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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.
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me with your questions and comments. You can also learn more about hiring me as a coach or consultant.
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As of this morning, 44 nonprofits have signed up for this week’s Nonprofit Marketing Guide teleseminar called “Getting Reporters to Cover Your Nonprofit: Tell Your Story So They’ll Tell It Too” with Claire Meyerhoff. You’ve still got time to register before the call starts on Wednesday 2/6/2008 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Registration is just $20 and that covers as many people as can comfortably sit around the speaker phone in your office.
We’ll be taking questions for most of the call via email and IM, but you can send in questions in advance too, whether you are registered or not. Just email them to ask@hotseatquestions.com. It’s a special email address I set up just for these “Hot Seat” interviews with experts. I’ll post a few of the best Q&As here after the call.
Here is a small excerpt from one of Claire’s messages to me as we’ve been preparing for this call:
“Nonprofits spend so much time thinking about relationships when it comes to $$$, yet when it comes to getting coverage, they think they can fire off a lame press release (caring and sharing and hope and hearts and helping and giving, blah blah blah) and get coverage. It takes time to cultivate contacts in the media!”
That’s just a tiny taste of the great real-world wisdom Claire will share with us on Wednesday. Register now to be a part of it.
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Claire Meyerhoff |
Last month, Claire Meyerhoff called to interview me about nonprofit storytelling for some articles she is working on, and we ended up having an hour-and-a-half chat about how hard it is for so many nonprofits to get press coverage, even though they have such great stories to tell.
We shared all kinds of theories about why this is true, and one of Claire’s points was really on target: Nonprofits need to cut the bull! Blathering on about your wonky mission statement, the infinitely deep root causes of a problem, and the complicated system-wide solutions required just doesn’t work for print reporters who need to think in terms of hundreds of words, not thousands, and TV journalists who can give you only 30 seconds of airtime.
I was so impressed with Claire’s down-to-earth perspective that I asked if she’d be interested in doing a teleseminar with me. Then she told me a bit more about her history and I couldn’t wait to host this event.
If you can spare $20 for some great media training, here’s where you should spend it:
Getting Reporters to Cover Your Nonprofit: How to Tell Your Story So They’ll Tell It Too!
It’s next week’s Nonprofit Marketing Guide teleseminar (in other words, it’s a toll-free conference call) on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific). Gather ’round the speaker phone — as long as you are all from the same organization, $20 buys training for your whole staff.
Here’s what you should know about Claire, and why I was so eager to introduce her to all of you. Claire is a communications professional who has spent twenty-something years spreading the word with no muss and no fuss. As a news writer in CNN’s Washington bureau, she took complex stories and honed them into :30 worth of copy fit for Judy Woodruff and Wolf Blitzer. She also helped the National Safe Kids Campaign make the CBS Evening News — and I’ll have her share the story about why that wouldn’t have happened if she had done what the “higher ups” wanted her to do.
She has also reported on Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath on XM Radio’s “Red Cross Radio” channel, and she wrote and narrated an award-wining video for Ronald McDonald House of Durham, NC. Simply put, Claire gets nonprofits and on Wednesday, she’ll help you get the media.
I’m calling this a “Hot Seat” interview, which means I’ll spend the first 15-20 minutes of the hour-long call peppering Claire with some good, tough questions. Then it’s your turn. You can submit questions in advance and during the teleseminar via email to ask AT hotseatquestions.com or send them in via AIM to hotseatquestions.
Get the details and register for the teleseminar now.
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This week’s webinar at Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com is “Ten Easy Fixes for Your Boring Print Newsletter.” It’s on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 from 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific). Registration is $49.
Not sure if you should take this webinar or not? See if your print newsletter is showing any of these signs of being really boring:
1) The “Letter from the Executive Director” is on the cover or takes up a whole page. This is a tell-tale sign that your newsletter is more about what you think is interesting than what your audience cares about, which is the number one reason that nonprofit newsletters are boring. Even if it is not on the cover, if your executive message fills a whole page anywhere in your newsletter, odds are it’s boring.
2) You’re talking about stuff that happened months ago. Don’t summarize an event that happened three months ago in your newsletter. That tells me that you don’t have enough good stuff going on now and in the future to fill your pages. I’m not against event summaries in newsletters, but make sure they are very recent or that you’ve turned them into some other useful form of information, like a how-to article. Otherwise it’s just boring old news.
