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, speaker, 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.
The 4th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Award Program deadline is March 19, 2010. There are categories for small, medium, and large organizations. I’m thrilled to be one of the judges this year and am looking forward seeing some great video storytelling!
Kivi Leroux Miller of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com reviews “Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications” by Sarah Durham. Highly recommend. Buy it!
Katya Andresen is hosting this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival where the theme is Nonprofit Highs and Lows, so I thought I’d share a story with you that several people have asked me about recently. If you want to know how Nonprofit Marketing Guide really got started, here’s the honest account.
Let’s flip back to March 2007 . . . way before the word “webinar” entered my daily vocabulary. It was only three years ago, but it feels like a lifetime.
Back then, I was consulting full-time for nonprofit clients, providing a variety of communications services. Though I was working with about six or seven clients at a time on average, one client, a national membership organization, represented about 75% of my workload and my income from 2003-2006. It seemed like a pretty sweet situation.
The executive director and I were friends from way back, long before either one of us began working for this organization. So while I wasn’t formally on staff, I was treated not only like the staff communications director, but also as a trusted confidante for the executive director. We had both worked in this particular field for a long time, so I knew many of the people on the board of directors and got along very well with the rest of the staff.
Then in 2006, several problems that had been isolated and somewhat independent started to coalesce. If you’ve worked in the nonprofit world for long, you’ll recognize many of these situations:
The organization developed some corporate partnerships, largely to secure much-needed funding, but some board members objected to these new relationships.
New staff were brought in to implement the programs these new partners wanted, but those staff had little history within the field. Some people considered these “fresh voices” and others considered them “flacks.”
Many people became concerned about mission-creep and where the organization was headed.
The executive director started confiding in a few select board members and funders, effectively shutting everyone else (including me) out of the conversations. What remained of our friendship quickly evaporated.
Board members on the outs with the executive director started calling me and other staff members to get information, and various dueling camps formed within the staff and the board. Many ugly conversations took place.
By late 2006, I hated working for this client, and because they were my largest client, I hated my job. Because my work is so important to me, that meant I hated much of my life.
I knew I had two choices: I could either let the situation continue to drag on and end up having my contract terminated, probably by the summer of 2007, or I could take control of the situation and terminate the agreement myself. The first option was the financially prudent choice. It would have allowed me to continue receiving my biggest paycheck for a while longer, while I worked to pick up more clients. But I would have been miserable for another six months.
So, I chose the second option. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I registered the domain nonprofitmarketingguide.com on January 24, 2007 and gave my client six weeks notice shortly after that.
On my birthday, March 31, 2007, I was broke and not sure how I would pay our bills in the coming months. I also remember being completely overjoyed to be free of this huge, depressing burden and thinking that I had given myself the best birthday present ever: freedom to start anew.
It was my worst low in the nonprofit world, because I saw how the desperation that comes from inadequate funding and the lack of honest, consistent communication can tear organizations and people apart. It was my best high in the nonprofit world, because that’s also when I started to figure out the role I really wanted to play in the nonprofit sector.
It took the rest of 2007 for me to really understand what it was that I wanted to do with NonprofitMarketingGuide.com, and in December of that year, I launched what has grown into our weekly webinar series. Instead of working with a handful of clients each year, I get to work with thousands — everyone who attends one of our webinars or my in-person workshops — and I love every minute of it. Truth be told, I’m still paying off some of the debt that carried us through 2007. But it was the best money I ever spent.
So that’s my story. The lessons?
Don’t stay in a job you hate, especially in the nonprofit world, where you have so many opportunities to do work you truly love. When you see people keeping secrets from or gossiping about other staff and board members, either shine a bright light on the situation or get out fast. Change is always hard, but in my experience, it’s nearly always good.
These results mimic last year’s, and in the comments on last year’s post, a few people suggested that the fact that the donations were processed by Network for Good may have been part of the problem, because Network for Good may not be the nonprofit’s preferred way to process online donations or because the Network for Good system is too cumbersome for some nonprofits.
I don’t know if the same issue will come up when discussing this year’s experiment, but I do know this: Whether you prefer to work with Network for Good for your online payment processing or not is a moot point. Whether you’ve even heard of Network for Good or not is moot.
But even if none of this were true, I would give you the exact same advice, because you as a nonprofit manager don’t get to make all the decisions about how people donate online to your cause.
You can certainly guide them down your preferred path, which may be a “Donate” button on your website connected to some other processing system. But if a donor wants to support your cause through Facebook Causes, Guidestar, CharityNavigator, Change.org, Capital One’s Giving Site (which I used for my experiment), or through Network for Good itself, then Network for Good is processing that donation for your donor and for you.
