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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.
Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on May 21, 2009 in
Magic Keys Radio,
Nonprofit Communications,
Storytelling I’m always talking about the power of storytelling in nonprofit marketing, and a lot of those stories end up taking the form of personal profiles of donors, clients, volunteers and other supporters and partners.
Problem is that many of them are just plain awful. I see bad profiles falling into four categories:
1. Tedious Bio Syndrome. It’s the narrative equivalent of a resume. Or worse, it starts when they were born. Total snoozer.
2. Too Shallow and Wide. The profile brushes over so many different aspects of the person’s life that we don’t get enough interesting detail about any of them. The cardboard cutout equivalent of a human being.
3. Gushing Flackery. The worst kind of profile that is so obviously written just to kiss up (OK, we know you are just trying to say Thank You, but really, it’s too much). Be nice to your VIPs, but don’t overdo it.
4. Mildly Entertaining, But Pointless. It might be a nice story, but why are you telling it? If your reader doesn’t understand why you are telling her about this person and how it is supposed to make her feel or what it is supposed to motivate her to do herself, then what’s the point?
That’s the bad news. The good news is that I have identified seven different formats for personal profiles that are actually interesting and will therefore do what profiles are intended to do: inspire others!
I’m offering two free ways for you to get some tips on how to write better profiles.
- Magic Keys Radio & Podcast This Friday
On Friday, May 22 at Noon Eastern (9:00 a.m. Pacific), Claire Meyerhoff and I will be hosting another live edition of Magic Keys Radio and we’ll be talking about how to write good donor profiles. You can listen live and call/chat in your questions or you can download the podcast (an MP3 recording) right after the show ends.
- Free Webinar on Tuesday, June 9
On Tuesday, June 9 at 1:00 op.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT), I’m teaching How to Write Moving Personal Profiles about Donors, Clients, and Other Supporters. It’s free, but you do need to register in advance. We’ll talk about seven different ways to write engaging, dramatic profiles about the real people around you. We’ll also explore some interviewing techniques that will help you uncover the most interesting elements of a person’s story. Get the details and reserve your spot.
Tags: donor profiles, personal profiles
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It’s official . . . I’m writing a nonprofit marketing how-to book to be published by Jossey-Bass in Spring 2010. It will be the book version of what I’ve been doing for the last several years for clients, on this blog, and through the webinar series: giving you real-world advice on how to get more support for your good cause, without a huge marketing budget or staff behind you.
Between now and the end of August, I’ll be giving you many ways to participate in the creation of the book. I want to use lots of examples to explain the strategies I’m advocating, so I’ll be asking you to share your stories with me. I’ll probably ask you to complete a few quick surveys to help me better understand your needs and questions — after all, if you are reading this blog, you are the target audience for the book too! I’ve wanted to write this book forever, and so many of you have inspired me to really make it happen, so I want to include as many of your stories as I can.
I will not, however, force you to read posts about the writing of the book itself, at least not here on this blog. If you are interested in my book writing experience or in freelancing or consulting for nonprofits in general, I invite you to subscribe to my other blog, Writing for Nonprofits, which I’ve rescued once more from blog purgatory. You’ll get the posts about nonprofit marketing/communications here as always; you’ll get the posts about the creative process and business side of being a writer, consultant, and trainer at Writing for Nonprofits.
P.S. Claire Meyerhoff and I just wrapped up another edition of Magic Keys Radio on Email Newsletter Basics. The podcast is ready. Listen here or subscribe in iTunes.
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Not raising money online yet? Or not raising enough? (How’s that for a stupid question?)
Next week we are hosting a two-webinar boot camp specifically on online fundraising. This is your chance to learn both the basics and the advanced techniques for turning your website and email list into a real, sustainable fundraising force for your cause.
Magic Keys Radio on E-Newsletters
But first, on Friday, Claire Meyerhoff and I are back with another edition Magic Keys Radio, our live Internet radio show and podcast and we’ll be talking e-mail newsletters and how you can use them for fundraising. How to do them, why to do them - whatever you want to know about nonprofit email newsletters - we’ll do our best to answer. Join us on Friday, April 17 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific) for the half-hour show where you listen live over the Internet through your computer speakers. You can call in your questions over the phone or chat them in on the Blog Talk Radio site. The podcast is available right after.
Online Fundraising Basics: Jumpstart Online Giving to Your Good Cause
Then on Tuesday, April 21, I’ll be teaching the “Basic” online fundraising course, where I’ll talk about the different elements you need to have in place, including the system that actually processes your donations securely. But online fundraising is about much more than just processing credit cards and big “Donate Now” buttons. We’ll talk about what you need to have on your website (and where) and what you need to send out in email to be successful. We’ll talk about creating the kind of content for your website and email newsletters that inspires donors to give more, and to give again. We’ll also touch on growing and managing your email list and tracking your success. Get the details.
