July, 2009

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How My Nonprofit Plans To Use Social Media

Selfish Giving

Thanks to everyone who commented on my post Help Me Convince My Boss To Use Social Media. Not only did you offer some great support and tips, but the 24 comments I got were real evidence that social media really does work! I owe you all a Starbucks, which I’m happy to buy you when you come to visit me at my home store on 627 Tremont Street, Boston.

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Fundraising Secret #39: Learn to love objections

Fundraising Coach

If you’re going to ask people for money, you’ve got to learn to love objections. Or at least be comfortable with them! Working on a session for the APRA conference in Boston, I’m relearning how fun objections can be. Seriously, if there were no objections, we wouldn’t be needed. It would be so clearly self-evident that people would simply fund our cause.

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My Five Favorite Twitter Tools

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

I’ve received several questions about the Twitter tools I use, so here are my five favorites. Yes, to use Twitter as efficiently as possible, you actually need to do more than what Twitter.com offers! 1. TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop. These tools let you put people you follow into groups, which is essential once you start following more than a couple hundred people.

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Calculating Your Online $$ Potential

The Agitator

Convio is brandishing a new " fundraising calculator " that claims to compute the future value of your integrated direct mail, telemarketing and online fundraising stream. Says Jordan Viator of Convio: "The tool allows nonprofit organizations to estimate their online fundraising potential based on their actual number of donors, donations and online donor activity — giving them a realistic and personalized projection of how they can grow donations over the next three years ̷

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10 Tools and Strategies to Market Your Nonprofit on a Shoe-String Budget

Care2

WOMM (word of mouth marketing) and earned media should be key components of any communications plan to market your nonprofit’s website. If your nonprofit is not taking advantage of free tools like Add This , a widget that encourages users to share your organizations articles or webpages on the most popular social networks or branded toolbars like FreeCause , then your nonprofit is missing out on some big marketing opportunities.

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I gave your organization $500 & all I got was this…

Sea Change Strategies

A. Annual report with my name buried in the back. B. Leadership circle pin. C. Special stationery. D. None of the above. How are you treating your middle and high dollar donors? Yes – they haven’t made it into your major donor portfolio with the one-on-one attention and perks - yet. But getting them there depends on how you are treating them now.

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Help Me Convince My Boss To Use Social Media

Selfish Giving

A summer ritual here on the development team is planning for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1st. Part of that planning process involves a half-day retreat for directors at my boss’ house where we discuss our goals for the upcoming year. Before my boss left for vacation last week he said to me: “At the retreat I want you to talk about how we can use social media for prospect research, fundraising and advocacy.&#.

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A Content Creation Strategy for Nonprofits: The Webinar Slides

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Yesterday I taught a webinar called “Content Creation Strategies for Nonprofits: Making the Most of Your Writing, Photos, and More.&# More than 650 people registered from 46 U.S. states and 22 other countries. (Pass this on to your nonprofit friends in Alaska, Delaware, Mississippi and South Dakota - we missed them!) Nonprofits are clearly very interested in how they can do a better job creating and managing content.

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Who do you speak for?

Get Fully Funded

In the latest issue of Fundraising Success magazine, Editor Margaret Battistelli has a good column on using social media. One point particularly sticks out at me and I wanted to share it with you. She writes “The people who connect to your organization’s pages certainly don’t need to know what kind of potato chip you would be. But I’d bet they wouldn’t mind hearing from you more, rather than just from your organization.

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New Tool Lets Nonprofits Send Action Alerts Through Facebook

Care2

Grassroots Enterprise recently launched “Actions&# on Facebook that allows nonprofit organizations' supporters to take action and send a letter to their members of Congress without ever leaving Facebook —and without installing an app. The Actions tab will not only match supporters to federal and state legislative officials based on their addresses but will also capture names and emails in a database.

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Newark, NJ Parking Lot Wins Tagline Award

Getting Attention

Exciting news! A parking lot in Newark, NJ wins the 2009 Tagline Award with it's funny, pithy tagline -- Unparalleled Parking. Just kidding, since the 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Award program is for nonprofit organizations. But I do love this tagline! It's accurate and humorous. That equals memorable! But since you work with a nonprofit organization, or grantmaker, enter your unparalleled tagline today in our award program.

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Cause Marketing Lessons from the Tour de France

Selfish Giving

The Tour de France , the world’s most famous bike race wraps up this weekend–sadly, without our hero Lance in yellow. It’s been a tough struggle for the Tour the past couple of years. First, it didn’t have a big name rider like Lance involved anymore. But an even bigger problem has been the drug scandals that have knocked out some of cycling’s best riders and left a blemish on the sport.