Some of you are wondering who and what the heck this Network for Good is. It’s a nonprofit itself, founded by AOL, Cisco, Time Warner Foundation, and Yahoo! to make it easier for nonprofits to fundraise online and for individuals to support the many causes they care about. If you file a 990, you are in their system, because the IRS sends your 990 to GuideStar, and GuideStar shares the resulting database with Network for Good. They’ve distributed over $370 million in online donations to more than 50,000 different nonprofit organizations. In January of this year alone, they collected $398,000 dollars for charities per day.
Bottom line: No matter how big or how small your organization may be, some of your donors will contribute to you via Network for Good.
Here is what Katya Andresen says Network for Good is doing to make information about these donations available and accessible to you:
“Real-time reporting is accessible for organizations that receive donations through our site or our partner sites where they can view donor details (they can also export that information). A staff member can elect to get an email notification with a daily summary of donations made to the organization.
Nonprofits can elect to have payments deposited by EFT. Otherwise a check is mailed, which includes an insert with details about the payment, how to find donor information for acknowledgements, etc. In addition, we have a check website at networkforgoodcheck.org dedicated to explaining how donations are processed and where charities can find more information.
Lastly, we have free training and tips on how to communicate with donors at fundraising123.org.”
You should work with Network for Good to turn these one-time donors into life-long supporters.
1. Make sure your profile in GuideStar is correct.You can update your profile here. That’s where Network for Good gets your mailing address and it’s what donors see too. Some organizations, especially those with chapters, may be listed in GuideStar under several different names. Make sure your main listing has “headquarters” or “national office” or something like that in the listing.
2. Sign up to get the daily email notification of any donations received for your organization by Network for Good. Sign up here.
3. Send a thank-you note to the donor within a week. Do not wait until you actually get the money from Network for Good!I made my donations on December 9, but because Network for Good only sends the donations to nonprofits once a month, the nonprofits didn’t get the donation until January 15. Now, I know how this system works, but most donors won’t. They’ll think that extra time is you not being responsive. And since you can get the data from Network for Good daily, it really is up to you to stay on top of it. (FYI, donations made through Network for Good are non-refundable in all but a few rare cases, so odds are extremely high that you will get the money. No need to wait to send the thank-you.)
Network for Good does send an automated email on your behalf immediately after the donation, so the donor knows the transaction was successful. It says “Thank You for Your Support” on it, but it’s really just a receipt. It’s up to you to send a genuine thank-you from your organization.
4. Add your new donor to your e-newsletter mailing list. Donors can decide whether to share their contact information with you or not. If they share an email address, put them on your email newsletter list. This person has already expressed support for your work through the donation, so it’s a pretty safe bet that they want to hear from you about the good work you are doing with their money. Communications with first-time donors is what turns them into second-time donors. They can always unsubscribe later if they want.
Of the 22 national organizations I gave to in this experiment last year and this year, only one put me on their email newsletter list (way to go St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital!).
5. Ask for another donation. After thanking your donor and communicating with him or her about the results you are producing, ask for another gift. Treat this person like any other donor. With the exception of some soft asks in the St. Judes’ email newsletter, none of the 22 organizations I’ve donated to through this experiment has asked for another gift.This is even more mind-boggling to me than the lack of thank-you notes!
Next week I’ll share some tips on writing a really good thank-you letter.
P.S. Here’s what’s coming up on our webinar schedule . . .
It’s time to share the results of my 2009-2010 “What I Got When I Gave” Experiment. The point of this experiment is to see what kind of communications response I get in return for unsolicited donations to national charities. This does not include the automated email receipt that I get from the payment processor; I’m looking for communication from the charity directly.
On December 9, 2009, I gave $20 donations to 10 national nonprofits I had previously never donated to by converting credit card miles into cash donations through the Capital One Giving Site. I agreed to share my email address and my mailing address with the nonprofits.
I’ve confirmed with Network for Good, Capital One’s donation processing partner, that the donations were transmitted to the nonprofits on January 15, 2010. The delay has to do with how Network for Good bundles donations and transmits them to nonprofits once a month. So, while I gave in early December, I’m considering the donation date January 15 for this experiment’s purpose. Capital One covers the processing fees, so each charity received the full $20.
Today is February 18. It’s been a month, and I’ve heard from only three of the 10 organizations. This is the same result as last year, when I got four thank-yous in response to 12 gifts. It was a pitiful response then, and a pitiful response today.
First, let’s give a hand to the three groups that made the effort.
This year’s winner for “First Thank You Received” goes to Ashoka. The letter was sent on January 22. The letter is nothing special – your garden variety donation receipt form letter. It says Dear Kivi, but the signature is a blurred scan of a signature. Not fabulous content-wise, but sent within a week, so they get big points for speed.
