Newsletter: 4 Key Takeaways From My Case Study Workshop 🔑 ; Study: You Should Give Donors a Range of Donation Options ✅ ; Tokyo’s Trash-Collecting Samurai 🇯🇵

I had a great time at the Engage for Good Conference in Atlanta last week. It was fantastic to meet so many of my readers and catch up with many old friends! 🥰

I have yet to see the evaluations on my presentation - Creating Case Studies That Strengthen Your Programs: A Workshop For Businesses & Nonprofits - but it went well. I had a good crowd, people were engaged, and they asked lots of wicked smahht questions!

👉🏻👉🏻 Here are four key takeaways from my presentation.

❌ Most nonprofits aren't using case studies. That was the feedback I got from my audience, which is crazy since case studies are very popular and common in the B2B sector. Case studies are a missed opportunity for partnership teams. I hope my presentation - in a small way - sparks teams to use them more.

🤝 It's all about social proof. It's not about the case study, per se. It's about leveraging the evidence of what others are saying about you (aka "social proof") to convince prospects to partner with you. The bottom line is that using social proof makes selling partnerships (everything?) easier and more effective. Why are partnership teams making their jobs harder BY NOT using case studies?

🪄 Creating case studies needn't be hard. First, you don't have to create a case study for every partnership. Just do case studies on the partnerships you want more of. Second, if you use my process of...

Questionnaire ✅ + Zoom Interview🎙 + ChatGPT 🤖

The case study will be easier to write and doable for most partnership teams. However...

✍️ Teams should consider using a third-party creator. My reasoning is twofold. First, partnership teams are busy and don't need the extra responsibility of creating case studies. With people's crazy schedules, case studies can take months to finish. Hiring a dedicated person who can focus on completing them is better. Second, you'll get more out of the partner if you use a third-party writer. They'll tell the writer things they wouldn't tell you, and they'll respect the process more because you're using an outside expert/contractor.

Honestly, I held nothing back during my presentation. I gave away my whole case study process, soup to nuts! Whether you use in-house resources, a freelance creator, or me to create case studies, the important thing is you get them DONE! Our field will be better because we have them.

Are you considering creating case studies for your partnership program? How can I help?

• I can write them for you.

• I can share my case study process with you in a Zoom webinar.

• I can share my process in a series of articles via my newsletter or blog.

Which do you prefer?

Hit reply to this email and let me know! 🙏

✍️ Partnership Notes

1. A local nonprofit executive voices a common frustration: coming across a St. Jude cause marketing campaign in her own backyard. Be sure to read some of the comments.

"I was refueling my car at a gas station near my D.C. office recently when a prompt appeared on the pump: It urged me to donate to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one of the nation’s largest and wealthiest pediatric cancer charities, based in Memphis.

The sight of that prompt was so frustrating because my office is the headquarters of the Hope for Henry Foundation, a local nonprofit organization I founded two decades ago to enhance health outcomes for Washington’s most vulnerable children. How, I thought, can Hope for Henry have the best chance of finding support for its work when the fundraising behemoth St. Jude is essentially knocking on doors in our neighborhood from nearly a thousand miles away?"

I understand the ED's frustration, but she never mentions that she could learn a thing or two from St. Jude about building a brand that people want to support.

You'll never be as big as St. Jude, but that doesn't mean you can't be the best-known nonprofit in your neighborhood, city, state, or region. Get busy building an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you, and be a ⭐️ like Saint Jude!

2. This recent study makes the case that giving people a range of donation options is more effective than not. Probably true at the register too!

🤑 Marketing Your Cause

1. Do you hate to write, but you have to write? I discussed this during my case study presentation. There are some great tech tools out there that can help you get over the hump.

2. A good definition here of owned media and why you should be focusing on it. No 🍪🍪 after 2024!

3. I know many of you use LinkedIn to research and connect with partnership prospects. Have you ever considered publishing a LinkedIn newsletter? Andy Crestodina - a guy I really respect! - has written an excellent article on how to start a LinkedIn newsletter. It might just be the right place to publish that corporate partnership newsletter you've been thinking about!

😎 Cool Jobs in Cause

1. Managing Director, Tech and Finance Partnerships, Save the Children, Remote

🧠🍌 Brain Food

1. Adidas has finally decided what to do with all that excess Yeezy merch it has - and, yes, nonprofits will benefit from their plan!

2. The Columbus Zoo used a test to identify trouble spots in its fundraising and to help them design improvements. Maybe your nonprofit should give the the Fundraising Fitness Test a try.

3.  Tokyo’s trash-collecting samurai. 🇯🇵 I can see a new trend here! Boston's trash-collecting minuteman. Texas' trash-collecting cowboy. Canada's trash-collecting Mountie.