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This blog is all about do-it-yourself nonprofit communications and marketing. I love helping small and medium-sized nonprofits communicate more effectively with their members, donors, volunteers and other supporters, so that together, we can all make the world a better place. I do that as a blogger, trainer, coach and consultant.
I believe that even the smallest nonprofit staffs with the most modest budgets can achieve tremendous results through savvy marketing and communications. I hope this blog and my online marketing training and other resources encourage you to do just that, while helping you grow personally as a nonprofit marketer and communications professional.
Please comment on posts and feel free to contact
me with your questions and comments. You can also learn more about hiring me as a coach or consultant.
Check out my calendar of events for upcoming webinars, live broadcasts of Magic Keys Radio, online office hours, and more.
P.S. Please feel free to connect with me on these social networks: Facebook, Nonprofit Marketing Guide Page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.
Last Friday, I had the pleasure of speaking at the National Capital Gift Planning Council’s Annual “Planned Giving Days” conference in Washington DC. Planned giving refers to philanthropy in estate planning, like leaving money to a charity in your will or setting up a charitable gift annuity.
My friend Rob Blizard, who was coordinating the Marketing Track, asked me to speak about improving the newsletters that planned giving departments send out. And boy do most of them need some improvement! So, I took three hot trends in nonprofit marketing and applied them specifically to these kinds of newsletters. The presentation was very well received — thanks to everyone in the room for participating in the exercises and asking lots of great questions.
Since these trends can be applied to any nonprofit newsletter, I thought you might be interested in the slides:
(Go to the blog if you don’t see the slideshare window.)
I’d also like to give a special shout-out to J. Erik Potter, who I met at the conference. He reads this blog and writes his own called A Blog on Giving. Thanks for introducing yourself!
Tags: marketing trends, newsletter writing, nonprofit-marketing, trends
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Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on May 28, 2008 in
Nonprofit Blog Carnival,
Nonprofit Communications This week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants is up at Giving in a Digital World.
The theme is online fundraising and you’ll find posts on optimizing your website to raise more money, as well as using email and social networking more effectively. Thanks to Bryan for another great edition of the Carnival!
My apologies for posting the Carnival two days late this week . . . my family has been celebrating my dad’s retirement from the U.S. Air Force after 39 years of service to our country and I just couldn’t leave the fun to get to the laptop.
Next week the Carnival will be hosted at Fundraising Breakthroughs. See you there!
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
My “blog about this” folder overfloweth with great stuff to share with you. Here are a few of the more recent items:
The Chronicle of Philanthropy did an online chat Q&A with Seth Godin yesterday. As to be expected, he didn’t disappoint. My favorite quote: “Obsessing about the basics is far more effective than managing the latest fad.” Read the full transcript here. I do disagree with his take on nonprofit annual reports, however.
Michael Gilbert says “Playing It Safe Is a Trap.” His article on five syndromes in nonprofit online marketing will definitely make you think. Are you letting fear and naysayers stop you from doing really exciting, meaningful work? Much of Gilbert’s philosophy was echoed by Seth Godin in his Chronicle of Philanthropy chat. It also reminds me of one of my all-time favorite quotes: “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” ~ Jim Hightower
Should you speak in an organizational voice or a personal voice when writing for your nonprofit’s blog? In other words, just how snarky can you get? You’ll find some great perspectives in the comments on Beth’s Blog.
This has been widely reported in the nonprofit blogosphere, but in case you missed it and you don’t currently use an email service provider for your e-newsletters (as you should!), Vertical Response will let you email 10,000 messages per month for nada.
Simple changes to Amnesty International’s website made a big difference in how much they raised online. These results provide not only interesting tips for your website design, but also validate once again the power of testing, testing, testing.Â
I’ll let the rest of the “blog it” folder sit for a bit and see if it is really blog-worthy after all. 
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Tags: nonprofit-marketing, Online Marketing
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on May 20, 2008 in
Nonprofit Communications Update: This afternoon I answered several nonprofit marketing questions on my blog during live “office hours.” You can click on the box below to see the transcript. (If you reading this post in email or in a reader, you’ll probably need to click over to the blog to see the chat transcript.)
