Girl dips toes in the water

12 Top Tips to Build Community and Broaden Your Nonprofit Donor Base

Philanthropy should not just be about big checks.

Last week I shared some reasons not to eschew small gift fundraising. Today I’m following up with some tips for building and mobilizing your community to find, sustain and grow these gifts.

This is important, because a donor’s first gift is seldom their largest.  It’s a starting point.

The majority of your gifts will be small, but the majority of your income will come from a small group of major donors.

You have to grow this cadre of loyal, passionate philanthropists by building relationships with supporters over time.

The lion’s share of major gifts come from previously small gift donors.

A client I’m working with told me 50% of their major donors began with very small gifts.  How about tracking this for your organization? Sure, some major donors come in at the top. But I’ll bet you a majority start by dipping their toe in the water. How can you get folks more fully immersed?

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6 CommentsStrategy & Management
Painting of three eyes

Boost Nonprofit Marketing Results: Message, Time, Place

As year-end approaches, you want to consider leveraging your message across channels. You also want to tailor your message to meet the needs of different target constituencies.

One-size-fits-all messaging seldom works as well as segmented messaging.  The former is all about you, your convenience and your needs.  The latter is about your constituent’s needs.

Successful fundraising and marketing is customer- and donor-centered.

Is your year-end strategy setting you up for success? Are you truly putting your best foot forward?

If you’re not inside your constituents’ heads, you need to get in there! To be constituent-centered requires you to (1) talk to the right people,  (2) with the right message, (3) at the right time and place. Recently, I enjoyed a post on precisely this subject. I share it with you here, and if you’re not yet hip to the Marketoonist, allow me to introduce you.

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Leave a commentContent Marketing
Apps on iPhone

An APPealing Strategy to Raise More Money for Your Nonprofit

Today we’re going to think outside the box.

I’m going to suggest your nonprofit consider creating an app.

Yes, one of those things people buy at the app store.

Lest you think I’m crazy, this is an idea I’ve been noodling around for some time now.

And I think its time may finally have come!

Okay, maybe not 100%.

But there’s something to be said for the mobile, app-based experience.

Not just for retail giants, but for social benefit causes too.

Personal APPocalypse

The idea began to glimmer for me

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3 CommentsOnline Fundraising
Humanitarian aid

Using Visuals to Enhance Nonprofit Marketing & Fundraising

Is your nonprofit using Instagram yet? Pinterest?

I’m going to suggest you give it some serious consideration.

Why?

We live in the age of information overload. A wealth of information creates a scarcity of attention and thus a need to efficiently allocate attention.

Visual to the rescue!

Visual is a huge trend in marketing, using the power of digital to communicate your message and stay within the diminishing attention span of today’s online readers –8 seconds (one second less than the attention span of a goldfish).

Glub, glub.

If human minds are adapting to information overload this way (to multitask, prioritize, and consume quickly and efficiently), it makes sense for your nonprofit to adapt as well.

Otherwise, you’ll work really hard to put messages out there – that no one will read.

Want to stop working just hard and start working smart?

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1 CommentContent Marketing
Reading on Laptop - How to Improve Your Nonprofit Newsletter

How to Improve Your Nonprofit Newsletter

Does your nonprofit have an email newsletter?

I’d rather see you rock a blog, but let’s talk a bit about your newsletter. Since you already have one, you may as well make it better.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

[BTW: If you don’t have an e-newsletter, go read the article above about creating and rocking a blog. Also read this. A blog can serve the purpose of an e-newsletter, and do so in a more donor-centric, user-friendly fashion. IMHO]

Okay. Back to improving your newsletter.

The real point of a newsletter is to stay top of mind with your supporters.

Why?

Because you want to keep them, of course!

Just like with any relationship, if the only time someone hears from you is when you want something from them, they’re not likely to stick around.

You need to woo them.

What Newsletters are For

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2 CommentsContent Marketing
Cinderalla and Step Sisters

Is Fundraising Cinderella to Your Nonprofit Marketing Communications?

Cinderalla and Step SistersToo often ‘Fundraising’ is made to sit in the corner while her step-sisters, ‘Content Marketing’ and ‘Online Communications’, get busy dressing up for the ball.

Poor ‘Fundraising.’

Her step-mother and step-sisters think raising awareness is more important than raising money.

They think all they have to do is look pretty, and they’ll naturally get chosen. Nobody wants to be bothered to include Cinderella (aka Fundraising) in the planning.  After all, she’s “dirty.”

Is Fundraising Your Nonprofit’s Dirty Step-Sister?

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4 CommentsContent Marketing
The Best Online Strategies are Multi-Layered

Essential Strategies to Succeed with Online Fundraising Campaigns-Pt.2

In Part 1 of this two-part article I described the importance of:

  1. Beginning with your well-oiled content marketing engine and plan.
  2. Building an intentional donor-centered content marketing plan.
  3. Building an online fundraising campaign strategy that’s integrated with your content marketing plan.

Part 1 also included links to a lot of articles I’ve written previously about mastering online social fundraising. Some of them are on Clairification. Others are guest posts I’ve done for other blogs.

I truly, passionately, want you to master the integration of a robust online communications and fundraising strategy with an equally robust offline strategy. In our digitally revolutionized world, they are two halves of a whole.

You need to rock them both.

Today we’re going to layer on with some other important essentials if you want to succeed with your online fundraising.

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1 CommentOnline Fundraising