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9 Amazing Secrets You Need to Get a Major Donor Meeting

Did you know you’re 85 percent on your way to securing a gift if you can get your prospect to agree to a visit? So says veteran major gifts fundraiser Jerold Panas in his iconic book, Asking. He also says, “If you want to milk a cow, sit by its side.”

But … how do you get the cow to cooperate? Ay, there’s the rub.

Why is it so hard to get a visit with a prospect?

It just is. People screen phone calls. They don’t answer emails. They’re busy. And, let’s face it, they know what this is about. Once you get in the room with them, you have your chance to win them over. But how to get there?

5 CommentsMajor & Legacy Gifts

Clairity Click-it: Philanthropists; Creative Stuff: YouTube, Twitter, Visuals; Thanking

Happy Friday the 13th! It’s my lucky day – both I and my son were born on Friday the 13th – so I feel only good things can happen today. Speaking of which, I’ve got some lovely “feel good” goodies for you today. Since “Heart Day” is tomorrow, let’s start with philanthropy – meaning “love of humankind.” Then I’ve got some fun social media and creative stuff to help you really stick out in the minds of your constituents.

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8 Top Ways to Send Nonprofit Donors Love on Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day offers the perfect opportunity for donor stewardship!

I hope that by now you know donor retention is the name of the game. It costs so much more to acquire a new donor than to keep an existing one. Yet too few nonprofits have serious, intentional donor stewardship programs in place. Because of that, on average, nonprofits lose 7 out of 10 first-time donors and 6 out of 10 ongoing ones.

Don’t be one of those organizations whose donors only hear from you when you want something from them. Be generous, and show them how much their support means to you. You’ll be amazed at how a little love can go a long way.

There are 364 other days each year on which you can fundraise.

This year why not dedicate Valentine’s Day to giving, not asking? Think about those donors for whom you’d like to show some special love. It could be your major donors. Or your monthly donors. Or your donors who’ve given faithfully for five years or more. Or your donors who also volunteer. Or your board and committee members.

4 CommentsDonor Retention

Clairity Click-it: Give to Donors with Thank You’s and Stories

It’s the last Friday in January, which means Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. That’s a great day to send your donors some love – and that’s what Monday’s post will be all about. So… keep your eyes peeled!

Meanwhile, today I’ve got stuff to get you in a giving and sharing mood. Today it’s all about telling stories and saying thank you. Both are ways of offering your donors gifts. And I hope by now you know that if you want to get gifts, you must first give them.

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Clairity Click-it: Get Outside the Mailbox

Today I’ve got stuff to help you get outside the traditional mail box. It’s a great way to communicate with folks – tried and true – but you have many more options in 2015. If you get stuck in the past you’re going to miss out on a lot of potential donors.

Did you know that when the telephone was invented people thought it would be disruptive and distracting? This is the year to seamlessly integrate strategic social media into all your fundraising and marketing campaigns.

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Clairity Click-it: What You Missed/Second Chance Edition – Annual; Events; Donor Retention; Nonprofit Communication

Today I’ve got my personal round-up edition with the TOP 10 POSTS on the Clairification blog as selected by you – my wonderful Clairification readers. I’ll no doubt be writing more about these topics in the coming year, but if there’s something you’d particularly like me to address please send me a direct email at Claire@clairification.com. I always love to hear from you!

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7 Proven Keys to Inspire Nonprofit Boards to Lead and Give

My first year as a nonprofit fundraiser was before social media, cell phones, email, computers and even FAX machines. I had never heard the term “information overload” and I wasn’t distracted by interruptions every five minutes.  Why do I mention this?

Because in today’s fast-paced world we are often so bombarded with bells, whistles and flashing lights that we lose sight of the basics. We lose focus.

Back in the day, I focused.

My number one focus was our board of directors. I knew that before we could get others to give, the board needed to give. Passionately.

4 CommentsBoards & Leadership

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Whither the Nonprofit Sector in 2015? 6 Ways to Assure Yours Doesn’t Wither

I chose the word “w(h)ither” in my title very deliberately. It can mean “Where are you going?” It can also mean “Dying on the vine.” Which does it mean for you and your nonprofit?

