Nonprofit Communications

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.

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?

New donors, volunteers and other potential supporters have questions that they want answered before taking the next step with your organization. These five simple but universal questions that people will have about your organization are best answered not with statistics or wonky program statements, but with stories. Your website is the perfect place to answer these questions.

1) What Do Other People Think About This Group?

Answer with Testimonials. When someone is learning about you for the first time, they’ll be curious what other people think about your organization, your staff and your effectiveness. You can talk about how great you are, but that’s not nearly as convincing as testimonials from other people who aren’t on your payroll (or even on your board). Testimonials are short quotes — little mini-stories — that offer insight into why someone is happy to be associated with your organization in one or two sentences. Gilda’s Club Seattle includes testimonials and photos at the top of nearly every page on its site that instantly convey how important the group is to its supporters.

2) Are People Here Like Me?

Answer with Profiles. When someone donates time or money to your organization, they are joining a virtual community of people who believe in the same cause. If someone is not quite sure if your nonprofit is a good fit for them, showing them that they fit in with other supporters can help overcome that barrier. Profiles of clients, donors, volunteers, members, and other supporters are a good way to show the different kinds of people who are involved with your group, making a newcomer feel more comfortable that they are in the right place. Iraq Veterans Against the War lets members write their own profiles as part of the open, online membership directory.

3) Does This Work?

Answer with Success Stories. Do you get the job done? Are you going to make a difference with the money I give you? Success stories show donors (and potential new donors) exactly what it is you do and how you do it. They can be full-length articles or shorter vignettes like those on the National CASA website. The multimedia stories on the home page show the children they serve and their adult court-appointed advocates speaking about the benefits of the CASA program. These stories end with this simple statement: “Children with a CASA volunteer are less likely to reenter Child Protective Services.” Does it work? Yes, it does.

4) What Difference Can a Single Person Make?

Answer with Personalized Giving Options. Big problems are overwhelming. If you swamp people with the enormity of the need, they are likely to tune you out and move on to something that feels more manageable. One way to overcome this problem is to focus on the difference that a single person can make and clearly demonstrate through storytelling that a new donor, as a single individual, can bring about change by supporting your organization. Tying donor actions or gift levels to specific results is a great way to do that.

Kiva and Donors Choose are the shining stars in this category. CARE’s “I Am Powerful” campaign also makes a clear yet less direct connection between individual donors and the people they are helping.

5) Can I Come Along?

Answer with Personal Chronicles. For your supporters to fully engage with your nonprofit, you have to be willing to share what’s really going on. A small but important segment of your donor base won’t be happy with the level of detail they get in your newsletters. They’ll want more and you should give it to them. Blogs are a natural way to provide this kind of ongoing, detailed, behind-the-scenes narrative about your work.

The Humane Society of the United States’ dispatches from the Canadian seal hunt are riveting (although brutally graphic). It’s one thing to ask supporters to put a “Save the Baby Seals!” bumper sticker on their car — it’s another to invite them to tag along virtually with the HSUS’s Rebecca Aldworth as she chronicles the bloody devastation on the ice floes day in and day out. A more heart-warming example can be found on the Interplast blog, where doctors chronicle their efforts around the globe to repair birth defects like cleft lip.

In both cases, these nonprofits are taking their supporters to places they would likely never physically go themselves, showing them in detail both the need for their support and what can be done with their donations and advocacy. By bringing your supporters along day in and day out, you can make them feel like they really are part of your team.

While storytelling is a wonderful tool for nonprofit marketing, it only works with a specific goal in mind. What point are you trying to make? Or in these cases, what question are you trying to answer? Without a goal behind your story, the words may be interesting or amusing, but the point will be lost on your supporters. Know what question you are answering before you start telling your story for maximum impact.

Learn More Here: Nonprofit Storytelling: How to Write Your Nonprofit’s Best Stories

It’s Blog Reader Appreciation Day! Feedburner says that 1,050 people are subscribed to this blog as of today, so *thanks* to each and every one of you.

Your comments on posts and emails to me have not only shaped this blog into what it is today, but have also inspired me to launch Nonprofit Marketing Guide last year, along with the weekly webinar series this year. Your feedback continues to be a great source of inspiration, so let’s keep the conversation going! I’m having a great time creating all of these resources for you, so thanks for using them!

As a thank-you present to you, dear blog reader, I’m offering two recordings of recent teleseminars at no charge.

You can listen to my interviews with Claire Meyerhoff, who spoke on “Getting Reporters to Cover Your Nonprofit” in February, and Nancy Schwartz, who spoke on “Branding for Nonprofits: What Is It and Should You Do It?” last week. Both include lots of questions from nonprofits who participated in the live events and were very well received. I guarantee that you’ll learn a lot from both of them.

Since these are audio-only files, you can listen while doing mindless office work — but nothing that requires too much brain power, or you’ll miss the great points Claire and Nancy make! (By the way, Claire and I are doing another webinar tomorrow, 4/17/08, on press release writing.)

To get the links to the mp3 files, simply complete this quick registration form, confirm your email address, and check your email box for the links.

And the Annual All-Access Pass Goes to . . .

Lisa Machesky at the Birmingham Bloomfield Community Coalition. Congratulations!

Exactly 50 people emailed me in the last 48 hours to enter the drawing, many with very funny notes about why they should get the prize. But alas, creativity gets you nowhere this time — it was a random selection by Ava Rey, my five-year-old office assistant.

What is this coveted All-Access Pass? It’s a ticket to every webinar I host for a full year, currently priced at $330. You can also get a quarterly pass for $97.

Keep reading even if you didn’t win (or didn’t even see the notice about the contest). I see more giveaways in the future . . .

