Let’s take it from the T O P. D O C A R E about what you’re trying to achieve. Get it opened, read and acted on. Remember your primary purposes: (1) Get it open; (2) Get it read; (3) Get the donation. Do not – I repeat, do not!—deviate from these primary purposes. I’m…
Before you hold your next fundraising event, ask yourself one simple question: WHY?
Take a minute, right now, to jot down all the things you’d like to happen by virtue of you having held your event.
I’ll wait.
Seriously, do it. Jot.
I’m waiting.
Okay, there are a few of you who don’t yet have pencils and paper in front of you. Yes, I can see you. Remember ‘Miss Nancy’ from Romper Room? [I know; I’m dating myself on this one].
Now, let me guess what you’re writing (and/or thinking).
What do we want most to sustain our nonprofits? Loyal donors, natch! How do we get them? Oh, that’s simple. We badger them for gifts. When they give, we warehouse them in our database. We then send a form letter (pretending it’s personal because we use their given name and indicate their gift was earmarked…
This month I’m writing about how to be donor centered. Today I’m taking us in a perhaps unexpected direction – the path of social media. What does that have to do with being donor centered? Everything. There are two principle reasons why: 1. Social media is about relationships, not technology. Your constituents want a relationship.…
How often do you gift this gift to donors? I’ve personally declared November ‘Gratitude for Blessings’ month. For me, this means finding opportunities to demonstrate gratitude. And today I’m grateful for you, my readers. Whereas donors are the center of your nonprofit’s universe, you are the center of mine. When I can’t my ideas, …
This is baseball heaven, Tweet courtesy of @bradmangin Story+Customer Experience+Voice = Community The Giants embraced social media during a time of magic for the team in 2010. The franchise hadn’t won a World Series in 54 years. Finally, it was all coming together in an exhilarating way. And social media was there to the…
Check out this month’s nonprofit blog carnival. It’s all about how to build, maintain and evaluate a great nonprofit website. There’s a contribution from yours truly , as well as nine other posts to take your website to the next level. It’s still surprising that with all the great marketing advice available to nonprofits today,…
Last week I wrote about the evils of using jargon. I got lots of responses. It’s clearly hard for people to get outside of their ‘insider’ mindset. When we use words at work daily, they begin to seem normal (even though we may’ve never used those words before). Before working at a social service agency,…
What’s the problem? Problems, problems… who’s got problems? We all do, but before we can solve them we must first define them. Otherwise, we’re apt to solve the wrong problem! Sadly, this happens all the time. SO let’s take a page from Einstein’s bo. He is quoted as having said that if he had one hour…
has been likened to the shop window of the 21st century when it comes to brand awareness.(Although this analogy came pre-, which arguably is even like window shopping of yore). Just as consumers increasingly research their purchases on to obtain the best deals, so too do prospective donors increasingly research nonprofits on. So…
GOOD: I recently read an article about ‘accidental marketing’ describing serendipitous moments when we ‘sell’ our product/service without having really planned it. In this case, it was a nonprofit staff member (let’s call him Joe), who went out to pick up some donated furniture. Joe accidentally knocked on the wrong door. In explaining to the…
Now what? Blogs – and social media of all stripes – are not the end goal. They’re a lot of things. Fun… Annoying… Exciting… Time sucking… Sexy… Leveraging… Awareness creating… Teaching… Seducing… and let’s not forget –Bonding! As discussed in Part I and Part II , they can create relationships like nobody’s business if we…
Are you leading engagement with your tribes? Lots of interesting Q & A during last week’s webinar about blogging our way to increased constituent engagement. Particularly around the relative merits of blogging vs. engaging on and other social media. Our constituents’ agenda is often a quest for meaningful social interaction; a tribal connection. At…
Make your blog blossom Blogging. This month I’ve talked a lot about it. So, before April showers turn into May flowers, let’s discuss once how we can water our own blogs – either as individuals or businesses – so that they blossom and grow. They’re a great tool, but only if used effectively. Don’t…
You did say “All I can eat?!” Your challenge (a.k.a. homework) for sometime this month is to eat without guilt: Be a social consumer. Go to the information buffet in the industry you frequent (whether for profit or nonprofit; think about where your competition lies) and eat up. Stuff your little cheeks full. All you…
Social media is a killer engagement tool. And it’s not a fad. If you want to build new and long-term relationships with your constituents – and who doesn’t? –you can’t afford to ignore the biggest tool out there since sliced bread. But… you CAN pick and choose. Recently I’ve discussed , Blogging , , …
Yesterday’s post offered tips one through five, plus 19 steps you can take to work to your business or organization’s advantage. Today we have five tips, plus 11 additional steps. REMEMBER: Before your take your first step determine why you want to use . As with everything else, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, if…
If you only have a personal profile, and not an organizational profile, you’re missing a boat. It’s not just for individuals any. If you’re not working your personal profile to help you achieve your business objectives, you’re missing another boat. It’s not just for personal networking any. Here’s 30 steps you can take (19 in…
