March, 2010

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My Twitter Policy: How You Can Join “The 200?

Selfish Giving

I spend a lot of time on Twitter. It may not be the home base that my blog is, but it’s certainly where I hang out. And as a hangout it’s more like a speakeasy because the crowd is limited, just over 200 followers. That’s because I really want to get to know the people I follow and to learn from them. I never understood how you could do this following 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 people.

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The Top 22 Art Fundraising Ideas

Fundraiser Ideas

Though Fundraiser-Ideas.net generally publishes one comprehensive description of a fundraising idea at a time, we know that many people are looking for ways to integrate their passion for art with their fundraising efforts and thus we decided to post a long list of art fundraising ideas. Most of these ideas would be great as elementary school fundraisers or as preschool fundraisers, but they can be adapted for other settings, of course.

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10 Social Media Metrics for Nonprofit Organizations (and How To Track Them)

Nonprofit Tech for Good

“A survey of 200 charity and foundation professionals revealed that nonprofits are finding it difficult to determine how valuable social media tools are for their organizations. Seventy-nine percent said they hadn’t found ways to do so.” – Chronicle of Philanthropy, November 12, 2009. For those 79% of nonprofits out there, I have listed 10 social media metrics below that can be easily tracked and plotted on a Social Media Return on Investment (ROI) Spreadsheet ( Download ).

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Printed Donor Lists: To do or not to do?

Fundraising Coach

Q: What are your thoughts about including an annual roll of donors in a (printed) annual report? Our staff is split 50/50 on whether that is still useful, necessary, or appropriate. Thanks. Katie Benston, Dir. of Annual Support. Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region. Charlotte, NC. A: This is a very common question! We all know we’re supposed to thank donors.

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The Earth Is Flat

The Agitator

For five centuries, from the Phoenicians to the global exploration of the 15th century Spaniards the conventional wisdom of navigation rested on the belief that the Earth was flat. Venture farther than the known oceans and you would fall off the edge of the Earth into the mouths of dragons, the arms of sea monsters, and heavens only know what else. Today’s fundraising has its own ‘flat Earth’ beliefs, and as we look at the obstacles and changes fundraisers have faced in the pas

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Data-fest: Great new stats and insights on social media, Twitter, mobile

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

Mashable and George Weiner have some excellent new data to share about social media usage and mobile giving. These three articles are MUST READS: 1. Mashable: Our Social Media Obsession by the Numbers (based on a Retrevo study). 2. Mashable: The Current State of Twitter by Muhammad Saleem. 3. George Weiner in the Huffington Post: Mobile Giving and Why People Are Bad at Poker.

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Cause Marketing Cynicism is a Good Thing

Selfish Giving

Geoff Livingston has written a thoughtful post on the growing cynicism of cause marketing and how companies need to check their motives before they dive in. As cause marketing continues to accelerate as a hot trend, many companies will enter the foray, not because their culture would make such a move intelligent, but because the marketers think it’s a good idea.

Marketing 199

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10 Fun and Totally Random Resources for Nonprofits

Nonprofit Tech for Good

Over the years I have stumbled across countless Internet gems, but the 10 below are those that I regularly and repeatedly return to. These resources are invaluable when looking for quality content to utilize and share on social media sites. If you have any favorites that you would like to share, please add them in a comment below. Thanks. 1. Worldometers : Provides world statistics updated in real-time. tweeting powerful stats is guaranteed to get your organization ReTweeted!

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Fundraising Secret #45: SAY THANK YOU!

Fundraising Coach

As kids, most of us were trained to say “thank you.&# Some of us even had parents that required us to write “thank you&# notes to relatives that gave us gifts. So why don’t we say “thank you&# to our donors? The very people that fund our mission. That give out of their hard earned money to support our cause. Could we really be arrogant enough to feel entitled ?

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The Agitator - Untitled Article

The Agitator

As presented in Fast Company , here are some tips on building loyalty via exceptional customer service. They’re offered by Micah Solomon, co-author of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit. Do nonprofits have "customers" and do they deliver "customer service"? You better believe it! I think every one of Solomon’s seven tips applies … especially when you roll in the cultivation of major gift donors.

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How Social Media Makes Live Events More Vibrant than Ever

Getting Attention

I'm pleased to introduce you to Julia Hartz (at far left) and Tamara Mendelsohn of Eventbrite for Causes. Julia and Tamara focus day in and day out on making events more productive for nonprofits. They are my third guests in a periodic series of posts from other authors, and it's great to add their perspective to the mix. "With all the ways to connect online, we’ve increasingly heard the question 'do you think live events are dying?

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Cause Marketing in the ‘Hood: Starbucks, Whole Foods

Selfish Giving

In my travels this past weekend, I came across two cause marketing programs at two stores my family frequents a lot. The first was at Starbucks where I saw a display for the new Conservation International Starbucks Card. You load the card with dough and every time you spill the beans at Starbucks through the end of the year five cents goes to CI. I like the program, and as a Starbucks customer I admire the coffee behemoth for supporting CI’s mission to protect the earth.

