Nonprofit Marketing Guide
MAY 10, 2016
We talk a lot about storytelling in the nonprofit sector: how stories build through their first, second, and third acts and how all story arcs need beginnings, middles, and ends. When I do storytelling training, I compare the stories that nonprofits tell to a TV series. You have the short-lived, episodic stories that start and end all in one hour, each week.
Selfish Giving
MAY 10, 2016
15 percent of the purchase price of the Balls of Steels Whiskey Chillers support testicular cancer cure research. Purchase-triggered donations (or percentage of sales fundraisers) is a long name for a simple cause marketing promotion. When shoppers buy a product or service from a business a portion or percentage of the sale is donated to a good cause.
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Pam Moore
MAY 9, 2016
Every smart and savvy marketing and business leader knows the power of branding. They also know that a brand is much deeper than a logo, pretty colors or a tagline. The best marketers know that emotional branding is the secret sauce to igniting customers to loyal advocates, followers and fans! Emotional branding helps connect you in the most human ways to your audience, customers and fans.
Ann Green
MAY 9, 2016
The spring appeal season is underway and I’ve been barraged with appeals for the last couple of weeks. For many organizations, this is their main fundraising drive of the year. Unfortunately, some of these organizations need a refresher course in appeal writing. Whether you’re planning a spring campaign or one later in the year, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Speaker: Lee Andrews, Founder at LJA New Media & Tony Karrer, Founder and CTO at Aggregage
This session will walk you through how one CEO used generative AI, workflow automation, and sales personalization to transform an entire security company—then built the Zero to Strategy framework that other mid-market leaders are now using to unlock 3.5x ROI. As a business executive, you’ll learn how to assess AI opportunities in your business, drive adoption across teams, and overcome internal resource constraints—without hiring a single data scientist.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
MAY 11, 2016
Our team is working on the creation of a new guide on nonprofit storybanking and photobanking. You get great stories and photos, but how do you organize them? How do you find what you need months later? How do you give the right people access? When does the content “expire” and should it be deleted? What about content curated from other sources – can that go in your bank?
Selfish Giving
MAY 10, 2016
Photo via nan palmero on Flickr. Today on CauseTalk Radio , Megan and I talk to Gentry Lane , founder of TDO Productions , a company that is harnessing the power of virtual reality and leveraging it for social good. TDO's virtual reality experiences are formulated to inspire massive empathy that drives viewers to immediate action. On the show, Megan, Gentry and I discuss: Gentry Lane, TDO Productions.
Nonprofit Leadership Zone brings together the best content for advertising professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
The Agitator
MAY 8, 2016
Just as Canadians were responding in heroic ways to the Alberta fires — including digging deep in their pockets — a most unhelpful and self-appointed nonprofit watchdog named Charity Intelligence took to the public airways in a manner certain to confuse donors. With the devastation at Fort McMurray and the horrific plight of nearly 90,000 Canadians, both the federal government in Ottawa and the provincial government of Alberta moved with lightning speed to encourage immediate donatio
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
MAY 12, 2016
Your charity needs more than a fancy gathering to attract reporters. It needs a news hook. Nonprofits spend countless hours — and considerable money — to stage gala dinners, peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, and other events that aim to draw attention to their work and rally their supporters to give to their organizations. Quite often, they also expect these events to generate media coverage.
Selfish Giving
MAY 7, 2016
Photo via Miradortigre on Flickr. I’m excited to be speaking at The Future of Corporate Partnerships Conference in London on May 16th! This conference will take an in depth look into what’s changing in corporate partnerships, what today’s companies are looking for in a partnership and how to make the most of the new opportunities available. If you’re a regular reader of Selfish Giving , you know that this is exactly what my speciality is: knowing what works best in the present, but also scanning
iMarketSmart
MAY 9, 2016
We really need to thank our lucky stars for Dr. Russell James! He painstakingly reviewed 20+ years worth of data from a federally funded, national, longitudinal study conducted by the National Institute on Aging. Why? Because it included giving behavior of people in the U.S. several years before they added a charitable gift component and after. What he found was the following: The average annual gift among those studied increased by 75% ($3,171) after making a planned gift.
Speaker: Gareth Webb & Phil Selley, Founding Partners at Intouch Business
For many nonprofit organizations and NGOs, managing grants and monitoring projects with spreadsheets and manual processes feels familiar—but is it holding your organization back? As funding requirements become more complex and stakeholder expectations for transparency grow, relying on outdated methods can lead to inefficiencies, missed opportunities, and compliance risks.
The Agitator
MAY 11, 2016
Tom’s pieces on Who’s Fibbing? and Are We Getting Roasted? have triggered a lively dialogue for which both Tom and I are grateful. Vigorous discussion at the Agitator’s family table is always welcome. So let’s keep it going with this video introduction: Clearly, many folks know what they should do, but don’t. So like the golfing buddies in that BMW advert, they continue with the same-old-same-old.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
MAY 13, 2016
Happy Friday, everyone! Join me for some Mixed Links… Peter Panepento tackles the Giving Day fiasco in Give Local America Disaster Offers Lessons for Next Time on Beth Kanter’s blog. (You can follow and contribute to this conversation using #GiveDayLessons ). Here are 36 Marketing Blogs your Nonprofit Should Start Reading Today. New to social media?