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on May 20, 2008 in
Nonprofit Blog Carnival,
Nonprofit Communications See how several bloggers complete this sentence in this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants, hosted by Rosetta Thurman at Perspectives from the Pipeline.
Next week the Carnival flies over to London, where Bryan Miller will host at Giving in a Digital World. Bryan is looking for posts with insights, tips and tricks for online fundraising. Details here on how to submit your blog post for consideration.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on May 19, 2008 in
Nonprofit Communications I’ll be answering your nonprofit marketing/communications questions live here on the blog tomorrow, Tuesday 5/20/08 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Simply visit the blog homepage and you’ll see the live chat going on. You’ll be able to type in your questions and I’ll answer as many as I can.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on May 15, 2008 in
Annual Reports,
Copywriting,
Fundraising,
Media Relations,
Nonprofit Communications,
Nonprofit Marketing Strategy,
Online Courses,
Online Marketing,
Professional Development,
Storytelling,
Writing for the Web If you’ve been waiting for me to make the recordings from the Nonprofit Marketing Guide webinar series available, wait no more. The following titles are now all available when you purchase an All-Access Pass.
For $97, you’ll get to view all of these webinars and any I add in the next twelve weeks. You also get to attend any and all live webinars I host for the next twelve weeks, at no additional charge.
Nonprofit Storytelling: How to Write Your Nonprofit’s Best Stories
Recorded May 14, 2008.
How to Connect with Generation Y
Recorded May 7, 2008. Featuring Sam Davidson.
What Do Baby Boomer Donors Want from Your Nonprofit?
Recorded May 1, 2008. Featuring Jeff Brooks.
Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email
Recorded April 24, 2008.
How to Write a Press Release Reporters Will Love
Recorded April 17, 2008. Featuring Claire Meyerhoff.
Branding for Nonprofits: What Is It and Should You Do It?
Recorded April 10, 2008. Audio only, featuring Nancy Schwartz.
Converting Your Print Newsletter into an Email Newsletter
Recorded March 20, 2008.
How to Write a Four-Page Nonprofit Annual Report
Recorded March 13, 2008.
Can We Find You on Google? Keywords and Search Engine Optimization for Nonprofits
Featuring David Westbrook. Recorded March 6, 2008.
How to Make Your Nonprofit Brochures Pop! - The Crash Course
Recorded February 27, 2008.
What Should We Write About? Storytelling Ideas for Nonprofits
Recorded February 13, 2008.
Getting Reporters to Cover Your Nonprofit: Tell Your Story So They’ll Tell It Too
Recorded February 6, 2008. Audio only, featuring Claire Meyerhoff.
Yes, it’s a ton of great training at a very reasonable price. Ready to get your pass? Register now.
Tags: nonprofit, Nonprofit Communications, nonprofit-marketing, training
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on May 14, 2008 in
Nonprofit Communications,
Online Tools I’m going to try something new next week - instead of a weekly webinar, I’ll be hosting live “office hours” on Tuesday, May 20th, from 2:00 - 2:30 p.m. Eastern, right here on my blog.
Using a service called CoverItLive, I’ll be taking your questions and answering them in a live chat format. You don’t need any special software or accounts. Simply come to the blog home page on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. ET, and you’ll see the chat taking place.
You can submit questions right then and I’ll answer as many as I can on the spot. This won’t be an unwieldy chat where you can’t keep track of the conversation. I’ll choose which questions to answer, post them to the screen, and then answer them, so it’s all organized and easy to follow. Afterwards, you’ll be able to view the transcript of the entire session.
If you’d like an email reminder about “office hours” closer to the actual time, just fill in the form below. Select when you want the reminder from the drop-down menu, then enter your email address and hit enter. I hope you’ll stop by on Tuesday and submit a question!
Tags: advice, chat, live blogging, nonprofit-marketing, office hours
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
