Pam Moore

JANUARY 26, 2016

When many business leaders think of the term “brand” they think of pretty colors, expensive logos, fancy graphics, Facebook cover photos and traditional tv or radio advertisements. Smart marketers know branding is much more than a logo. In reality, the logo is the easy part and only one small yet very important component of your brand. Smart and savvy marketers also understand the importance of building a brand architecture and strategy inclusive of the brand identity with supporting

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Fundraising Coach

JANUARY 12, 2016

I find it so easy to keep looking for the new thing, pressing toward the next deadline, looking for the next big "win," that I tend to forget routine maintenance systems. But just like our cars need routine maintenance or they'll fall apart, so do our fundraising systems. As we begin 2016, here are some places to check. 4 Routine Maintenance Ideas Check your donation page Last month, I blogged about checking your donation page.

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The Agitator

JANUARY 18, 2016

I have a great suggestion for surviving your next nonprofit meeting. Dump your doodles and download this app: The Harvard Business Review Meeting Cost Calculator I shudder each time I think of the amount of time that’s spent discussing and measuring the inane minutiae that is the stuff of all too many meetings. Eyes glaze over and minds wander as staff and consultants fill hour after hour pouring over spreadsheets, droning on and on about list recommendations and endlessly discussing how to clos

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

JANUARY 25, 2016

2016 is going to be a big year for mobile and digital wallet payments. Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google, PayPal, and Amazon are scrambling to be your chosen first choice and while this is predominantly playing out in the consumer market, in 2016 we will finally start to see mobile and digital wallet payments impact online fundraising in the nonprofit sector.

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Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

JANUARY 5, 2016

Download your copy of the full 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report here! We’ll be sharing a lot more detail from the report over the next several weeks. Here’s the first of two infographics, including new data on communications team size. Watch for the second one tomorrow, with new data on salaries!

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iMarketSmart

JANUARY 22, 2016

Does your organization really appreciate its supporters? Many private businesses have customer service departments because they want to increase the lifetime value of each customer. So, why wouldn’t nonprofits create customer service departments too? Only I think they should be called donor appreciation departments. Imagine a nonprofit with a room filled with staff whose only job is to thank supporters, advocates and volunteers.

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Pam Moore

JANUARY 28, 2016

Twitter is an amazing platform to not only build community and brand awareness but also to generate leads and increase sales! Yes, smart and social savvy marketers know how to generate sales using Twitter. However, to do this you must understand that Twitter is not designed as a spamming platform. You can’t just hop on Twitter and start spamming urls to your website, blog or sales page.

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The Agitator

JANUARY 14, 2016

Tony Elischer, the international fundraising evangelist known for his oft-flamboyant conference presentations and passion for our profession, is dead. The founder of Think Consulting Solutions died January 12 th after a yearlong fight with cancer. A world leader in fundraising, Tony travelled widely and, as Ken Burnett, whose agency Tony joined earlier in his career, noted: “He touched people incredibly wherever he went.

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Nonprofit Tech for Good

JANUARY 27, 2016

A collaborative research project by the Public Interest Registry and Nonprofit Tech for Good, the 2016 Global NGO Online Technology Report is an inaugural effort to gain a better understanding of how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide use online technology to communicate with their supporters and donors. Based upon the survey results of 2,780 NGOs from Africa, Asia, Australia & Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, the data gleaned from the online survey is unpreced

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Technology Nonprofit Administration and Development Public and Nonprofit Management Collaborations 68

Ann Green

JANUARY 14, 2016

Last month I read this article in the Boston Globe Magazine. You’ve been asking charities the wrong question It emphasized the importance of focusing on social impact rather than overhead costs. That’s an important discussion, but what struck me were the responses in the print version of the magazine. Your intention may be very different from what your donors’ reaction will be.

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iMarketSmart

JANUARY 27, 2016

Charity – Helping people in need. Philanthropy – Making an investment that stimulates other investments or provides opportunity for others. Charitable people – Help others in need. For instance, giving money to a soup kitchen before Thanksgiving so they can buy turkeys for their annual meal would make one a charitable person. Philanthropists – Make charitable gifts that result in the creation of economic and social opportunity for individuals which, in turn, helps create

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Pam Moore

JANUARY 25, 2016

It’s hard to believe this is the 200th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast ! What started out as a “test of the podcast waters” transformed into an amazing media and revenue channel for our agency, Marketing Nutz. The Social Zoom Factor podcast has enabled us to differentiate, diversify, build community, provide value to our audience, establish thought leadership, earn trust, generate leads, increase revenue by creating new and diverse revenue streams, make new friends an

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Fundraising Coach

JANUARY 14, 2016

Fall fundraising is hard enough. But listening to NPR's All Things Considered on my ride home this evening, I remembered how much more challenging political mailing will make your fundraising this fall. So I pulled to the side of the rode to record this reminder. How are you re-engineering your fall fundraising letters? What ways are you testing to make your nonprofit's fall fundraising stand out?