Food 194
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Free Business Cards for Your Organization and Fundraising Events

Fundraiser Ideas

This is not a fundraising idea , but it is likely that it will be useful to many individuals and organizations that actively fundraise. In addition to serving as a source of contact information, business cards (especially when free ), can serve as a promotional tool for your fundraising events. First, let us just underscore that this is not a gimmick.

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Facebook Advertising Experiment for Nonprofit Organizations :: The Results

Nonprofit Tech for Good

Over the last few weeks I have been running a Facebook Advertising experiment for the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page. While the ad itself produced little-to-no results, some unexpected Facebook insights did come out of running the ad. The results are below: 1. Purchasing advertising did not increase my fan base or help my Status Updates show up in the News Feed > Top News.

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Thank your donor 7 times

Get Fully Funded

There’s nothing more important than thanking our donors. We need to make sure donors know how much we appreciate them and their generosity. So thank your donor 7 times. The 7 Thanks don’t have to be elaborate or expensive – just sincere. The initial Thank You should be timely. Your quick response to a donor’s gift lets them know that you did in fact receive their gift and that you are glad to have it.

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Checklist Heaven

The Agitator

Direct marketing guru Denny Hatch was so enthralled with The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande that he updated his own direct marketer’s checklist. Denny’s checklist is 58 items long, so it’s pretty comprehensive. For example, here’s #2: Does your copy contain some or all of the 13 most powerful and evocative words in the English language?

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Video Review of “Brandraising”

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Here’s a video review of Sarah Durham’s new book, Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications. Watch to learn how to get me to buy a copy for you! Kivi Reviews “Brandraising&# by Sarah Durham from Kivi Leroux Miller on Vimeo. Kivi Leroux Miller of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com reviews “Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications&# by Sarah Durham.

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Better Cause Marketing with the Lowly Business Card

Selfish Giving

I hope you didn’t give Chris Brogan your business card at SXSW this week. He didn’t want it, and with good reason. Unless you want to do business with me, don’t give me a business card. We both know how to reach each other, so unless one of us asks for one, let’s not hand them out. We tend to give out business cards because we’ve been taught this is what to do.

Marketing 191
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Trivia Night Fundraiser

Fundraiser Ideas

Lots of bars and pubs hold trivia nights. For those who are unfamiliar, these are events in which teams of people gather to socialize, eat, drink and answer trivia questions. Bars and pubs often hold trivia nights on a regular basis, which allows friendly rivalries between teams develop. Trivia nights can also be a great way to build camaraderie among people who already work together (for instance, an office’s accounting department could challenge the human resources department to a friendly tri

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Nonprofits of the Month :: March 2010 :: Modern and Contemporary Art

Nonprofit Tech for Good

March’s theme is Modern and Contemporary Art. Below are 5 museums throughout the world that are creatively utilizing social media: Twitter: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Lima. Facebook: Moscow Museum of Modern Art. YouTube: Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. MySpace: Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. Flickr: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The nonprofits above are featured throughout the month of March on the Nonprofit Organizations Twitter Profile , the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Pag

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Top Nonprofit Leaders to Follow on Twitter

Care2

In the past year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500%, according to Biz Stone, Co-Founder of Twitter. With such an explosion of new voices, that’s a lot of tweets and noise for nonprofit campaigners to filter through. So if you can only carve out 20 minutes a day to follow nonprofit leaders and thinkers discussing nonprofit issues on Twitter, who would they be?

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Terrible Fundraising Headline

The Agitator

I love Todd Cohen’s Philanthropy Journal. Excellent range of content. I’m a faithful reader. But I hate this March 26 headline: Fundraising out of sync with giving habits. Todd’s story leads as follows: "Technology is changing the way people give, with different generations preferring to give in different ways, and nonprofits should adjust their fundraising strategies to reflect those giving patterns, a new study says." He’s referring to recent Convio survey resea

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How to engage with Millenials - and how they’re different from teens

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

I had the pleasure of serving on a panel yesterday at the Legacy Foundation’s event to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Truth Campaign , one my all-time favorite examples of stellar social marketing. You should check out the slides from my fellow panelists ( Peter Zollo of TRU, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post and Nick Shore from MTV), which you can find here.

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A New Look for Selfishgiving.com

Selfish Giving

Cause marketing news, advice and commentary just got better (looking). Welcome to the new and improved Selfishgiving.com ! Late last year I started thinking of refreshing my blog with a new look that I could extend to all my other social media platforms and offline activities. A lot had happened since the last redesign two years earlier! At first I only thought about changing the look of my blog, but John Haydon was writing some great posts on how Headway Themes could enhance your blog.