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Fundraising Secret #40: Learn from your colleagues

Fundraising Coach

Fundraisers are some of the best people in the world. People committed enough to a cause to ask others to invest in it. They’re good with people, great at networking with donors, and quite resourceful. Except when it comes to professional development. I’ve spoken to too many colleagues that aren’t allowed to go to professional conferences… even when they were willing to pay their own way!

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Nonprofit Blogs: 5 Reasons You Do & Don’t Need One

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Thursday’s Webinar: Blogging for Nonprofits: Tips, Traps and Tales. July 9, 2009. 1:00 p.m. Eastern. (10:00 a.m. Pacific). Get the details and register. Missed It? Watch the recording when you. get an All-Access Pass. Does your nonprofit need a blog? That depends on a lot on your overall communications strategy. But to help you think through this question, here are my top five reasons why a nonprofit should have a blog and my top five reasons why a nonprofit shouldn’t. 5 Reasons Why

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When your Executive Director is not a strong leader

Get Fully Funded

I had an amazing conversation with a client this week. He’s the Board President of an organization that is facing many challenges. . They’ve been around for years but have relied too heavily on government grants. (Can you feel what’s coming?) Over the past few years, the state has cut their budget repeatedly, so this organization’s funding is shrinking.

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Using Psychology to Improve Your Communications

Care2

I've found that understanding some of the mind's cognitive biases can not only help nonprofit campaigners efficiently motivate our audiences into taking action online, but also help us be more effective professionally. For example, people are more willing to take action to stop something from being taken away than if they were to receive the equivalent value (you'll do more to stop from losing a dollar than you will to get a dollar).

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Kennedy Center's Michael Kaiser Launches 50-State Tour to Help Arts Orgs Flourish in Economic Crisis

Getting Attention

Back in February, I read about Arts in Crisis , the Kennedy Center's initiative to help arts organizations survive in this challenging climate. The program, open to non-profit performing arts organizations that apply online , provides free guidance for fundraising, planning and management. I was heartened and intrigued by the concept, but not provoked to dive in deeper until I heard Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser interviewed yesterday about his 50-state tour to deliver guidance in pers

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Fundraisers Adjust 2009 Strategies

The Agitator

Yesterday we reported the quantitative results from The Agitator’s Mid-Year Fundraising Assessment survey. Those responses indicated relative calm at this stage of the fundraising year. As Tom summarized: “Being an optimist, I would characterize the results as saying that seven-in-ten fundraisers believe their programs are holding their ground or improving.&#.

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Win $10,000 for your nonprofit

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

Capital One just launched the Connect One sweepstakes – with a grand prize of $10,000 for a worthy nonprofit like yours. You can enter here. If you share information on the Connect One sweepstakes with your friends, you increase your chances of winning. If you’re not familiar with the many things Capital One is doing for nonprofits, I’ll fill you in.

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Market or Promote Your Cause on Social Media? Yes, You Can!

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

The conventional wisdom these days seems to be that nonprofit organizations should not use social media for marketing, communications, promotion or anything like that. Instead, the CW goes, social media is only for listening and learning (call it market research and professional development if you actually want it to survive your work planning process).

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Grant opportunity with a creative twist

Get Fully Funded

Here’s a unique grant opportunity: Made possible by the CTK Foundation Philanthropic Fund and Grammy award-winners, Los Lonely Boys, The Heart and Soul (H&S) grant is an innovative and creative way for nonprofits to apply for funding. To apply for the grant, the organization must submit a 4-8 line poem (lyrics) that represents the “heart and soul” of their mission.

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Fundraising Secret #40: Learn from your colleagues

Fundraising Coach

Fundraisers are some of the best people in the world. People committed enough to a cause to ask others to invest in it. They’re good with people, great at networking with donors, and quite resourceful. Except when it comes to professional development. I’ve spoken to too many colleagues that aren’t allowed to go to professional conferences… even when they were willing to pay their own way!

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Last Day to Enter 2009 Tagline Awards -- Deadline Midnight Tonight

Getting Attention

Your nonprofit could be a 2009 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award winner! Take 3 minutes now to enter today. More information here. You've been fantastically enthusiastic about this year's award program, and over 1,700 of you have already entered your org's tagline for award consideration. I thank you for your interest, and for spreading the word.

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How To Measure Loyalty

The Agitator

In this mini-debate from DMNews, three approaches to measuring loyalty are advanced: 1. Lifetime value — the person who buys (donates) the most over the longest period. 2. Share of wallet — the person who devotes the largest percentage of their spend (or donations) in your category to your product/brand (or nonprofit). 3. Referrals — the person who acts as your most enthusiastic evangelist, converting the most consumers (or donors) to your product/brand (or nonprofit).

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How to convince your skeptical boss that social media has merit

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

skepticism by cbcastor via flickr. I am asked almost weekly how to convince nonbelievers in an organization give social networking efforts a try. So I thought I’d answer that question here and as an upcoming guest post on Beth Kanter’s blog , since she’s likely given you many good ideas of how to use social media – and you’ve likely run into internal roadblocks on the road to Web 2.0. 1.

