper]. Grab this new report from Merkle RMG that digs into donor retention and suggests ways to break the cycle.
Events
Click-it: Four Seasons of Fundraising [Download free e-Book]. In springtime folks seem often to turn their thoughts to event planning. The Qgiv team have put together some seasonal fundraising event ideas for sun, snow and everything in between – complete with examples from some of their clients.
Major Giving
Click-it: How Non-Profit Boards Contribute to Major Gift Fundraising Success [Download free white paper]. Everything from the Veritus Group is golden, and this is no exception. Frustrated with your board’s fundraising involvement? Read this!
Online Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: Online fundraising: 2018 in review [Download free report]. Get compiled statistics and insights learned from almost $16 million transacted in online donations and event registrations through 4aGoodCause in 2018. Great stuff if you want to know what you’re talking about as you plan next year’s strategies!
Click-it: Your Digital Marketing Handbook [Download free white paper] This was written by The Stelter Company with planned giving in mind, but it’s also a practical primer – step by step — for creating/implementing a digital strategy to support any of your fundraising/marketing objectives.
YOU
Click-it: State of Nonprofit Professional Development [Download free survey report]. If you’re unhappy about the level of professional development offered at your organization, use this report from NTEN and partner Cornerstone as a benchmarking tool for discussions with your ‘powers that be.’
Did You Miss My Recent Articles?
Here are links to my most recent articles.
- ONE Amazingly Simple Smart Fundraising Strategy
- Are You Failing to Achieve Your Nonprofit Fundraising Potential?
- You Control Nonprofit Donor Retention
- 2 Secrets to Prepare for a Fundraising Job Q & A
- 9 Secrets to Prepare for a Fundraising Job Interview
- Time to Reframe How You Do Nonprofit Fundraising
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!
My motto is: “If I know it, I want you to know it.”