celebrated its 6th birthday on the first day of spring, 2012. A year for must be like a “dog year”, because with over 500 million users, it is already the largest one-to-many open communication platform on the web. That’s BIG business. As has matured, it’s a great time to consider ways to…
Of all the killer social media engagement tools out there, none beats the blog. As the song from Disney’s Cinderella claims, it’s “the thingmabob that does the job.” If you’re at all in doubt, check your dubiousness at the door. Businesses that write on their blog regularly receive 55% website visitors and have 437% …
Successful nonprofit development (both fundraising and marketing) is all about persuasion. One of my favorite bos is Daniel Pink’s To Sell is Human. His premise is that we’re all in “sales” on a daily basis. Whether it’s simply trying to get your kids up and out the door in the morning or persuading your boss…
Last month I began my 2012 series of monthly *SMITs (Single Most Important Thing I have to tell you). The term comes from Tom Ahern of Ahern Communications. Thank you Tom! This month I’m channeling a wonderful two-part post from Karen Zapp’s Nonprofit Blog. Thank you Karen! Confession: this is all Karen; I’m just sharing. …
is still the number one reason people go on. It still commands the highest return on investment of any on media. It’s a much bigger deal than , which has about 860 million users last time I loed. , growing by leaps and bounds, is at about 500 million. has about 3.1 billion…
We’re six weeks into 2012, and our new year’s resolutions may be beginning to fade. For those on a June-July fiscal year, it’s planning time. What should we be thinking about when it comes to allocation of our energies and resources this year? First, let’s clear out some space. I’ve participated in many a planning…
What do you do when a donor leaves a negative review on , Yelp or ? Do you just chalk it up to one whiny person, ignore it, bury your annoyance and move on? If so, you’re missing an opportunity. You can turn unhappy campers into loyal, repeat campers. Research shows that when customers are…
Listen up. In “No” is not the end of the conversation Chuck English channels the old Dale Carnegie manifesto, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and reminds us of the significance of listening — showing genuine interest in others and encouraging folks to talk about themselves. This has always been the key to success,…
When it comes to playing the social media game, what’s the best combination of talents to create a winning strategy and team? Of course, you can beg the question and just keep punting… but that’s not really going to get you very far. Did you know we spend 22% of our internet time on social…
Recently I posted on the desirability of CEOs becoming active Tweetie Birds on . It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, but the point was that as social media becomes and embroidered into the fabric of how we do business, leaders are going to want to understand what the heck it’s all…
Think your website is ‘social’ because you’ve put a and button up there? Think again. We’re introduced to a profound change in the way we’ve been thinking of websites in Social Media Today’s recent post: What Needs to Be on Your Digital Agenda in 2012? We’re told we must have ‘social websites.’ Sure,…
Are you listening to your constituents and acting on what you learn from them? Last month I pondered on How Social Media is Like Peanut Buttered Toast – it can lead us into some messy situations if we don’t handle it carefully. A particularly sticky trap is cognitive dissonance – seeing what we want to see;…
Network for Good has a great ebo out with 10 Resolutions to Make (and Keep!) for On Fundraising and Marketing Success in 2012. It’s worth downloading the whole thing, but I’d like to talk about the first resolution they highlight: Put fundraising first. Put. Fundraising. First. Give this a minute to sink in. . Of…
We’re in the era of ‘Big Data.’ The digital revolution has made it so there’s and information that can be acquired and stored. We’ve gotten really good at collecting data. It’s everywhere. But use of data is not. In fact, at the moment less than 0.5% of all data is ever analyzed and…
Last evening I attended a panel, hosted by The Bay Citizen and The Bosmith, about the foodie culture in the San Francisco Bay Area – and beyond. Inevitably, the conversation turned towards the transformative impact social media has had on the foodie movement. With just a simple tweet, hundreds of people can instantly learn where…
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” Lewis Carroll Communication should have a purpose. We should know where we want to go, and what we hope to get out of all the strategies we’re putting into place. Merely setting a goal for the number of tweets we’ll post…
How 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…
Yesterday 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 . And we talked about the fact that the lion’s of your supporters – let’s call them the…
This morning I opened the newspaper and read about how the Occupy movement can take advice from marketing and branding gurus. They’ve been criticized for being all over the place, and not having a distinct message or rallying cry. Too often, businesses – nonprofit or otherwise – do the same thing. The inevitable result when…
My original title was: Asking the Questions; Doing Something with the Answers. A corollary would be “plan the dive; dive the plan”. In other words, we shouldn’t be diving into things (think about what you’re doing with your brand, website and social media in particular) without first asking some critical questions. I added “clueless” to…