Here’s a summary of recent articles and blogs related to fundraising and nonprofit organizations. As always, please forward this to others who might benefit from the information. Thanks again for reading!
AWARENESS / MARKETING
- Showcase Your Experts—Speakers’ Bureau How-Tos Guest blogger Amanda Aldrich is Regional Communications Specialist with the American Red Cross of NW Ohio. As a regional communications professional, I’m frequently asked to present in the area, and the requests often surpass my availability. Rather than explore ways to clone myself, we’ve responded by developing a speakers’ bureau. By Nancy Schwartz
- Strengthen your organization with a sacred story We often talk about the way stories bring your mission to life for supporters and inspire donors to give. Storytelling champion Andy Goodman reminds us that stories can also work within our organizations to inspire and build stronger teams. By Caryn Stein
- 5 Challenges to Effective Integrated Marketing for NonprofitsIntegration is not only a common buzzword these days, but also a goal of many nonprofit direct response and development plans. First, let me give a loose definition of what I mean by “integration”. By Eric Overman
WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING
- This Is How You Get Your Fans Engaged – Nonprofit Success Story I asked Cassia Burke of Children of the Nations to share how they came up with a recent campaign that I think you might just want to “borrow” and customize in your own way. By Kivi Leroux Miller
- How to treat your donors as heroes Probably the best way to be a better fundraiser is to think of your donors as heroes — and to treat them as such. Here are some hints from re:charity on how to do that. By Jeff Brooks
FUNDRAISING TECHNIQUES
- Increase Your Year-End Fundraising $$ With This Simple Strategy Wouldn’t you like to have a simple strategy that will dramatically increase the return from your fundraising appeals? Here’s a tactic that can have a major impact on your donors’ generosity – at the time when it counts the most. By Gail Perry
- How Can I Love You If You Don’t Know My Name? When your nonprofit fails to use data to determine how to treat donors, problems creep in. Constituents begin to feel your organization doesn’t know them, and they’re infinitely less likely to respond with support. By Steve Birnbaum
- Giving is an emotional act Understanding why people give is essential to having a successful fundraising plan. Donors feel sympathy, empathy, guilt, or some other emotion when they donate. Knowing which emotion triggers donations to your organization can help you be more effective in fundraising. By Sandy Rees
- 5 Indicators for Identifying the Best Potential Donors In the development world, as in many other models, 10-20% of the donors are responsible for 80-90% of the donations. Over the past few years, we conducted back studies to identify what data identify that 10-20%. By Ryan Woroniecki
- Ready to see bidders “freak out?” Here’s how … don’t include Extended Bidding in your mobile bidding silent auction. Auction fever isn’t just something I’ve observed. Mobile bidding vendor Handbid witnessed bidders “freaking out” when they couldn’t bid again. Then they immediately set about adding Extended Bidding into their application. By Sherry Truhlar
FUNDRAISING PLANNING
- End-of-Year Campaign Planning: 6 Things to Get Done in September Have you peeked at your calendar today? We’re just two months away from much of your end-of-year campaign prep work needing to be finished up. By Mike Snusz
- 2 ways to boost the results of your fundraising appeals In the latest Fundraising is Beautiful podcast, fundraising veterans Jeff Brooks and Steven Screen answer the question, “How many appeals should you send?” They highlight the importance of not only the number of appeals you send, but what those appeals contain. By Caryn Stein
- Two Fresh New Ideas in Monthly Giving Monthly giving programs are really catching on, often in surprising ways. Here are two projects that caught my attention. By Joanne Fritz
SOCIAL MEDIA / ONLINE
- 5 Quick Ways to Humanize Your E-mail Marketing Every small business has an advantage. Unlike big corporations, smaller companies can be more personal, more relatable, more human. Unfortunately, most small businesses miss these opportunities. E-mail marketing is a classic example of how the little guys have the edge. By Andy Crestodina
- SEO 101: 10 ways to make your site more findable Guest post by Teddy Hunt If you’re just starting to look into search engine optimization, or SEO, it’s important to get a handle on how it works so that you use it to benefit your organization. By Teddy Hunt
- ‘Crafting’ versus ‘Producing’ … Writing Songs versus Jingles According to comScore, US e-commerce sales (via desktop) were up 13% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2013. OK, so people are buying more and more online. In parallel, people are donating more and more online. By Tom Belford
LEADING A NONPROFIT
- The Board Needs You! As fundraisers we all know the importance of the board… getting trustees engaged and on-side is vital as you strive to communicate the success of current campaigns and appeals, explain in a minute amount of time exactly why this return on investment is good…By Emma Jhita
- Philanthropy is not a multiple choice question for your nonprofit board of directors So often I have heard this one line uttered…”But I give of my time and that is my gift!” Yes and no. This, however, does not make philanthropy an option. By Robin Cabral
- Identify, Recognize and Celebrate Leadership There’s been a lot to make me think about the qualities of leadership recently: remembrances of 9/11, the global debate and Syria, and the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. What does it mean to lead? By Andrew Watt
- 5 Reasons for Hope From a Gathering of Nonprofit Leaders | Spencer Critchley: People who set out to change the world often get the feeling they may have to settle for a few square feet. Poverty, violence, hunger, disease and injustice are made of resilient stuff. That’s why an event like this year’s Nonprofit Management conference is so welcome. By Spencer Critchley