This year’s winner for “Not Treating Me Like a Total Stranger” is the National Parks Conservation Association, because they treated the donation like a membership. The envelope says “Thank you!” in big letters and “Important membership information enclosed.” The letter says “Dear Kivi, Thank you for Joining NPCA!” (Joining is capitalized, which I assume is a weird merge thing they should fix). The letter says I can find out how my donation is helping by visiting their website, and has a punch-out membership card at the bottom. The letter also says that an invitation to join their monthly giving program was included, but the only thing in the envelope was the letter and a plain business reply envelope. I assume the absent reply card is a mail-house mistake. I received the letter the first week of February.
The Honorable Mention goes to Girls Incorporated. They sent a plain white postcard with some generic thank-you language on the back along the lines of “‘Thank you so much for your gift . . . on behalf of the girls whose lives you change with your support, thank you.” The only thing on the front is the mailing label. I think the card probably looked clean when it was mailed, but after postal processing, it’s all smeared and smudged. I received the postcard the first week of February.
None of these thank-you notes wowed me, but hey, at least they exist.
I also made donations to the following organizations and have not received anything in response to date:
I suppose there are lots of reasons why a national nonprofit may not acknowledge a $20 gift, some better than others. Who knows, maybe something is lost in the mail or the spam folder (although I looked there). I invite representatives of the organizations mentioned in this post to share their perspectives either in the comments or by emailing me at kivi@ecoscribe.com.
Excuse or no excuse, these results, assuming they hold true throughout the sector (and other experiments say they do), are very bad news. How can nonprofits expect to thrive off the kindness of others, when the kindness of a simple thank-you note to an unsolicited donation is too much to ask? Of course, it’s great news to those of you who are doing thank-you notes, because it means you are head-and-shoulders above your peers!
In a post I’ll publish tomorrow, I’ll talk about why every nonprofit needs to figure out how to incorporate Network for Good into its fundraising and communications plan, whether you like getting donations that way or not, and how to do that, including some tips from Katya Andresen, Network for Good’s COO. Network for Good processes payments for GuideStar, Facebook Causes, and many others. Ignoring them isn’t an option.
Next week, I’ll post some tips on how to write good thank-you notes. Here are a few earlier posts until then:
(If you want to comment on this post and are on the blog homepage, go back up to the top and click on the number to the right of the title. Annoying, I know. I’m looking into a new template.)
I’ve been working as a volunteer board member with Positive Wellness Alliance (PWA), a small nonprofit that serves low-income people with HIV/AIDS, to incorporate more storytelling and more gratitude into their donor communications. If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know how strongly I believe in both storytelling and thank-yous as powerful nonprofit marketing and fundraising tools.
Lest you have any doubt about this magical power I’m talking about, let me share what just happened with PWA’s email newsletter.
At our February board meeting last Tuesday, Julie Meyer, the executive director, told us about one woman, Shonda, who had received gifts for her child and herself through our “adopt a family” Christmas program. Julie was clearly touched by Shonda’s gratitude, and so I told Julie she should write up Shonda’s story for our e-newsletter, but that she needed to do it soon, because mid-February is a little late to be talking about Christmas.
Julie jumped right on it and asked her administrative assistant Mary Berkley Whitley to work with Shonda’s case manager Kelly Newsome to write up the story. They whipped it together and emailed it to our supporters on Friday. Here’s the story. The subject line was “Hearts Were Touched During the Holidays.”
I’m sharing this with you for two reasons. First, it’s a great example of how to combine storytelling and gratitude into one email newsletter. PWA protects the privacy of both its clients and the “Secret Santas” through this program, so we can’t really connect grateful clients and generous supporters one by one. But by telling Shonda’s story of gratitude for PWA and its supporters, we as an agency can pass on our gratitude to everyone who participated in the program this year (more than 60 children in families affected by HIV/AIDS were adopted by PWA supporters as part of the program). All of the Secret Santas on the email list can see the good they’ve done by hearing Shonda’s story. It’s exactly the kind of feedback that donors want after giving. It’s worth sharing with you for that reason alone.
Now here’s the second reason, and the one that really drives home the power of this approach. As soon as I saw the email newsletter on Friday, I emailed Julie and said “I bet someone will want to pay for Shonda’s nursing exam.” In the story (read it now if you haven’t yet), Mary Berkley and Kelly mentioned Shonda’s inability to take the nursing exam simply as a way to set up her financial situation and how, despite her best efforts to support herself and her son, she was still falling short and desperately needed the help of PWA and its supporters to provide for her baby, especially at Christmas. There was no covert attempt on their part whatsoever to ask for additional support for Shonda.
This morning, the next business day after the email newsletter went out, Julie received email messages from two people on the mailing list, offering to help pay for Shonda’s nursing exam. One was a nurse herself and the other has many nurses in her family. I don’t know how this story will eventually turn out, but the fact that two people responded to the email doesn’t surprise me at all. Donors respond positively to real stories about real struggles and to gratitude, especially gratitude from someone like Shonda, who’s struggling with problems that many of us can’t imagine. The nursing connection was obviously a very powerful motivator for these donors too.