If the former, where are you going? You’ll find some “To Do’s” in this article to help you on your way towards a sustainable future. If the latter, how can your prevent this from happening? You’ll find some “don’ts” to help you breathe life into your organization.

3 CommentsStrategy & Management

Clairity Click-it: Year End Edition w/Tips, Resolutions, Predictions + More Gifts!

Today I’ve got my year-end edition with some final tips for the end of the year, some ideas as you’re making your new year’s resolutions and a list of predictions to get you off on the right foot in 2015.

Don’t miss the practical, last-minute stuff, and tape these resolutions and predictions next to your computer so you can give them some serious thought when you return from you holiday break. Oh, and did I mention there are a few more gifts at the end?

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Here's How Often You Should Mail to Your Donors

I decided to write this post due to the number of times nonprofits ask me “How often should we mail to our donors?” The corollary question is “How often can we ask people to give?”

The answer?

Well… if there was one quick answer I wouldn’t have needed to write a whole article. I’d just have given you a headline with a definitive response!

I know you want a definite answer.

And I could give you one. But it wouldn’t be the truth. Because the truth is different for every nonprofit. And the truth will even be different for your nonprofit at different points in your life cycle.

There are two definitive things I can tell you:

5 CommentsAnnual Giving

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October Halloween Nonprofit Blog Carnival – Major Gifts Tricks and Treats

 

Fear not! The Halloween Nonprofit Blog Carnival is back, offering tricks and treats galore from nonprofit experts all around the web – a full Baker’s Dozen (or shall I say a Witches Coven)! — to help you find, cultivate, solicit and steward your major donors. When you trick and treat, you always like to go to the houses that give out the most candy, natch?  Well… let’s find the donors giving out the most goodies so your mission is assured of success. But you’ve got to be prepared! No just showing up without a costume, a plan of attack or a strategy for success. You’ll get some lollipops and stuff, sure. But I know that’s not what you really want. Go for what you need.  Go for what will make your time spent on this effort feel worth your while.  And we’ve got 13 experts telling you exactly what to do.

2 CommentsMajor & Legacy Gifts

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October Nonprofit Blog Carnival Call for Submissions: Tricks or Treats – How Do You Get and Sustain Major Gifts?

I’m majorly S C R E A M I N G with delight to be hosting this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival!

So majorly, in fact, that the subject this month is TRICKS or TREATS – How Do You Get and Sustain Major Gifts?

Tell us your tricks – the ones that work! Do you HAUNT prospects through a series of managed ‘moves’?  Do you fly in on a BROOMSTICK and just drop in spontaneously? How do you put them under your SPELL?

Tell us some treats – ways you wow your donors! Smile like a JACK-O-LANTERN every time you think of them; then figure out a way to let them know? Give them lots of virtual CANDY (seriously, do you use social media for any part of your major gifts strategy)?

2 CommentsMajor & Legacy Gifts

Clairity Click-it: How Philanthropy is Changing; Giving Tuesday; Content Marketing; Retention; Color Psychology; Thank You

Changes in Philanthropy Click-It: On Nonprofit Fundraising, Physics and Utopia. Heidi Hancock of Mosaic muses on the nature of nonprofit growth, and why it’s probably not realistic to think you can raise an endowment that will set your nonprofit up for life. Giving Tuesday Click-It: Expert Advice on Taking Advantage of #GivingTuesday comes from the…

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6 Best Ways to Make Storytelling Part of Your Nonprofit Culture

How do you fill the brains of your staff, volunteers and donors with stories about your organization?
What better way to talk about accomplishments your donors make possible than through stories that portray them as heroes?

Everyone loves a good story. Everyone.

Which is why storytelling should be at the heart of your nonprofit’s strategic communications. I know ‘storytelling’ is a meme du jour. But that’s no reason to ignore it. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t! There’s a reason these phrases become buzzworthy. In this case, because you want to serve up content that’s relevant, attractive and accessible to your constituencies. Storytelling fits the bill better than anything else.

In fact, of all the content you can create, storytelling is your ultimate weapon and the most powerful means of communicating your message.

Let’s look at this a different way.

5 CommentsCulture & Values

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What do Lukewarm Tapioca and Molten Chocolate Cake have to do with Fundraising?

