You! Up Against the Wall!

Or How NOT to Photograph Your Volunteer of the Month

A Guest Post by Claire Meyerhoff

Photos are the most wonderful (and cheapo) item in our Nonprofit Marketing Bag-O-Tricks. You probably already have a digital camera, so bring it to work and start taking some happy snaps of the fine folks doing great work for your good cause. Then . . .

Send them to your board members . . . Put them in an e-newsletter . . . Get them up on your cool, newsy blog . . . Turn them into holiday cards and thank you cards!

So many ideas! And so effective!

But maybe you feel like your photography skills aren’t picture perfect.

Frankly, you look at your photos and think, ” . . . hmmm, I don’t know . . .”

You ask your photographer friend Annie to take a look at your Flickr page and give you some constructive criticism. She falls asleep for the first time in a month without Ambien.

Your photos are boring, and no wonder. They all look the same. That’s because when it’s time to take a photo of the volunteer of the month for the “Bizzy Bee Kids Club Gazette,” you find your volunteer, pose her next to the “Bizzy Bee” sign and snap a photo.

This is not only unimaginative composition, it’s poor journalism.

This photo is worth a thousand words. It’s a singular, sublimely simple way to tell a story, and you just missed your opportunity. And as Kivi and I firmly believe, a good story is a terrible thing to waste.

So next time you need that volunteer photo, put on your photojournalist cap and catch your volunteer in action. Melinda is a stellar volunteer known for sitting on the floor, playing “Don’t Break the Ice!” with the kindergartners. Then you need to get down on the floor, too, get as close as you can and capture the moment when the ice breaks and a little kindergartner gives Melinda a hug. When is a sign photo better than a hug photo? Hmmm . . . never.

And when you take that great photo, are you thinking about lighting? LIGHTING! Oh, no, that’s complicated! That’s technical!

Not really, if you know a few simple tricks.

I’m not a professional photographer but I’ve spent enough time around photos and images in my career as a journalist and newsletter editor. In our webinar on Tuesday, November 3, you’ll find out all you need to know about photos — the ones you take and the ones you buy (or get for free!).

We’ll talk about how to “rock the stock,” which means you CAN use stock photos, if you hone your visionary senses. How about that professional photographer friend of yours, Annie? During the webinar, we’ll talk about WHEN to ask Annie for pro-bono services and HOW to make it worth her while. We’ll talk about photos for blogs, photos for e-newsletters, photos, photos, photos!

Here at NonprofitMarketingGuide.com we believe in telling great stories, and having fun while you do it. Join us for the webinar on Tuesday, November 3, and you’ll also have a ringside seat for our bonus fun feature: ”The First Annual Magic Keys Awards for WORST-ever Nonprofit Photos!”

Join us for Focusing on Photos: From Cool Composition to Rock the Stock on Tuesday, November 3. Registration is $35 or included with your All-Access Pass.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

E-Newsletter Makeovers: 5 Easy Design Fixes

This Thursday I’m teaching a webinar called “On-the-Spot E-Newsletter Makeovers: Get Your E-Newsletter into Better Shape.” You can join us to get plenty of tips on how to makeover your own newsletter. Here are the details on participating — after you register, you’ll get directions on how to volunteer your newsletter for a makeover during the webinar.

Here are five easy design fixes that all revolve around making your e-newsletter as easy to read, as quickly as possible. Most people skim through email quickly, so you want to make it easy on the eyes and easy on the brain. I’m still surprised at how many e-newsletters I see that are really tough to read, simply because someone got a little carried away with the design.

1. Don’t use a big image right at the top. Many people have images blocked by default, which means they’ll see only a blank box or a red X where your big beautiful image is supposed to be. If you use a header image across the top, keep it “short” — under 100 pixels high. Otherwise, right-justify a square-ish photo, with text wrapping around it to the left, so you have some text in the upper left where people’s eyes naturally go to start reading.

2. Use one or two columns. If you use more than two columns, you are asking people’s eyes to jump around too much in a relatively small space. Remember, people are usually not viewing your email on a full screen. It’s not like looking at your website, so don’t try to make your emails look like your homepage. Keep it simple and skimmable.

