This just in! There’s a new basket into which we can put a bunch of our toys.Right after I posted earlier today on the Top 7 Social Philanthropy Toys for the Holidays it came to my attention that this past week Convio Inc announced the launch of Common Ground Social, a fully customizable all-in-one social…
DetailsHow do children learn best? By playing! When it comes to understanding our missions, most of our potential constituents are children. They don’t know much. The internet now makes it possible for people to learn about us through play. While charities commonly complain that social media strategies don’t make much money; this is just…
DetailsBeware of a half truth; it may be the wrong half. This has always been a favorite proverb of mine. And a recent blog post of Top 10 Business Trui by Scott Gillum, which I referenced yesterday, caused me to wonder how black and white (or possibly gray) these trui might be – particularly as…
DetailsI recently came across a real goody: A blog post by Scott Gillum, contributing author to the Forbes network, offering wisdom collected over 20 years of work with some of the best, and worst, companies in the world. He found certain consistent themes regardless of company, industry or geography. It got me thinking about how…
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Failure to iver on your promise. This is the cardinal sin in branding. I promised this blog would not just be about philanthropy, but sometimes also about phasion and fun. So… I am following through. Plus I am PROMISING that if you to the Clairification e list, and add a comment to this blog…
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You say you want a revolution? A lot of us in the public sector have to confess we’ve long had a affair with our top tier major donors. And this may be a problem. We’ve entered an era of power to the people –which dovetails nicely with the definition of philanthropy, from Greek phil…
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Branding used to connote something done with a hot iron to mark ownership of a steer. If there was a relationship quality to this it was only in the fact of being an owner of the thing possessed. It was certainly not about building a relationship, or any important social bonds, with your livestock. In…
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The fact that development and marketing are charged with making the same relationship-building and communications decisions means that it is time, once and for all, to actively align these functions. Yesterday in Part 1 we discussed the natural linkages between these functions and that, first and foremost, everything we do is about the customer experience. Today,…
DetailsThere’s no difference. There’s never been a difference. It’s time to call a spade a spade. When the term “development” came to be used in fundraising it was at a time when folks working in nonprofits wanted little to do with the world of “business”. Since marketing was a business term, nonprofits invented their own…
DetailsYesterday I asked if you or your Executive Director are writing your own fundraising letters. We discussed the fact that you and your key staff are simply too close to the organization to write effective, persuasive copy. And we talked about the fact that the lion’s share of your supporters – let’s call them the…
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