Would these same two supporters have responded to an email from PWA that asked point-blank for someone to help Shonda with her nursing exam fees? Maybe . . . or maybe not. By asking directly for something in a thank-you note, I believe you risk diluting much of the goodwill you create with your gratitude. I think the fact that this was a pure “thank-you” email actually made it much more likely that donors would respond in the way they did.
I want to point out that Julie, Mary Berkley and Kelly are not professional writers nor do they consider themselves natural-born storytellers. In fact, it’s taken a quite of bit of coaxing from me to get them to embrace this approach, but now that they have, they are writing wonderful stories about the people PWA helps and their stories are touching PWAs supporters in new ways with every piece of communications the agency sends out. You do not need a professional communications staff to make this work for you! (I’m teaching our popular storytelling webinar this Thursday if you want to learn how).
I’d love to hear your reaction to this story I’ve now shared with you . . . what’s your take on using storytelling and gratitude as nonprofit marketing strategies?
I just wrapped up an hour-long teleconference for Network for Good’s Nonprofit 911 series titled “Ensuring Your E-Newsletters are Read – Not Dead – On Arrival This Year.” The focus of the call was on creating a newsletter strategy that really provides value for your readers.
I created two new pages at Nonprofit Marketing Guide for the call:
I have to admit, it’s a rather ambitious topic for one hour. I’m in the middle of the PowerPoint deck now trying to find the sweet spot between giving you enough information to really make a difference in your online marketing strategy and giving you too many to-do list items that you run screaming from the whole idea of integration.
Here’s the framework I’m using right now. Please share any comments you have as I’m sure I’ll be playing around with this until sometime tomorrow morning! For those of you attending, I promise to have the handout available an hour before the webinar (but probably not much sooner!)
You can integrate your online marketing in three steps:
(1) Connecting
Make sure everything links to everything else. Do that by putting links into web and e-news templates, email signatures, and social media profiles. Use social media icons (search “free social media icon set” for tons of them) to make these links more obvious. If your e-news provider offers it, use the social media sharing links at the bottom of your e-newsletters (otherwise add your own).
Consider whether auto-updating makes sense. You can connect your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to update each other. Think about whether and how that makes sense given the type of content you share, how often, and with whom.
Ensure basic branding is in place. Your website, blog, e-news, and social media sites don’t need to be 100% identical, but it should be crystal clear that they are all produced by the same people.
(2) Strengthening
Think holistically about your online content creation. Integrate what you put out there by using an editorial calendar, while at the same time, recognizing which channel is best for what (e.g. email good for clear calls to action; social media good for awareness). Don’t think of your website as something entirely different from your e-news, or your e-news as entirely different from your Twitter feed. Figure out what you want to communicate, and spread that across the channels in a way that makes sense.
Think about the paths. Think about how you want people to travel from channel to channel, and what they will see at each stop along the way. For example, if your e-news links to your website, what’s on that landing page? Does that landing page urge visitors to discuss the topic on Facebook or Twitter? If someone starts on Facebook, how are you encouraging them to sign-up for your e-newsletter? Again, it goes back to understanding how to get the most out of each channel.
Encourage multiple connections. Many of your fans will connect with you in multiple ways without being asked (e.g. they will subscribe to your e-news, blog feed and Twitter stream), but others will need some prodding. Connecting with people in multiple ways increases the odds that your messages will actually get through to them. You may need to offer some incentives (e.g. people on the email list get certain benefits, or get them first).
(3) Reinforcing
Learn from your metrics. Watch what’s happening along the paths that connect your online channels. Where are people coming from and where are they going? Are certain types of your supporters more likely to use one channel or another? What content produces the most interaction (e.g. clicks, comments, forwards, shares) in which channels?
Listen to the conversation, and bring in back into your content. You’ll learn a great deal from the conversation in social media that you can use to inspire and inform you e-news and web content. For example, a conversation on Twitter can transform into a new update you send out via your e-newsletter. Blog comments can direct updates to other parts of your website.
Make sense? What’s most important? What’s missing? Please share your thoughts in the comments and I’ll see you on the webinar!
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Magic Keys Radio/Podcast
A couple of times per month, Kivi Leroux Miller and Claire Meyerhoff host a live Internet radio show and podcast.
Looking for the 
Here’s a bunch of good stuff for nonprofit communicators that I’ve come across in the last month or so . . .
. Watch to learn how to get me to buy a copy for you!
It’s time to share the results of my 2009-2010 “What I Got When I Gave” Experiment. The point of this experiment is to see what kind of communications response I get in return for unsolicited donations to national charities. This does not include the automated email receipt that I get from the payment processor; I’m looking for communication from the charity directly.
I’ve been working as a volunteer board member with 
I just wrapped up an hour-long teleconference for 