3. Use basic fonts. Avoid using too many different fonts (one will do, or one for headings and one for body text), and use typefaces that are meant for screen reading, like Verdana, Georgia, Arial, Trebuchet, Lucinda Sans Unicode, and Tahoma. Again, the goal is to make it a quick read that’s easy on the eyes.

4. Use dark text on light backgrounds. Reversed text (light text on dark backgrounds) is hard to read, unless the letters are really big. Reverses can work for short headings, buttons, and other places where you want to emphasize a small amount of text, but the majority of your text, and certainly all of your body copy, should be dark text on a light background (good old black on white is great for email.)

5. Use lots of headings and subheads. If I’m only skimming your newsletters, as most people are, can I learn something by just reading the headings and subheadings? Are they both interesting and informative on their own?

Join us on Thursday for more e-newsletter makeover tips. I still need volunteers for the makeovers, so the sooner you sign up and volunteer, the more likely you are to get some great feedback from both me and the other participants.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

How to Make Your Print Marketing More Affordable

Print newsletters have been the default communications tactic for nonprofits forever.  Even though I now believe the default should be an e-newsletter, and we are seeing more and more nonprofits drop their print newsletters in favor of email,  print still remains an important tactic for many organizations.

If you decide that sending a print newsletter or other print communications really is the best approach for your audience and for your organization, consider these five steps to reduce your costs. (I’ll share more money-saving tips during Wednesday’s webinar, Nonprofit Marketing on Next to No Budget.)

Ask Your Printer to Recommend Changes. One of the best untapped resources for lowering your print budget is your printing provider. Call up your account representative at your printer and tell him or her that you are considering dropping the newsletter entirely because of the expense of producing it (you won’t be the only one).

Explain that you would like to keep sending it out, but you need to make some changes to make it more affordable. Ask for suggested changes to the paper, format, length, inks, etc. that could bring down the price. Most printers will jump on this right away; if they don’t, take copies of your current newsletter to other competitive print shops and see what they’d suggest.

Reduce the Size. Paper is a huge portion of your printing costs (typically 30-50%), so cutting the number of pages and reducing the size of the pages can significantly reduce your printing costs. The pieces of paper that are run through the printing press are much larger than what you end up with in your hands. Reducing the finished size of your publication by as little as a half-inch can change the way your individual pages are arranged on those bigger sheets of paper, which means you have to pay for fewer of those big sheets.  Changing the size of your document can also reduce your mailing costs. If your printer is also your mailhouse, ask for revised mailing estimates as well.

Use Thinner, Off-White Paper. Changing the weight of the paper (how thick it feels) and the brightness of the paper (how white it is) can also reduce the cost. Just how white does the paper really need to be, especially if you are covering it mostly with text? Subtle changes in brightness that few people will notice can save you quite a bit of money long-term.  And just how heavy should each sheet feel in your hands? The brighter white and the heavier a sheet of paper is, the more expensive the paper will be. The difference in cost between the same sheet of paper in a different weight can be as much as 10-15% of your paper costs. One cost-effective approach for annual reports or other larger documents is to use a heavier, more expensive paper for the cover to give the document the right look and feel, but to use a more affordable house sheet of paper for the insides.

Don’t Be Too Picky About Colors. The more colors you use in traditional offset printing, the more expensive your print job will be. Even if you decide to print in full-color, you can still reduce your expenses by printing strictly in four-color process, rather than requesting full-color plus specific PMS colors. Instead, convert all of your PMS colors to their CMYK equivalent. You can use the Pantone Color Bridge to see the differences in the colors using the two different processes.

The only time this has been a real issue in my experience is when a nonprofit is working with a corporate sponsor that insists their logo appear in certain PMS colors.  Depending on the actual colors, conversion to CMYK may not be a big deal and the sponsor may be just fine with that. But if they insist on the additional PMS colors, you may want to consider asking that sponsor to cover the cost difference, if it really is a significant increase in cost (ask your printer to provide specifics).