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The Agitator

JANUARY 4, 2016

Celebrations are over. Back to reality. Yeah, everybody makes New Year’s resolutions. One way or another, we pledge to be better persons — trimmer, more giving, less judgmental, more fit, better parent or spouse or friend, more relaxed, more empathetic, maybe knock a few items off the bucket list. For the more committed of us, these resolutions survive the month of January … sometimes even February.

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EveryAction

JANUARY 4, 2016

For some things, spontaneity is highly desirable, but any fundraising professional will tell you that planning a campaign isn’t one of them. Having a detailed strategic plan in place before embarking on a fundraising campaign can be a huge determinant of its success, even before the first dollar is raised. But it isn’t enough to have a rough idea of messaging, an incomplete timeline, some scheduled tweets, and an arbitrary fundraising goal.

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Ann Green

JANUARY 29, 2016

What does it mean to be donor-centered? It means focusing on your donors’ needs and interests and taking into account that not all donors are the same. A lot of donor communication is not donor-centered. How do you know if yours is? Take this short quiz to find out. Fundraising Appeals. Are your fundraising appeals focused too much on your organization – rambling on about how great you are?

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Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

JANUARY 7, 2016

We get questions all the time about the frequency with which nonprofits should be communicating. Of course, the right answer for you depends on many factors, especially your goals, the demographics of the people you are communicating with, and your relationships with those people. Need some averages to start the discussion? Here are the most popular communications frequencies, according to the 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report.

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NonProfit Hub

JANUARY 25, 2016

This article was originally published in our Nonprofit Hub Magazine, a bi-monthly publication that features content from the best in the nonprofit industry. Sign up to get your free subscription today. Busy is a term we’ve come to embrace in our society and have even glorified the meaning. You’re busy. I’m busy. We’re all busy. So naturally, your organization’s board chair and CEO are, no doubt, busy.

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Fundraising Coach

JANUARY 29, 2016

We live in the best time to fundraise! No longer are we at the mercy of the latest anecdote. Now we have a growing body of solid research into how to best help donors to invest in what matters to them most! Take this as an example: for over a year, the folks at Rogare , the fundraising think tank of The Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy, have been rigorously studying relationship fundraising.

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The Agitator

JANUARY 12, 2016

In a recent post I reminded Agitator readers of Roger’s top ‘To Do’ item for any fundraiser in any new year — keep educating yourself. One of the easiest ways is to sign up for some of the blogs and e-newsletters proffered by your fundraising colleagues. We include a heap of good sources on our blogroll here. I’m reminded of this by Pamela Grow’s recent article — Top 10 Things Smart Fundraisers Will Be Doing in 2016.

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iMarketSmart

JANUARY 25, 2016

A probing close is yet another phrase I made up. I do that… a lot. Basically, it’s a question you ask when you feel your prospect might possibly be ready to agree to say “Yes!” to your proposal. Here they are: 1. If I could make sure to take care of [whatever objection they had or obstacle they mentioned], would you be ready to go ahead with this?

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Ann Green

JANUARY 21, 2016

Now that you’ve sent your year-end appeal, take a look at your retention rate to see how well you did. A Guide to Donor Retention Poor retention rates are a chronic problem for nonprofit organizations, but it’s something you can fix. Reach out to your lapsed donors. How did you do? Did you have a number of donors who gave in the past, but didn’t this year?

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Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

JANUARY 25, 2016

Ready to get organized with an editorial calendar for your nonprofit? This week we’ll show you how to set up editorial calendars in several different formats. Today, we cover the basics in Excel and Google Calendars. ( Here’s the video link if you can’t see the player. ). Want help setting up your editorial calendar for 2016? Check out our Nonprofit Marketing Accelerator on Scheduling Your Work.

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Care2

JANUARY 27, 2016

The stats are in, and end-of-year online fundraising was an amazing success for several organizations in the nonprofit sector. Over at our agency Rad Campaign, our clients beat their fundraising projections between 40% to 70%. M+R surveyed 22 of their clients and saw great growth as well. We’ve dug through the data and have boiled it down for you. More money was raised online.