Care2
MAY 12, 2016
The 2016 Benchmarks Study was recently released and highlights the latest nonprofit trends and strategies with an eye on shifts throughout the past decade. The study is comprised of a diverse mix of 105 nonprofits of various sizes and sectors. The study analyzed 2.8 billion email messages sent to over 69 million list subscribers, $481 million of online donations from over 13 million online gifts, and 8.2 million advocacy actions.
Getting Attention
MAY 11, 2016
Searching for more effective ways to build interest and action for your nonprofit? There’s no better way than letting your supporters and partners do the talking with testimonials. They’re one of the easiest to develop, but most underused, marketing tactics you have. And can double as the heart of a longer story! So let’s get going. Testimonials are one of the easiest to develop, but most underused, marketing tactics you have.
Speaker: David Worrell, CFO, Author & Speaker
Your financial statements hold powerful insights—but are you truly paying attention? Many finance professionals focus on the income statement while overlooking key signals hidden in the balance sheet and cash flow statement. Understanding these numbers can unlock smarter decision-making, uncover risks, and drive long-term success. Join David Worrell, accomplished CFO, finance expert, and author, for an engaging, nontraditional take on reading financial statements.
The Agitator
MAY 10, 2016
Yesterday, in my post Who’s Fibbing? , after suggesting that somebody is not ‘getting it right’ — consultants or nonprofits — if retention rates keep declining, I gingerly posed the possibility … is it the donors’ fault? I thought I might be throwing red meat to the sharks, but only one commenter took on that possibility … Rod Taylor.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
MAY 9, 2016
It’s time for another budget-friendly (but content-rich) webinar! Join us this Thursday for a BRAND NEW Webinar: Making Sense of Your. Nonprofit’s Google Analytics. Presented by Eric Squair. Thursday, May 12, 2016. 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific). Recording available if you can’t attend live, but you must register before the webinar begins.
Care2
MAY 9, 2016
Nonprofit campaigners are no stranger to trolling. But when it escalates to online harassment, threats, and doxing, this becomes a lot more stressful to campaigners who already have their hands full running campaigns and managing online communities. Unfortunately, many nonprofit teams aren't prepared in dealing with online harassment. In addition to taking screenshots of all harassing communications - texts, social media posts, emails, and reporting it to your manager, HR department and law enfo
NonProfit Hub
MAY 10, 2016
Nobody likes taxes. (Except maybe accountants and people who get epic refunds?) In May, many nonprofits are coming up on the end of their fiscal year and that comes with filling out a lot of tax forms. There are plenty of rules, and failing to meet them could carry stiff penalties. It may not be your favorite subject, but it sure is an important one.
Speaker: Dave Sackett
Traditional budgeting and forecasting methods can no longer keep pace with today’s rapidly evolving business environment. Static budgets, rigid annual forecasts, and outdated financial models limit an organization’s ability to adapt to market shifts and economic uncertainty. To stay ahead, finance leaders must leverage a future-forward approach—one that leverages real-time data, predictive analytics, and continuous planning to drive smarter financial decisions.
The Agitator
MAY 9, 2016
We’ve had quite a robust discussion via The Agitator the past few days over who’s at ‘fault’ for our sector’s present losing approach to donor retention. In fact, that original focus on retention morphed into a broader argument about who’s ‘getting it right’ (or not) more generally when it comes to successful fundraising — consultants or clients.
iMarketSmart
MAY 11, 2016
Ronald J. Schiller (a veteran fundraiser with too many accolades to list here) wrote a fantastic book titled Belief and Confidence. In it, he draws on 30 years of experience and interviews with tons of philanthropists responsible for hundreds of gifts— some in the 10-figure range. It’s fascinating to hear precisely what so many major philanthropists think.
Selfish Giving
MAY 11, 2016
Photo via mkfeeney on Flickr. Changes with permission. Last April my family checked a big destination off our bucket list: the Grand Canyon. Looking out over its colorful, steep slopes we were hushed into silence. I was the first to speak: "No Starbucks as far as the eye can see." An elbow poked my ribs. My wife had responded. It might as well have been the whole world.
NonProfit Hub
MAY 12, 2016
When it comes to cooking, everything is better when it’s made from scratch. From pie crusts to bread dough, recipes made from the ground up make all the difference. When it comes to budgeting however, that isn’t always the case. Zero-based budgets are built on the idea of in-depth scrutiny of every aspect of an organization. The budget is created “from scratch” by starting at zero, then increasing only based on need and analyses of expenditures.
Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio, Director of Corporate Brand
Do you really know your donors? Not just what they give, but who they are? 👥 In this interactive session, we’ll break down how nonprofits can use behavioral indicators (affinity, recency, frequency, and monetary value) to build prospecting segments that go beyond wealth screening and actually align with donor identity. You’ll walk away with practical strategies to move beyond basic demographics and cultivate supporters based on how they already engage with you!
The Agitator
MAY 12, 2016
“We regret to inform you that as of January 1, 2017 nonprofits will not be permitted to contact their donors without the express written consent of each donor.” Once you’ve picked yourself off the floor with the fear you can’t meet next year’s goal, exactly what action steps will you take to prepare for what the majority of fundraisers would consider a disaster of immense dimension?
iMarketSmart
MAY 13, 2016
This ad for Volkswagen was (and still is) one of the greatest ads of all time. It was simple and powerful. It turned a negative (the size of the car) into a positive at a time when big cars were the norm. It described a ton of benefits for the consumer to consider (see my post on that word here ). Fundraisers can learn a lot from good advertising because it puts all the focus on the consumer (your donor).
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