Prepare Your Files Correctly. The further along in the printing process that you get, the more expensive it is to make changes. Make sure your documents are proofread several times and approved by everyone who needs to see them well before you send them to the printer. Also ensure that you have prepared your digital files properly for your printer. It’s not as simple as handing over the file from the computer program you used to create the document. You’ll also need to supply copies of fonts and high-resolution images.  Using the wrong or mixed color profiles is another common problem. (Don’t know the difference between RGB, PMS and CMYK? Talk to your printer or a graphic designer before submitting your files to a printer). When your printer has to fix any of these problems with your files, you get billed for them.

What tips can you share for reducing your print expenses? Leave a comment on the blog.

P.S. Join us on August 12 for Nonprofit Marketing on Next to No Budget for more money-saving tips.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

New Resources: PR Toolkit and Free Stock Images

I’ve created a couple of new partnerships recently to help nonprofit communicators.

Free and Discounted Services from PR Newswire

First, Nonprofit Marketing Guide has teamed up with PR Newswire to provide you with some outstanding discounts, free services and resources. Join PR Newswire today and receive a free annual membership (normally $195) and access to more than $2,000 in free and discounted services. They’ve created a special Nonprofit Toolkit just for you.

If you are really serious about getting far and wide distribution of your press releases, PR Newswire is the way to go. PR Newswire’s powerful, targeted online distribution reaches thousands of websites where millions of media, bloggers and consumers are. It’s not cheap, but it does work. And they do offer some great discounts from time to time and in this Nonprofit Toolkit, so take advantage of the free membership for a year and see what happens.

Free and Inexpensive Stock Photography from BigStockPhoto

Next, BigStockPhoto.com has made 500 stock photos available for free. You can download them from the Nonprofit Marketing Guide Stock Photography Image Search Page. You can use these images on your own website, in newsletters, etc.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

Is Web 2.0 Software You Buy from Microsoft?

And Other “Stupid” Questions You Were Too Afraid to Ask!

Photo by B Tal on Flickr

The “Be the Media” project led by the Nonprofit Technology Network and Beth Kanter starts today. The project will ultimately be the “go-to” spot for people who are both learning and teaching about the use of social media in the nonprofit sector.

Beth invited me to participate and I’m looking forward not only to sharing what I know through the project, but also highlighting its growth here for you on this blog and asking for your input on various questions and ideas as Beth leads us through the creation of the various modules.

This week begins with “Why Your Nonprofit Organization Should Be the Media.” Beth kicked off the conversation here.

But before we can get into why social media is so great for nonprofits, let’s back up a step and answer some basic questions that people have asked me quietly under their breath when they were fairly certain no one else was listening, usually after I’d given a talk on online marketing . . .

1) So “Web 2.0″ isn’t software you buy from Microsoft? (Usually said with a slight deer-in-headlights look).

No. Web 2.0 is not a single piece of software, but a whole new way of looking at how we use the Internet. Now anyone, not just the fat cats or tech geeks, can put just about anything online and we can all discuss it, build upon it, and share it with each other. The power of the back-and-forth conversation and the collaboration that comes from that is what’s new and exciting about Web 2.0 over old Web 1.0, which was more about just putting information online. That’s still valuable, but it’s not the same as being able to talk about the information and debate its meaning with others across the street or around the world, all at the same time.

2) Do we really have to have a website? (Usually said by a face sagging from the sheer exhaustion of an already way-too-long to-do list).

You have to have some kind of online home base to work from. It can be a traditional website or a blog, but yes, you do need some kind of page that you can edit at will and where people can find you, without any special membership requirements. In other words, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are great, but I think every nonprofit should start with a site that anyone can visit without a username and password. If you are completely clueless, start with Wordpress.com or Blogger.

3) Do we have to get on MySpace/Facebook? (Usually said with a profound look of worry about having to venture where all the younguns’ are).