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Getting the Personal - Professional Mix Right in Social Media

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

It’s a debate that anyone using social media these days is having: How much personal information do I share when I’m using social media for work, and how much work information do my personal friends care to know? What are reasonable expectations for a nonprofit to have about what staff members will say online? Should blogging, tweeting, etc. be official or unofficial?

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Is this a good response?

Get Fully Funded

A small nonprofit serving children recently sent out their first direct mail appeal using a rented list. Now they want to know if their results are good or not. In May, they sent out 1492 pieces. In April, they had been in the local news several times promoting Child Abuse Prevention Month. So far, they’ve received 1o gifts totalling $322 dollars.

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Fundraising Secret #39: Learn to love objections

Fundraising Coach

If you’re going to ask people for money, you’ve got to learn to love objections. Or at least be comfortable with them! Working on a session for the APRA conference in Boston, I’m relearning how fun objections can be. Seriously, if there were no objections, we wouldn’t be needed. It would be so clearly self-evident that people would simply fund our cause.

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NetSquared.org Web Site Re-design Process -- Strong Model for Your Org

Getting Attention

I'm continually on the prowl for strong nonprofit communications models to share with you since there's no better way to learn how to strengthen your own initiatives. And I have a great one for you today. NetSquared.org, the "online landing pad for social changemakers leveraging technology for social change" has been working hard on the redesign of its website.

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Are Nonprofits Good At Social Media?

The Agitator

Alexandra Samuel, writing in Harvard Business Publishing, says Yes! In her article, Why Nonprofits Are So Good at Social Media , she notes that social media are all about relationship building and points out: "In the nonprofit sector, relationships have always been the key currency: the relationships with the members, donors and supporters that NGOs depend on for volunteer labor, financial support and advocacy muscle." Her article is sprinkled with links to what Alexandra regards as good

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Flat is the new up: Philanthropy this year

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

My Silver FLATs, by Joey 989 via Flickr. Is giving up or down? Lucy Bernholz has the answers here. As she noted, flat may be the new up. (She was quoting a Tweet there.). Read her whole post. The highlights: 1. Giving was down in 2008 from 2007 by 2%, the first decline since 1987. This year, a third of nonprofits say their budgets are down, but 1/3 say they’re up, probably due to stimulus dollars. 2.

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Share Your Stories and Get in My Book

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

As I’ve mentioned before, I am writing the book version of Nonprofit Marketing Guide this summer, which will be published in Spring 2010 by Jossey-Bass , and I want to put your story in the book! Right now, I’m most interested in “before and after&# stories. Tell me how things used to be, what you did to change it (whys and hows are good too), and what things are like now.

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Will you let me help you raise money through the mail?

Get Fully Funded

Secrets of Direct Mail Mentoring Course. Give me 4 weeks and I’ll show you how to raise gobs of money through the mail! I’m proud to announce a new teleseminar series that I’ll be starting July 14th. It’s my “Secrets of Direct Mail Mentoring Course&# and in it you will learn everything you need to know to raise money like the big nonprofits do.

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Is Facebook Aging?

Care2

Remember the days when college-age cool kids dominated Facebook? As Facebook evolved, its audience changed too. Take a look at the most recent demographic stats compiled by iStrategyLabs after reviewing Facebook’s ad data. Between January 4, 2009 and July 7, 2009 users between the ages of: 25-34 has grown by 60% from 11.2 million users to 18.1 million users. 35-54 has grown by 190.2% from 6.9 million to 20.2 million users. 55+ has grown over 500% from 954,000 to 5.8 million users.

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Mine's Bigger than Yours Is: Enter Your Tagline in 2009 Awards -- Deadline Friday

Getting Attention

You're right. Mine's Bigger than Yours isn't really the 1,400th tagline entered in the 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Awards. But that's the essence of the tagline from Fourth Arts Block. Here's the real thing: More Art per Square Foot than any Other Block in NYC. I like it. It's a bit long but works well to differentiate that block from all others in the city.

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Is Your Fundraising News-Driven?

The Agitator

For some nonprofits, fundraising can be quite sensitive to the headlines … a natural disaster here, a Supreme Court nomination there. I once had a client castigate me, rightfully, for "sitting on" an urgent appeal opportunity until Monday, triggered by an event that occurred the previous Saturday (this is pre-Internet, I’ll say in meekest of defense).

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Giving: The New Taking?

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

So says Trendwatching. Here’s the logic. People are disgusted by the forces that led to the recession. They are seeking authenticity and meaning. Which is making giving the new taking: Passionate, empowered individuals (if not entire generations) being more willing and able to give, to share, to collaborate; to be more ‘generous’ in many ways.