Advanced Online Fundraising: Getting to WOW! in 8 Steps
On Thursday, April 23, I’ll turn it over to Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies for the “Advanced” course. Alia will show you how to go beyond the basics and, in eight steps, take your online fundraising to an entirely new level. She’ll give you the how-tos and some great examples that show you how it all works. I took a peek at her slides today, and if you feel like you have a solid foundation in place (decent processing, decent website, decent email) and are ready for the next step, you will love this webinar. Get the details.
As usual, individual webinars are an affordable $35. You can take both of these for $70. Or you can do the really smart thing and get the All-Access Pass for $97, and take these two webinars, plus everything else we offer for the next 12 weeks. Your Pass gets you access to both the live and recorded versions of the webinars, plus access to the Webinar Archive of recordings from the past year. Take a 3-Minute Tour of the All-Access Pass.
I hope to see you and your great questions Friday, Tuesday, and/or Thursday!
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Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on Mar 5, 2009 in
Fundraising,
Magic Keys Radio 
If the thought of asking someone for money makes your skin crawl, or you have a board that, despite all your begging and arm twisting, still fails to fundraise for you, tune into Magic Keys Radio on Friday. We’ll be talking about how to get over your fear of fundraising, and how you can help others, like board members, get over their fears.
Claire Meyerhoff and I will be hosting our live Internet radio show at 1:00 p.m. Eastern on Friday, March 6, with special guest Gail Perry. One of Gail’s most popular workshops is on getting boards fired up to fundraise, and a big part of that is helping people get over the fear of asking for money.
You can listen live through your computer, call in or chat in your questions, and download the podcast after the show ends at 1:30 p.m. ET. You can also get it later in the day on iTunes.
In this economy, you need your board working for you to sustain your organization financially. We’ll share even more detailed advice during our upcoming webinar “Taking the Fear Out of Fundraising” on Wednesday, March 18. How about inviting some of your board members to the office to watch it with you and then talking about how to put Gail’s advice to work for your good cause? Get the details and register.
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Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on Feb 19, 2009 in
Fundraising,
Magic Keys Radio,
Nonprofit Communications 
Claire and I are hosting another live edition of Magic Keys Radio and Podcast tomorrow, Friday, February 20 at Noon Eastern (9:00 a.m. Pacific) - this time on fundraising auctions.
Our special guest will be Matt Holiday of Holiday Auctions. Matt has all kinds of great advice on how to make your silent and live auctions raise as much money as possible for your good cause. He knows which items work and which flop. He also knows how to package your items and what to emphasize to get those bids to go higher and higher. And he’ll share it all with us on Friday! Have some vexing auction questions? Here’s your chance to get them answered by one of the top pros in the nation.
Matt was in the first group of auctioneers in the country to acquire the Benefit Auctioneer Specialist professional designation from the National Auctioneers Association. He’s run auctions for groups as diverse as the American Red Cross, Charleston Catholic School, March of Dimes, Western North Carolina AIDS Project, Greenville Rape Crisis & Child Abuse Center, and the National Kidney Foundation. He’s also currently president of the South Carolina Auctioneers Association.
You can listen live (note this is at Noon Eastern, an hour earlier than usual) and call in your questions over the phone or send them in via chat. Just click on the link to go to our BlogTalkRadio page, where you’ll find the streaming audio, the call-in number and the chat window. If you can’t join us live, the podcast is available immediately after the show at the same link and a little bit later in iTunes.
P.S. We’ll talk about auctions a little bit too during next week’s webinar, Turning Your Fundraising Event into the Best Party in Town, on Thursday, February 26. More than 100 nonprofits are registered already!
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Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on Jan 30, 2009 in
Magic Keys Radio,
Mixed Links Claire Meyerhoff and I will be talking about pitching - elevator pitches, pitching your story to the media, etc. - on today’s edition of Magic Keys Radio at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific). The half-hour show is live and you can call in your questions over the phone or send them in via chat. Immediately after the show, you can download it as a podcast.
Elevator pitches are also the topic for next week’s free webinar on Wednesday, February 4. Registration is required, and about 80 nonprofits have signed up so far. Get the details here and join us.
Now on to Mixed Links - great resources, ideas, and commentary for nonprofit communicators:
On Your Website . . .
Webiste useability guru Jakob Nielsen shares some tips on making your website’s press area as reporter friendly as possible.
Bryan Eisenberg suggests 33 free tools that can make your website better.
PotPieGirl talks about her five favorite free keyword research tools. Don’t know what your keywords are? It’s hard to do successful online marketing without them. (Thanks for MarketingProfs for the tip.)