Definitely not right away, and maybe never. It totally depends on who you are trying to reach. If the people you are trying to reach — your target demographic — are on a particular social networking site, then at some point, yes, you should work on being there too. But if the people you need to talk to the most don’t use those sites, then there is no need to make them a high priority. And it’s much more important to have your home-base website or blog in good shape than to start creating additional outlying pages that will be hard for you to keep updated.

4) Why should I be excited about letting some random person we’ve never heard of before raise money for our group? This is a nightmare! (Usually said with a look of great alarm after hearing me talk about online fundraising widgets like those individuals can create on Six Degrees).

This question is usually coming from one of two fears: (1) the person will go way off-message in raising the money and (2) the money will not actually be turned over to the charity.

Think about the best in-person conversation you’ve had in the last year with friends or family. Did you both have a script and did you both follow it exactly? Of course not! To realize the greatest benefits of social media, you have to let the conversation happen naturally, off script. Yes, you have to give up control of the message (which, honestly, you don’t have anyway). But why not embrace these fans and give them a little help, gently correctly any mistakes as you give them loads of praise for helping you? And people who use widgets from the established organizations like Six Degrees don’t actually see the money themselves — it goes through a processing company that cuts the check to the nonprofit directly.

5) I love the idea of using photos on our website or sharing through Flickr, but how do I get the photos off of my digital camera? (Usually said by someone laughing at herself for not being able to figure it out).

Your camera has some kind of memory card in it. That card is like a little hard drive where your pictures are stored and you need to let your main computer see that little hard drive. You can usually do this in one of two ways. First, your camera may have come with a cord that allows you to plug the camera into your computer through a USB or firewire slot. Or you can take the card out and plug it into a card reader that’s already built into your computer or that’s plugged into a USB slot. Your computer will give your memory card a drive letter. Find that, and then you simply copy and paste (or move) your picture files from that drive to your hard drive, just like you move any other file from one folder to another.

OK, with all of that out of the way, let’s have some fun talking about nonprofits and social media!

Tags: bethemedia, social media, Social Networking

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

Dealing with Critics on Facebook – My Advice

Beth Kanter has a great fictional example on her blog today about a nonprofit called “Seagulls Global Internship International” that works with students. Those students have turned against the nonprofit by creating a Facebook group to criticize the new organizational logo. Beth asks, what would you do if you were the social networking manager? Would you bash the students, ignore them, defend your decision, or explain the design process? What do you tell your colleagues who are skeptical of using Facebook anyway?

Here’s my advice:

1) Respond directly with respectful humor. Acknowledge the comments right away, engage in the conversation at least initially, but make it clear that the decision won’t be reversed. A little self-deprecating humor can go a long way in cases like this. Admit that the students might have a good point or two. I wouldn’t get into the design process much at all, unless a bunch of the students were actually involved in it. In that case, you should ask those students themselves if they’d be willing to defend the logo decisions to their peers.

2) Then immediately try to redirect their energy into something related but new. Maybe one of the signature initiatives of the nonprofit needs its own logo, or maybe they need a logo for their next worldwide seagull fest. Maybe it’s time to update the design of the student recruitment brochure. Explain exactly how the students can participate in the development of that logo or new design. And make sure it’s legit — that they will actually have some say in the process. The students who are genuinely interested in design and logos will jump at the chance to be a part of something real. It also shows that you really do respect their opinions.

3) Tell the rest of your staff to take a deep breath. Remind your colleagues that you should all be overjoyed that the students are so interested in your organization that they are willing to create their own group to bash a logo. Since they are genuinely interested in the program and are not just “bashers du jour,”  this is really a great opportunity to find ways  to make the students feel  like they have  a real voice and role in the organization.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

Use PowerPoint Much? Some Tips from Two Must-Read Books

I’ve been using PowerPoint for years to teach workshops and while I usually get great reviews from participants, I’ve always felt like something wasn’t quite right about the way I used the slides. When I decided to launch the weekly webinar series on nonprofit marketing this year, I knew I’d be using PowerPoint much more often, and since participants wouldn’t see me, the slides had to work really well. It was time to address that nagging feeling.