Thanks to everyone who took the survey on which topics should be on the nonprofit marketing weekly webinar series schedule for this summer. Staff at more than 130 nonprofits voted and here are the top five webinar titles (schedule and registration pages coming soon):

- Must-Have Features for Nonprofit Websites

- How to Increase Traffic to Your Nonprofit Website

- Nonprofit Storytelling: How to Tell Your Nonprofit’s Best Stories (registration now open for May 14 webinar!)

- How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Marketing Campaigns

- Creating a Compelling Message

As promised, all five of these topics will be scheduled this summer, along with several other high-ranking topics, including “Easy and Effective Ways to Build Your E-Newsletter List,” “Best Practices for Nonprofit Email Newsletters,” and “Writing a Quick and Dirty Marketing Strategy for Your Nonprofit.”

If you are subscribed to this blog, you’ll be the first to know when registration opens.

Curious which topics were NOT of interest to nonprofit communicators? Here are the five lowest ranking topics on the survey, which included 40 different titles:

- How to Create Your Nonprofit’s Channel on YouTube

- Using Election-Year Politics to Get Publicity for Your Cause

- Pitching Your Story to Shows Like Oprah and Ellen

- Writing Refresher: Avoiding the Most Common Grammar Mistakes

- Crash Course in Using MS Publisher for Nonprofit Publications

Congrats to the following people who took the survey and are each receiving a free webinar pass (my five-year-old Ava randomly selected the record numbers).

Laura Harrington, Friends of Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Marcos Martinez, Entre Hermanos
Joanna Scott, Victory Ministries
Danielle Thompson, Mascoma Valley Health Initiative
Brian Winters, Star Island Corp.

How many of these situations sound familiar to you?

•    People call your nonprofit all the time asking for assistance on issues you don’t really work on, because they are confusing your organization with another one in town.
•    You don’t have an “elevator speech” because it’s just too hard to explain what it is you do in 30 seconds.
•    You have trouble finding your own organization’s table at a community festival, because your banner and materials blend in with everyone else’s.
•    When your board members talk to potential new donors about the work you do, it sounds as though they are describing a completely different organization than the one you work for.

In all of these cases, your organization is being confused with others, overlooked or misunderstood.  Why?  It’s often because you have no real “brand” — no clear organizational identity, reputation, or single thing that you are best known for.

On the other hand, when you do have a strong brand, people can immediately explain who you are and what you do and can pick you out of the crowd. They are more willing to donate to you and volunteer, because they “get it” — and can easily explain it to their friends and family. Wouldn’t you rather be in that situation than the ones above?

I’m hosting a conference call this Thursday (April 10) at 3:00 p.m. Eastern (Noon Pacific) with nonprofit branding expert Nancy Schwartz, who many of you know from her fabulous blog at GettingAttention.org.  Nancy is going to share all kinds of great tips on nonprofit branding and explain exactly what you need to do to get your nonprofit’s brand in shape, so you can put the confusion and obscurity behind you.

Registration for the call is only $20, and includes as many people as you can gather around the speakerphone in your office. This would be a great time to bring in a few board members for lunch, listen to the call together, and then discuss the state of your brand!

Get the details and register here.

I used some early results from my survey on webinar topics to fill out the Nonprofit Marketing Guide weekly webinar series through early May. (Haven’t taken the survey yet? Do it now. It’s fast, I promise.)

Here is the complete schedule, with an asterisk by those just added:

March 13 - How to Write a 4-Page Nonprofit Annual Report - A Crash Course Webinar

March 20 - Converting Your Print Newsletter into an Email Newsletter

*April 3 - Online Marketing Basics for Nonprofits: From Email to Social Media

April 10 - Branding for Nonprofits: What Is It and Should You Do It? - Teleseminar

*April 17 - How to Write a Press Release Reporters Will Love

April 24 - Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email

*May 1 - What Do Baby Boomer Donors Want from Your Nonprofit?

*May 14 - Nonprofit Storytelling: How to Write Your Nonprofit’s Best Stories

All of these webinars are $35, with the exception of the conference-call only teleseminar on branding on April 10, which is just $20. Your registration covers as many people from your organization as you can fit around one speaker phone and computer monitor.

See several you’d like to attend? Get the All-Access Pass and attend any webinar/teleseminar we host for 12 weeks for just $97!

I recently asked this question in a different way on the Nonprofit section of LinkedIn Answers. The sum advice from all the responses was this:

Keep it short.

Focus on accomplishments.

Thank your supporters.

My annual reports e-book tells you everything you need to know to write a traditional nonprofit annual report, whether it’s 8 pages or 20. But it doesn’t help you figure out a way to keep it really short and tight.

That’s why I am hosting a webinar next Thursday (March 13, 2008, 3:00 pm ET) called How to Write a Four-Page Nonprofit Annual Report. I’ll explain exactly how to go about highlighting your accomplishments and thanking your supporters all in an easy-to-read and easy-to-produce four-page format that any nonprofit can pull off.

And yes, for everyone who has ever asked me for a template and have been disappointed when I said, “I don’t do templates” — I’ll give you a template. Everyone registered for the webinar will get two pdfs that block out what can go where. They won’t be filled with text or photos or charts — that’s your job. But they will give you a headstart on figuring out how much you need to write about what and where to put it.

Get the webinar details and register.

What’s your take on how long a nonprofit annual report should be? Leave a comment and share your perspective as either a donor or a nonprofit or both.

P.S. Have you told me which webinar topics you prefer for this summer? Take the short survey now. I’m going to keep bugging you dear blog readers with this reminder until I have at least 100 responses. Right now, I’ve got 40. Thank you!