Or… What Your Donors Won’t Tell You about Your Nonprofit Messaging.

At first blush, tepid tapioca and gooey hot chocolate might appear to have nothing whatsoever to do with securing vital resources to further your mission. Blush again.

Blush hard. Think of all the good things you could accomplish were you to more effectively master the art and science of fundraising. Feel the warm pink tinge beginning to creep up your neck as you embrace the errors of your ways over the past year. Or two. Or 10. Or even more.

Are you still doing things like it was 1985? 2000? 2008? If so, you should probably be embarrassed. Because I know very few organizations who are succeeding today using yesterday’s strategies.

Leave a commentAnnual Giving

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To Blog, or Not to Blog? Only if You Do it Right. Do You?

Do you have a mature social media operation, or are you just a baby? Or a teen? Babies babble. Teens make it all about themselves. Are you simply using Twitter to babble? Facebook to say “look at me?”  Or have you embraced a more full-grown strategy?  The best place to start, and the fastest way to get there, is with a blog.

Next to email, blogs are the most mature form of social media.

 

They’ve been around the longest, and they’re pretty tried-and-true.

1 CommentContent Marketing

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Yes, The Donor Pyramid is Really Dead

An Open Letter to Andrea Kihlstedt — Part 1

[I am responding to Andrea Kihlstedt’s Open Letter to me, Is The Donor Pyramid Really Dead, in the Guidestar blog. She was responding to my recent posts on the death of the Donor Pyramid in Fundraising Success Magazine: R.I.P. Donor Pyramid? and Maximize Social Business Blog How Social Media Toppled the Donor Pyramid – What that Means for Nonprofits.]

First, let me say this is a great dialogue to be having. The donor pyramid is a sacred dinosaur, and it’s good to challenge old assumptions from time to time. After all, the dinosaurs had a very good run, but even they became extinct.

Andrea says “no, the pyramid is alive and well,” making the case that (especially in capital campaigns) not all donors are equal. She also finds use for the pyramid in other campaigns, noting a Kickstarter campaign she recently worked on in which the biggest gifts came from donors who were approached face-to-face rather than via online strategies.

5 CommentsStrategy & Management

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If it's Broke, Better Fix it: Two Disarming Truths

Truths: Today, there are two things broken from my perspective: (1) my arm, and (2) the donor pyramid.

Yup! I’m really not much of a camper, but had a momentary lapse in judgement over the week-end. Kaboom!

Luckily, I managed to type up an article about the sad state of the donor pyramid prior to being reduced to a one-handed hunter/pecker (because this method is SLOW, baby)! That article, “R.I.P.Donor Pyramid,“  is gracing the cover of the May/June Fundraising Success Magazine, so I hope you’ll check it out over there and let me know what you think. Here’s my bottom line:

4 CommentsStrategy & Management

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Why Your Nonprofit Fundraising and Marketing is Outdated

 

Philanthropy, Not Fundraising

For too many nonprofits something isn’t working. Change is happening at a rapid pace while people try to employ yesterday’s ‘best practices,’ seeming to work harder and harder to make do with less — while needing to serve more.

Before the digital revolution, an information imbalance existed.  This facilitated a one-way ‘push’ model of marketing/fundraising. We could define our own brand and sell it.  Guess what? 

1 CommentCulture & Values

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What Nonprofits Can Learn About Donor Retention from David Letterman

If you’re not using social media to get and retain more donors, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Social media has ceased to be a nice little “toy.”  An “add on thing.”  It’s the thing. If you’re not hanging out where the majority of your constituents are getting their information, you may as well fold up your tent and go home.  David Letterman didn’t “do social media.”    ( See “Do you use the Twitter device?” ).  He’s going home.

Letterman  may be ready to go off into the sunset. But you shouldn’t be. You can learn new tricks!

Leave a commentDonor Retention

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9 Key Nonprofit Communications Tools to Woo Donors: Part 2

In Part 1 we covered 5 steps to woo your donors with a communications strategy. Today we’ll look more closely at 9 key communications tools you can use effectively to build closer relationships with your supporters. Some are extraordinarily simple. It’s just that many nonprofits fail to use these tools consistently, or well. If you make a practice of doing so, you’ll be well ahead of the game.

