Nonprofit Communications

Sometime very soon, I am going to launch an experiment where I donate to 20-30 nonprofits that I currently have no contact with and then see what kind of communications I get back from them over time. I’d like your help in shaping this project.

I’m especially interested in the frequency and content of the communication. How personalized will it be? Will they attempt to learn more about me? Will they encourage me to do more? What will they highlight in their communications to me? What format will the communications take?

I’m still thinking about the right mix of nonprofits and donation levels and methods and would love to hear your thoughts. I’m not looking for a statistically accurate methodology, just a really interesting one.

– Who should I give to and what should the mix look like? I’d like the list to include some nonprofits that I currently know nothing about (although I won’t give to any group whose mission I completely oppose — let’s save that for another experiment). Should I go for a random mix of sizes, age, and missions? Or should I give to some similar organizations to see how they compare?

– I’ll spend $500 upfront on donations, with more to come later in the year, depending how this all turns out. Should I give $20 to 25 groups? Or should I go with $10 to 20 and $100 to 3 groups? Or some other combination?

– I’d like to give in a variety of ways, e.g. snail mail, online, through Facebook Causes, etc. What other methods should I include? Should I give to the same nonprofit in a couple of different ways to see if I’m treated differently?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this over the next week. Naturally, I’ll let you know what happens over the next several months as the results come in.

I just got a sneak peek at the slides that Jeff Brooks of Donor Power Blog will be sharing during this Thursday’s (5/1/08, 3:00 ET) webinar: What Do Baby Boomer Donors Want from Your Nonprofit?

Jeff says the good news is that Baby Boomers are the wealthiest and largest generation in U.S. history. The bad news is they are much more demanding than their parents’ generation. So what do they want from you? Control over their relationship with your nonprofit, for one thing.

And what does that really mean and what do you do about it? What impact does it have on the way you communicate with your donors? You’ll have to get those answers straight from Jeff. Register for the webinar ($35 for whoever can fit around the monitor and speaker phone) and you can ask all the questions you want about Baby Boomers and your nonprofit. Jeff will answer as many as he can during the hour.

Nan at Endless Plain has posted this week’s edition of the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants and it’s a very interesting roundup of posts on social media and how nonprofits are using it for marketing — including everything from not “getting it” to measuring its impact. Check it out.

On May 5, the Carnival will be hosted by the Wild Apricot Blog. See you there!

I’ve added a bunch of webinars to the Nonprofit Marketing Guide schedule on everything from marketing strategy and messaging to nonprofit websites and email list building.

Here’s the schedule:

Each webinar costs just $35 and includes training for as many people from your organization as you can comfortably fit around a speaker phone and computer monitor.

See more than one training you’d like to attend? The All-Access Pass is for you. Attend any and all of the webinars we host for 12 weeks for just $97. Get the details.

I’m going to be speaking at the following events. If you’ll be there, please be sure to introduce yourself. I would love to meet some of my blog readers in person! I’ll also be making several of these presentations available on Slideshare, so stay tuned.

This Friday, April 25
Neighborhoods Networks Regional Workshop in Nashville, TN
Speaking in a general session on online marketing/nonprofit websites

Monday, April 28
Duke University Certificate Program Workshop in High Point, NC
“How to Write Great Email Newsletters and Web Content”

Thursday, May 8
National Smart Start Conference in Greensboro, NC
“Blogs, Podcasts and Webinars: Getting Your Message Out Electronically”

Friday, May 23
National Capital Planned Giving Council’s “Planned Giving Days” in Washington DC
“Applying the Hot Trends in Nonprofit Marketing to Your Planned Giving Newsletters”

And don’t forget the weekly webinar series (although that’s not in person).

I’ve been doing some research on the differences between the generations and how those differences may affect nonprofit marketing for some blog posts I’m planning for the coming weeks. I’ve bookmarked the articles I’ve read so far, if you are interested in doing some reading of your own.

I’m also really excited about two upcoming webinars, because I’ll be doing the learning instead of the teaching!

On Thursday, May 1 at 3:00 p.m. ET, Jeff Brooks will share what he’s learned so far about the philanthropic habits of Baby Boomers in “What Do Baby Boomers Want from Your Nonprofit?”

The following week on Wednesday, May 7 at 2:00 p.m., Sam Davidson will discuss “How to Connect with Generation Y.”

Registration for each webinar is $35 and includes as many people from your organization as you can fit around the speaker phone and computer monitor.

I’d also love to host a webinar on Generation X, especially since I’m a member, but I haven’t found a good guest speaker yet. Any ideas?

Several people have unsubscribed from this blog recently citing “too many updates” — all of them were receiving the feed via email. If you are getting the email version, but aren’t happy with the amount of email it’s creating in your inbox, please consider changing your subscription from email to an RSS reader.

RSS readers allow you to subscribe to many blogs at the same time and have all of the posts grouped together (”aggregated”) in one place, instead of your email box. Google Reader, Bloglines, and Netvibes are three popular RSS readers with other subscribers of this blog. Using these free services allows you to read blog posts on your own schedule, but without having to visit each and every blog separately and without creating more email to sort through.

Once you’ve got your account established, you can easily return to the blog homepage and get the feed. Just look for the little orange logo with the two curved lines. Put that link into your reader and you’re done!

This week’s Nonprofit Marketing Guide webinar is Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email (Thursday, 4/24/08, 3 pm ET, $35). I’ll be talking about these three tips and many more.

Answer readers’ questions. Yahoo! and Google are the most popular sites on the web because people are searching for answers to the questions they have. The ubiquitous “FAQ” page is so popular on websites because it directly answers those questions. There’s an important lesson here: Your website content should be focused on the needs and interests of your site visitors. Write your content with your audience in mind at all times.

Write in chunks. Your website is made up of pages and those pages are made up of paragraphs. Each page and each paragraph should be about one specific thing. Organize your text into small, manageable blocks (chunks) of information. Read more of my tips on chunking specifically. Chunking also makes your site easier to skim, which is how most people actually read online.

Cut everything back. Online writing must be much shorter and tighter than what you’d traditionally write for publication on paper. The general rule of thumb is to cut your print text in half when putting it online. Shoot for headlines that are 4-8 words and sentences that are no more than 20 words. Limit paragraphs to six sentences and articles to 500 words. Of course, these are just guidelines, but they’ll help you get closer to where you need to be.

Learn more during this week’s webinar.