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Mission Minded

JANUARY 15, 2016

It’s election season. While you might get tired of the constant commercials, news clips, and solicitations, we have to give a nod to the candidates and their campaigns. Because perhaps more than anyone, politicians know their audience. And, just like our nonprofit branding clients, knowing your audience is the first step in creating the brand, […].

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The Agitator

JANUARY 3, 2016

Let’s jump right to the pressing topic of fundraising evolution, perhaps even revolution, on this first Monday of 2016. You’ll recall that on New Year’s day Tom and I left you with the promise that we’d be devoting serious attention in 2016 to the types of changes in mindset and methods we believe are essential to truly serve and sustain both donors and nonprofits in the years ahead.

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iMarketSmart

JANUARY 20, 2016

Fundraising IS marketing and selling. Yet some fundraisers think it’s different from other forms of marketing and sales when it isn’t. Somehow the altruistic aspects of fundraising get in the way and muck up the process. I think this is precisely why so many organizations are just plain bad at raising money and retaining donor support. Copywriting icon and expert fundraiser Tom Ahern wisely once stated on his blog : “Your job, fundraiser, is to move me (your puzzled prospect) from my native, war

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Ann Green

JANUARY 7, 2016

Happy New Year! I hope you had a good holiday. I also hope 2015 was a good year for your organization. The New Year is a good time to evaluate what worked and what didn’t last year. Here are a few areas that I think need improvement. Do a better job of thanking your donors. I know you spent a lot of time working on your year-end appeal, but many organizations fall short when it comes to thanking their donors.

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Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

JANUARY 21, 2016

We need to break down the barriers preventing fundraising and marketing staff from cooperating in order to get the best results. The advice to get rid of “silos” is nothing new. But we have some new data in the 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report that adds a few more good reasons why your nonprofit should consider this kind of reorganization.

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NonProfit Hub

JANUARY 27, 2016

Adam Weinger is a guest contributor for Nonprofit Hub, and President of Double the Donation. He worked for companies that offered generous corporate giving programs, but most employees had no idea. After speaking with nonprofits about the need to access matching gift funds in a cost-effective way, Double the Donation was born. _. We’re already a month into 2016.

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Getting Attention

JANUARY 6, 2016

Thanks to See3 for sharing this useful case study, originally published on the See3 blog. Learn more: Create personas to bridge the gap with your target audiences. Many nonprofits fall into the trap of believing that their audience is the general public, when the truth is that your supporters are much more nuanced than that. By putting together a comprehensive profile of your audience, your nonprofit is better able to create personalized content that speaks to your audience and drives them to a

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The Agitator

JANUARY 24, 2016

Many fundraisers tell me that donor acquisition is one of their biggest problems. If that is truly the case then why in the world are they attempting to solve such a big problem with cookie-cutter strategies and woefully incomplete plans and procedures? Part of the answer may lie in the silos that exist separating ‘acquisition’ from ‘donor development’ functions in many shops.

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iMarketSmart

JANUARY 4, 2016

Believing that you are imposing on your supporters by asking them for money. Remember, they want to give. The key is to think of yourself as a facilitator, not a fundraiser. Spamming your supporters. If they didn’t give you permission to flog them with your emails, you might be doing more harm than good. Ignoring new technologies. It’s time for you to discover new ways to zero-in on the most passionate prospects at precisely the right time— when they are most engaged.

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Care2

JANUARY 15, 2016

There’s a new social app called Peach that’s trending with the technorati and social media community. Developed by Vine co-founder Dom Hoffman, the app is a mix between Twitter and Slack. Last week it reached the top 100 apps in the Itunes store. No easy feat. It’s also received a lot of major press coverage ranging from the New York Times to CBS News and WIRED.

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Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

JANUARY 6, 2016

Download your copy of the full 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report here! Today we are sharing the second of two infographics for this year’s trends report. ( Here’s the first one, on communications channels, frequency and teams. ). See below to discover: How many communications directors and coordinators plan to leave their jobs in the next two years.

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NonProfit Hub

JANUARY 29, 2016

Nonprofit communication is a concept that is both difficult to define and implement. Regardless, as a nonprofiteer, you’ve probably heard many times that a nonprofit communication strategy is vital to your organization’s success. But how exactly is a communication plan crucial to your nonprofit? Today, we’re talking about relationships and how your communication plan can make or break the connections you make with your constituents.

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Getting Attention

JANUARY 5, 2016

We all have a powerful communications resource right in front of us—our colleagues. But most of us look right past them. Here are four compelling reasons—backed up by the kind of research findings nonprofit decision makers adore—to launch your team of staff messengers a.s.a.p.: 1) There’s never enough time, talent or budget to complete everything we need to do.

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