3 CommentsDonor Retention

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Creating a Donor Communications Plan to Woo Your Supporters: Part 1

You want to be the favorite child, don’t you?

Did you know that half of donors give 2/3rds of their annual giving to a single charity. That’s why you want to become the “favorite.” Wouldn’t it be terrific if your donors adopted you and thought of you as a member of their family?

Truly, that’s how important you want to become to your supporters. But it won’t happen just because you’re a “good cause.” There are oodles of great causes out there.  Oodles.  It will happen only when

5 CommentsDonor Retention

Clairity Click-it: Finding Donors, Power of Parody, Gratitude, Leadership, Content Marketing

Mixed bag today. From funny and unusual to serious and thought-proving. You’ll definitely find something of interest here. Take a lo! Finding Donors Click-It: Low Hanging Fruit. This cartoon from Hugh MacLeod at Gaping Void made me wonder. How might this apply to your donor cultivation strategy? Maybe the reason you’re not finding donors…

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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:

2 CommentsContent Marketing

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ONE BIG THING Your Nonprofit Must Do TODAY to Succeed in 2014

Adopt an integrated inbound marketing and fundraising strategy.

If you don’t know what that means, you’re in trouble. Read on.

If you do know, are you really doing it?

It’s time to stop pussy footing around this.

Here’s why:

(1) Nonprofit marketing and fundraising have changed more in the past five years than the preceding 50. I’m not kidding!  The digital revolution ended business as usual.

(2) Fundraising and marketing must be seamlessly integrated. They cannot be separate silos any longer.

Have you caught up with reality?

4 CommentsStrategy & Management

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7 Proven Keys to Get Nonprofit Board Members to Give

My first year as a nonprofit fundraiser was before social media, cell phones, email, computers and even FAX machines. I had never heard the term “information overload,” and I wasn’t distracted by interruptions every five minutes.  Why do I mention this?

Because in today’s fast-paced world we are often so bombarded with bells, whistles and flashing lights that we lose sight of the basics. We lose focus.

Back in the day, I focused.

My number one focus was our board of directors. I knew that before we could get others to give, the board needed to give. Passionately.

1 CommentBoards & Leadership

Clairity Click-it: Best of 2013, Move Forward, Never Apologize for Asking

 

Have you made your new year’s resolutions and picked at least one thing you’ll do differently or better in 2014? Here are some great posts to set yourself up for success in the coming year.

TOP 5 Clairification articles from 2013: In case you missed any of these, here are the five articles that generated the most interest and readers over the past 12 months.  Enjoy!

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3 Keys to Rethink Fundraising Risk and Reward in 2014

When should you take risks with fundraising? When you’re ready. Here’s what I mean:

You Can’t Riff Without a Guitar. News flash: You’ve got to do the basics before you improvise.

What’s on your playlist for 2014?  The rewarding gold standards like prospecting, asking and stewarding? Or riskier new events? Special campaigns? Extra social media?  You’re to be congratulated if you’ve got innovative ideas. It shows you haven’t lost your creative spark, and you’ve got gusto and passion for what you do. Bravo! But… wait… hold on a minute…

Before you get lost in the creative process,

1 CommentStrategy & Management

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It’s Not All about Major Gifts: 10 Ways to Succeed with Small Gift Fundraising

Small giftsToday I went to research something online and ended up viewing the first entry Google gave me – which was on Wikipedia. To my delight, I ran into an awesome fundraising campaign (this is an occupational hazard with fundraisers – we actually like and admire things like pledge breaks when they’re done well)!

Here’s what I found superimposed at the top of the screen:

6 CommentsAnnual Giving

Clairity Click-it: Compel, Kvell, Sell – Your 3 Keys to Year-End Fundraising Success

This week it’s about the three things that will boost your year-end giving: (1) social media done well will drive awareness of your cause and the current opportunity to make an impact; (2) creative, compelling content presented in the form of a story will trigger emotions that inspire philanthropy, and (3) your user-friendly, up-to-date website will make it easy for would-be donors to connect with you, donate and then continue to stay connected – and feel good about it – over time. This week’s links will give you food for thought – plus actionable tips.

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