On Your Email Marketing . . .
If you feel like you need to apologize in your email for possibly spamming, it means you are spamming, says Email Marketing Reports. Take note of language you should avoid and the importance of a permission-based list.
More on Online Marketing . . .
The Pew Internet and American Life Project has some fascinating new research out on the future of the Internet — “The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020, and the divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected.” They also have a new report on adult use of social networking sites — “The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now.”
Beth Kanter has a great post and presentation on How to Think Like a Social Media Marketing Genius.
Mobile giving, where people donate via their phones by allowing a charge to be placed on their cell phone bills, is growing faster than online giving did in its first year, says the Mobile Giving Foundation.
Thinking about getting on Twitter? Read John Haydon’s how-to guide first.
On Fundraising . . .
Should you “pre-ask” before asking for a donation? Katya Andresen says probably not, and there’s a spirited debate on the Chronicle of Philanthropy site too, which picked up Katya’s post (I think some of the commenters are missing Katya’s point, but it’s an interesting dialogue on donor cultivation nevertheless).
Jeff Brooks and Marc Pitman show you how to use a fun tool to improve your fundraising copy — See Jeff’s take and Marc’s take.
Most small businesses give to charity - are you overlooking some potentially helpful partners?
Here’s another way that nonprofits are making money through social networking sites (this time by having their supporters include corporate advertising on their profiles).
On Keeping Your Supporters Happy . . .
Fieldstone Alliance - a great source for real-world advice - offers 8 tips for recruiting and retaining volunteers in tough times.
Heather Burton shares some great tips for ways to say Thank You to donors in this Nonprofit Times article.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy went inside the mind of one of the nation’s top donors.
And don’t forget to get your free copy of “The First 100 Days of Your New Nonprofit Marketing Job.”
That’s it for this week!
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Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on Jan 22, 2009 in
Magic Keys Radio,
office hours
I am trying to offer office hours nearly every Friday either through chat on the blog like this week or on our live BlogTalkRadio show, Magic Keys Radio. On Friday, January 30 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Claire Meyerhoff and I will host Magic Keys Radio on all forms of “pitching” - pitching your stories to the press, elevator pitching, etc. Click here to listen or to set a reminder for yourself. You can call in any of your nonprofit marketing questions over the phone and we’ll do our best to answer them live.
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Be the One They Call.
“How to Position Your Nonprofit
as an Expert Source”
Webinar on Thursday,
January 22 at Noon Eastern.
Registration is just $35.
Learn more and register |
If you are interested in how you can increase your organization’s visibility and credibility — and position your staff as expert sources for the media, policymakers and others — you’ll want to check out these three new resources.
First, we’ll be talking about how to be a credible source for the news media this Friday on our first edition of Magic Keys Radio & Podcast in 2009. Join Claire Meyerhoff and me from 1:00 - 1:30 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific) on Friday for the live show, where you can call in your questions over the phone or send them in via online chat.
We’ll be joined by special guest Irina Lallemand, who is a long-time broadcast news director who launched WLRN-Miami Herald News on South Florida’s NPR station and headed the news department at XM Satellite Radio. Her twenty-five years in journalism includes 17 years as Assistant News Director at WCBS 880 News in New York, managing one of the busiest newsrooms in the nation. If anyone is an expert on expert sources, it’s Irina. Join us for Magic Keys Radio live and ask Irina your questions about how to become the media source that always get the calls when a reporter is covering your issue.
Magic Keys is part of my free “Friday Office Hours” program, so feel free to call in with any nonprofit marketing questions you have, whether they relate to our discussion topic or not. Claire, Irina, and I will do our best to answer them! The podcast is available for download immediately after the live show. Here’s the link to this week’s show where you can listen online, find the call-in number and chat window, and subscribe to the podcast.
Second, I’m offering a live webinar on How to Position Your Nonprofit as an Expert Source on Thursday, January 22 at Noon Eastern (9:00 a.m. Pacific). During the webinar, I’ll explain what people are looking for in experts and why most nonprofits are already well-positioned to become expert sources, if they’d only take just a few more steps. We’ll examine five characteristics of a good expert source and explore a handful of strategies your nonprofit can use to promote your expertise. As usual, it’s $35 for as many people as can fit around one computer and it’s included with the All-Access Pass. Learn more and register.
Third, I’ve posted a new article on Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com called “Five Qualities That Will Make You a Good Expert Source.” It explains how good sources have a well-understood niche and solid track record and are trustworthy, accessible, and cooperative, with examples of what those words mean in this context.
Have questions about how to raise your nonprofit’s crediblity as a source?
Do reporters call you all the time? If so, share your tips.
Click on the comments bubble by the post title on the blog to add your comment to the discussion.
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