Activism 182
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50-50 Raffle

Fundraiser Ideas

This is a fundraising idea we should have covered a long time ago, as it is the perfect add-on to so many of the fundraising ideas we’ve covered so far. A 50-50 raffle is the most basic of raffles. All you do is sell tickets to the raffle, combine the money and award 50% of the combined money to the person who holds the winning ticket and 50% of the money to your organization.

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Tips for thanking a donor

Get Fully Funded

Taking a few minutes to thank a donor is some of the best time you’ll spend as a fundraiser. Don’t overlook or underestimate the importance of this small task! When done well, donor appreciation can bring big rewards later on. Here are a few tips for thanking a donor. 1. Send a Thank You letter promptly. Ideally, you want to have a Thank You letter in the mail to the donor within 48 hours of receiving their gift.

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What Social Media Strategy Looks like for Safe Place

Care2

It was a sunny SxSW Saturday last week where people came together for Zoetica Media 's brunch and brainstorm session -- with one nonprofit in mind: Safe Place. Community and a Strategic Starting Point. The goal was to look at Safe Place's community, internally and externally, and offer a strategic starting point for this nonprofit's social media plan.

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Report On Mobile Giving

The Agitator

Convio, Edge Research, and Sea Change Strategies have prepared this report on mobile giving , probing specifically into the mobile giving generated by the Haiti earthquake. The data reflects a survey of 1500 members of an online panel, screened as current charitable donors. The report notes that up to 12 January 2010 about $1 million had been donated to various causes and charities via mobile text.

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Wake-Up Call: Your Supporters Expect More

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

Dear Nonprofit Marketing Friends, The biggest thing that needs to change this year is how we think about our donors. We are in the midst of an enormous generational shift that has major implications for our work. The Greatest Generation of older, civic-minded Americans who wrote checks out of a sense of duty and expected little more than a tax receipt in return is passing the torch to a far more demanding series of predecessors.

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Cause Marketing & The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Selfish Giving

Ad Age posted an interesting article the other day about how every company–large and small–is turning to microsponsor -ships–small consumer driven cause marketing programs that raise hundreds or thousands of dollars–to support everything from breast cancer research to earthquake relief for Haiti and now Chile. I call microsponsorships the “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid&# because they are simple, easy and spontaneous.

Marketing 169
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Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser

Fundraiser Ideas

A spaghetti dinner fundraiser is a classic fundraiser , but it is classic for a reason: It’s remarkably easy and it is a near sure-fire money-maker. Better yet, it is so simple to organize and execute that it can easily become a recurring fundraiser (and who doesn’t like recurring income?). For those who are unfamiliar with how to run a successful spaghetti dinner fundraiser, don’t worry, there’s not much to know.

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How to Get a 30-Minute Consulting Appointment with Me

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

I’ve made some changes to our All-Access Pass to Nonprofit Marketing Guide that now make it easier for you to get a quick consultation with me on whatever issues you are struggling with at the moment. In addition to getting all of our webinars, when you sign up for the All-Access Pass , you will now be eligible to book a 30-minute consulting appointment with me, whenever you want, as often as you want.

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FourSquare: Novelty or Buzz Worthy?

Care2

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of an app junkie, but I’m also one of the biggest critics of developers putting out useless apps that ha ve little value to end-users and are nothing more then a novelty. So, when FourSquare (a location based social network app that tracks your locations and shares it with friends when you “check-in&# to places) emerged as the “next big thing&# at SXSWi , I questioned whether FourSquare could really li ve up to its buzz.

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New Generational Giving Data

The Agitator

Convio has produced this valuable white paper on generational giving patterns. It’s based on a 2010 survey of 1500 recent donors to nonprofits. The paper is framed around four segments — Matures, Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. It’s chock full of data on how different generations give, their giving amounts, how they interact with charities, how they get their information about causes and charities.

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Inbound Marketing Tips from Dharmesh Shah

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

I spoke at Artez Interactive DC today (#artezDC on Twitter if you want to check out the highlights) and while there, I got to hear Dharmesh Shah talk about his new book, Inbound Marketing. Dharmesh founded HubSpot and Website Grader. He calls himself a hackrepreneur. (Full disclosure, we use HubSpot at Network for Good and I was given a free copy of his book today.

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Cause Marketing Limits Raise More Money

Selfish Giving

Seth Godin wrote last week on the importance of setting a ceiling of support for donors less they opt out all together. As [marketers of causes] approach people with $10,000 or $100,000 in the bank, this fear of not seeing a limit is very real, and if it’s not confronted, they will fail at both raising the money and generating satisfaction for the donor.

Marketing 167
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Dunk Tank

Fundraiser Ideas

A dunk tank is a remarkably easy fundraiser , particularly when it comes to school fundraising. For those who are unfamiliar, a dunk tank is a large tank of water with a plank or bench overtop for a person to sit. That person is dropped in the water when another person throws a ball and hits a target, causing the plank to separate into two pieces. You can see an example of a successful dunk tank fundraiser in the video below.