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Stop Boring Folks with Your Nonprofit Website. Wake ‘em Up with a Blog!

Keep telling yourself you need a better website to build greater awareness for your cause?

You can certainly do this.  But are you asking the more important question?

Why the heck do you want greater awareness?  And why would anyone want to be aware of you? Those are the questions too many nonprofits fail to ask.  So ask.  Seriously. Take a moment.  I’ll wait.

“Because we want more people to know about us.”

WHY?

“Because we want to educate them about what we do.”

WHY?

“Because we want more people to support us.”

AHA!  Now you’re getting somewhere.

Now ask yourself how getting a better website is going to get you more support.  Chances are it won’t. Not really. Because folks are on a journey towards you that builds – from awareness… to interest… to engagement… to investment. And the kicker is that the latter two are where all the action happens. Awareness and interest alone are passive. They won’t get you the active investment you need to sustain your mission.

Engagement precedes investment!

Sadly, most nonprofit websites are lousy engagement vehicles. They’re especially lousy when compared with a blog.

Let’s look at 4 reasons why blogs trump websites for creating engagement:

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2 CommentsContent Marketing
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Lift Up Your Nonprofit Donors with Their Olympic Moment

The Olympic torch. The lyrics remembered from a Whitney Houston song sung at the 1988 Olympics Opening Ceremonies.  Chills ran down my spine.  The hairs stood straight on my neck.  Cheesy, I know.  But it got to me.

We all yearn for that one moment where we step outside our daily, mundane lives and exceed our wildest expectations.  When we’re bigger than ourselves.

We can’t all be gold medal athletes, but we can all be gold medal philanthropists. And gold medal philanthropy facilitators.

The Olympics lifts us up.  At its best, philanthropy does this as well.  It inspires us.  It engages us fully.  It’s addictive when done right.

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Leave a commentDonor Retention
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Yes, there’s a way to Get Your Nonprofit’s Email Opened

You had me at hello.

That’s what your constituents should think and feel when your email arrives in their inbox.

Hello is a way to call attention… a greeting… an invitation to a dialogue. Does your email do that? Does it easily capture your intended reader’s attention? Does it greet them warmly? Does it encourage interaction with you?

If your emails aren’t getting the open rates you’d like, it’s time to take charge!

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1 CommentOnline Fundraising
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Your Secret to Mindblowing Fundraising – Improve Donor Retention Just 10%

Imagine what it would mean to your mission if you doubled the lifetime value of all of your current supporters.

I recently listened in on an interview between Gail Perry and Jay Love of Bloomerang. It’s a great listen, and the two of them fired me up to write another post on the importance of focusing your efforts on donor retention.

Do you know even know what percentage of donors you’re retaining? According to Jay, less than 5% of fundraising offices know this answer!  So, you’re not alone.  But you can do better.

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3 CommentsDonor Retention
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Be the Fruit. Not the Juice. Start something Up this year.

Hugh MacLeod start_upStart.

Don’t be a wuss. Yeah. This year, make a resolution to stop being a wimp and start being an entrepreneur.

I looked up the definition of wuss, and aside from meaning pushover, weakling and ineffectual it comes from Middle English meaning “liquor obtained from boiling or squeezing fruit or vegetable substances.”  Think about this for a minute.

Do your programs, over time, become more and more diluted so that the essence of the ripe fruit they began as becomes essentially lost? Are you doing things by rote, having lost all passion, taste and flavor for the fruits of your labor?

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Leave a commentStrategy & Management