I purchased two books: “Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 to Create Presentations that Inform, Motivate, and Inspire” by Cliff Atkinson and “Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery” by Garr Reynolds. I highly recommend both. Here are a few key points and my take on the strengths of each book, if you can’t fathom reading both.

While the tone of the books is very different, the authors are totally in sync on several points.

1) Remove all those bullet points from your slides.

2) Instead, fill your slides with a photo or graphic, with very minimal text (one short sentence).

3) Use storyboarding techniques to map out your presentation.

4) Treat your slides like the visual channel and your voice like the audio channel, creating one seamless presentation that feeds your participants’ minds in a more natural way. It’s apparently impossible for our brains to read text on slides while also listening to words and to process both fully. (This makes perfect sense if you think about how annoyed you get when you try to talk to someone who is reading and they refuse to stop. You know they aren’t really listening to you – because they can’t.)

5) Therefore, stop treating your slides like your presentation notes (my sin) or like handouts. The slides, your speaking notes, and handouts are three distinct items all with their own needs.

6) Both love istockphoto.com. I already purchase credits there by the hundreds, so at least I’m getting that part right.

7) Chuck the provided templates and don’t put your logo on every slide.

On to the differences in the books . . .

Beyond Bullet Points (BBP) is three times the size of Presentation Zen (Zen). It took me about two weeks to get through it, reading in bits and pieces. I read Zen in one day (yesterday, Superbowl Sunday) despite dozens of household interruptions. BBP is published by Microsoft Press and it looks and feels like a manual, including black-and-white graphics. Zen is a much more beautiful book, with full color slides, very clean design, nicer paper, etc.

BBP is better if you really have no clue how to structure a talk. The heart of the book is showing you how to use a three-act structure to create your presentation and how this structure matches up with how people learn and retain information. Even though I think the structure of most of my courses is fundamentally solid, I did pick up some great tips about how people take in information and will be making some adjustments accordingly.

For example, it’s better to have three times as many slides and keep only one point per slide than to crowd fewer slides with multiple bullet points. Some of my five-hour workshop presentations have about 60 slides and I now see how I could easily triple that, following the “one slide per minute” rule of thumb. (I do lots of exercises, so during a five-hour workshop, I’m probably only speaking two-three hours.) BBP also contains lots and lots of PowerPoint how-tos, much of which I skipped over since I’m fairly comfortable with the software. I did learn a few new tricks though, so do skim those sections.

Zen is better if you are seeking advice on what your slides should actually look like. Where BBP tells you what to do with your slides, Zen really shows you. The three chapters on design really make the book. Zen doesn’t explain how to outline your presentation in anywhere close to the level of detail of BBP. Instead, it talks much more conceptually about what makes a good presentation and leaves it up to you to decide whether a three-act structure or some other format works best for your material.

I’m glad I read them in the order that I did. BBP is more of a how-to manual and primer on how people take in data and process it. It shows you how to take your zillion bullet points and tame them into a presentation that people may actually remember.

Zen speaks at a much higher level about incorporating “six aptitudes for the conceptual age” into your presentations. These are design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. As the author says, Presentation Zen is an approach, not a method (like BBP). I really enjoyed Zen, but I think much of that has to do with just finishing BBP. I think if I would have read Zen first, I might have been left yearning for more methodology. But with the BBP foundation, Zen really helped me see how to bring my own creativity and personality into a well-structured presentation. And like I said earlier, the slide design chapters alone are worth the price of the book.

Whether you give presentations with PowerPoint to hundreds or thousands of people at conferences or to small groups of supporters or board members, you need to read these books. They will change the way you prepare for every talk you give and your audiences will be eternally grateful.

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Bad Design, Bad Design, Whatcha Gonna Do?

Watcha gonna do when the design police come for you?

If you fancy yourself a member of the Design Police, here’s a fun site where you can download your own template of red-ink messages to plaster all over bad graphic designs in your office or out in public.
http://www.design-police.org/ 

Not a designer, but forced to do it anyway? This kit will give you a sense for what tees off the professional design world.

Thanks to the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington for the tip.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)