Sat.Jan 07, 2017 - Fri.Jan 13, 2017

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Ep197: Millennial Start-Up Love Your Melon is Putting a Cap on Pediatric Cancer

Selfish Giving

Today on CauseTalk Radio , Megan and I talk to Alex Meysman , national event director at Love Your Melon (LYM). The online retailer donates 50% of the profits from each sale made to find a cure for pediatric cancer and to support families impacted by cancer. From LYM’s Cyber Monday sales alone, they donated over $400,000 to Pinky Swear Foundation and CureSearch.

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The FACTS About Matching Gifts

The Agitator

In a year-end post, Please Don’t Eat the Poinsettia , I noted that the field of fundraising is filled with lots of myths, aphorisms and the equivalent of ‘old wives tales’. Some are true, some are not, and many persist for which there’s little proof one way or the other. I promised that in 2017 we’d explore some of these as we intensify our focus on evidence-based fundraising as opposed to myth-based or even experience-based fundraising.

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Year-End Fundraising – Part One

Ann Green

At the end of November, I made year- end donations to 25 organizations. Because I was worried about people who would be left behind in the new administration, 11 of these were new donations. I wish I could tell you that all these organizations sent glowing thank you letters and have been following up with engaging updates and minimal additional requests for donations, but, alas, that is not the case.

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The missing link in fundraising programs

Fundraising Coach

Whether your fiscal year starts now or is only part of the way through, January is a good time to evaluate your fundraising progress. To help you're planning, here's an email I sent our Fundraising Kick subscribers yesterday. Good morning, Kickers! Listening to a conversation between Stephen R. Covey and his son Stephen M.R. Covey last week reminded me of the work you do with major donors.

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A master class in communication – humor and silence

Concord Leadership

Being a leader means being ever committed to improving your communication skills. And how to deliver a joke so that people laugh with you, not despite you. Thankfully, speaker, comedian, and Second City alum Ron Tite shares a 3-minute master class from a performance at…Sunday’s Golden Globes awards! His post Brain Chatter: A 3-Minute Masterclass […].

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A Bountiful Reward For Giving Thanks

The Agitator

In November The Agitator reported on a creative alternative to #GivingTuesday called #ThanksGivingTuesday. Organized by Heather McGinness , VP of Advancement at Concordia College-New York , this all-stakeholder event is testament to the power of genuine gratitude, skillful communication, and a mighty respect for donors. I checked back with Heather last week to find out how the bottom line turned out.

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Does an “empathy gap” exist among your donors?

iMarketSmart

A lot of charities tout the fact that they take care of their own. Marines helping marines! Cancer patients helping cancer patients! And so on. But could doing so be a misguided marketing strategy? Research from a study published in December 2014 showed that compassion for distress actually became reduced among people who have “been there.” In other words, according to the study , having ‘been there’ doesn’t necessarily mean you care.

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1 Week into 2017: Where are You Headed?

Getting Attention

This practical, doable marketing plan template takes you from goals to benchmarks, work plan, action, and impact! . Eeesh! Those New Year’s resolutions—including the ones we set for marketing and fundraising work—are so hard to keep. That’s because most resolutions are action items, rather than goals (the real “what we want to get to”).

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The Forgotten Skill Of Basic Respect

The Agitator

Yesterday Tom asked, What Fundraising Skills are You Lacking? , and commenced to offer up his preference for metrics-oriented skills as the ‘most important’ while conceding equal importance to qualitative skills like ‘getting serious about planned giving’, ‘better story telling’, and ‘building a retention culture’ The evening before Tom’s post appeared I received a surprising email and an equally troubling opinion piece.

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How to ensure that your letter signer will sign your fundraising letter even if he/she doesn’t like it

iMarketSmart

I’ll skip to the end and tell you how: Set some ground rules with whoever you ask to sign your fundraising letter. Usually, a letter signer won’t sign a fundraising letter for the following reasons: a. Because it doesn’t sound like her. b. Because it looks weird (i.e. the letter is long, has too many underlines, funky bold lettering, etc). c.

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Communications Staff Confidence is Up, But Satisfaction is Down

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

We’ll release the 2017 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report on Tuesday, January 17 and I’m so excited to share it! We’ve uncovered some really interesting trends that I think will go a long way in continuing to build the effectiveness of communications teams. But for today, here’s a little data niblet to hold you over until next week: The level of confidence that nonprofit communications staff have in their skills is going up, but their job satisfaction is down.

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Succession Planning for the Next Generation of Leadership

NonProfit Hub

I always find it a little funny when I hear someone say, “The future is now.”. My immediate thought tends to be, “ But what does that even mean?” Frankly, it sounds like somebody is trying to be a little too philosophical. I liken it to when someone is sharing “the secret to life,” but really just spewing nonsense. This common phrase should be shifted to, “The future depends on the now.

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What Fundraising Skills Are You Lacking?

The Agitator

I just sent a short article to my daughter, a newbie working at Saatchi & Saatchi. She has a very good intuitive sense of how to go about sizing up the ‘market’ for various brands, products and services, but I’ve gently urged her to match her instincts with a deeper capacity for analytics. So this article about customer data, Most marketers consider data analysis skills more important than social media skills , gave me a bit of welcome ammunition.

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Make Me Smile, Not Smirk

The Agitator

Given that I’m hiding out in New Zealand, I probably received far fewer email fundraising appeals than most Agitator readers during the end-of-the-year bombardment. [In fact, my concealment is working, I can’t recall but one NZ-based charity ‘discovering’ me as an online target (compared to three mail appeals).] Most of what I did receive turned me off … I’m now a dedicated year-end NON-giver.

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Mixed Links for Nonprofit Communicators

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Did y’all have a good week? Let’s cap it off with some Mixed Links… Kivi is quoted in this article by The Chronicle of Philanthropy that shares 10 Ways to Work Smarter in 2017. Care2, hjc, NTEN, and Resource Alliance are asking you to take a survey that will result in the 2017 Digital Outlook Report. CauseVox has put together a new resource for communication and fundraising directors that is a guide, template, and worksheet to help craft fundraising goals and a plan for the

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Let Us Hear All About Your Day!

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Sadly, I am out of stories to share for our Day in the Life of a Nonprofit Communicator Series. Won’t you send in yours? Communications directors, fundraisers, social media managers – anyone who communicates with supporters of a nonprofit – you are all eligible to participate in our Day in the Life series. We started this popular series over 3 years ago to get a glimpse into the everyday, nitty-gritty things you have to do for your job as a nonprofit communicator.

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Continued Success: Refocusing for the New Year

NonProfit Hub

Congratulations on your successful end-of-year fundraising campaign! After all the hard work put into the final fundraising push of the year, you definitely deserved that extra plate at Christmas dinner and the extra drink (or drinks ) on New Year’s Eve – cheers. But now it’s 2017 and the ball has dropped it’s time to make sure you’re not dropping the ball.

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Sharing the MLK, Jr. Holiday in a Culturally Competent Way

Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Contributing Writer Antionette Kerr will be blogging this year for us on several topics, including cultural competency in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Working effectively cross-culturally is an especially important topic for people working in nonprofit communications. Many of your co-workers and community members will be looking to you for guidance when they have questions of their own.

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