3) The photos are all grip-and-grins and fig-leaf lineups. Yes, we want people photos, but the same ol’ award ceremony and big check photos are uninspiring and have nothing to do with your mission. Same goes for the fig-leaf lineups (you know, where everyone is standing with their hands crossed in front of their privates). More on bad photo poses.
4) The word “You” is rarely used. People want to read information that is relevant to them and the word “You” in headlines, subheads, and first sentences of paragraphs signals that the writer is talking directly to the reader. If you aren’t talking to me, the reader, why should I care what you have to say? In other words, talk to me directly, or I’m bored.
5) You’ve reduced the type size to make everything fit. This usually means that you either don’t want to edit what you’ve written or don’t know how, and either way, unedited, rambling text with too many tangential details is really boring.
If you see your newsletter here, register for the webinar on Wednesday. One of my freelancing friends from my days in Washington DC, Ruth Thaler-Carter, will join me in answering your questions. Ruth is a veteran nonprofit newsletter writer, editor and designer and will have lots of great tips to share with us.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Using stories in your nonprofit annual report is a great way to bring to life what might otherwise be some stiff writing on your activities and accomplishments. But simply throwing some stories into the text won’t do. You need to be very focused and highly selective about which stories you use and how you tell them in your annual report. Here are my top five tips for using stories in annual reports. For more advice on annual reports, register for my webinar on Thursday, “Writing Your 2007 Nonprofit Annual Report - A Crash Course.”
Make the Story Immediately Relevant. A touching story about a little girl’s struggle to overcome a rare disease is heart-warming, but it’s nothing more than that if I don’t understand how this child is connected to your organization and specifically to the accomplishments. I’m reading your annual report to understand what you achieved last year. That little girl’s story needs to help me understand what your organization did. Ideally by the end of the first paragraph, and definitely by the end of the second, make it clear to me the role your organization played in helping this child. It’s what journalists call the “nut graph.”
Put Stories in Context. Stories about a single person are great for many reasons, but we also need to understand the larger context. How many other children have been helped by your support program, beyond the one you are telling us about in detail?
Cut the Fluffy Details. If you spend an hour interviewing someone, it can be really tough to hone in on which details matter most. But you need to include only the details that support why you are telling this particular story in the first place. We do not need a life history. We don’t need to know about all the other players in the story. Look at every detail and quote you provide and ask yourself if it reinforces or detracts from that nut graph.
Keep It Short. Let’s face it — people are more likely to skim your report than to read it, which means short, tight writing is much better than long essays. It’s also very unlikely that each story you tell is going to connect with all of your readers in the same way. That’s why I would rather spend 200 words on one person, 200 on another, and 100 words pulling it all together in a 500-word section than spending the whole 500 words talking about one person.
Let the Subject Approve the Copy. You are telling someone’s personal story as a way to promote your organization’s accomplishments. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as the person agrees that you played the role you say you did. By allowing the story’s subject to approve the final copy, you ensure that both your organization and the individual will stand behind the claims you are making about your successes.
I’ll keep my eyes open for good storytelling in annual reports and let you know when I see some strong examples. If you find some, please share by leaving a comment on this post.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Starting next week, I will be offering a weekly webinar/teleseminar series on nonprofit marketing and communications topics. Webinars will have both audio and visuals, teleseminars with have audio only, and e-clinics will include personal coaching.
Here are the first seven events, with much more to come:
Writing Your 2007 Nonprofit Annual Report: A Crash Course Webinar, 1/17/08Â ($49)
Ten Easy Fixes for Your Boring Print Newsletter - A Webinar, 1/23/08Â ($49)
How to Make Your Nonprofit Brochures Pop - The Crash Course Webinar, 1/29/08 ($49)
How to Make Your Nonprofit Brochures Pop - The Webinar and E-Clinic Combo, 1/29Â & 1/31/08Â ($139)
Getting Reporters to Cover Your Nonprofit: How to Tell Your Story, So They’ll Tell It Too! - A Teleseminar, 2/6/08Â ($20)
What Should We Write About? Storytelling Ideas for Nonprofits - A Webinar, 2/13/08Â ($49)
Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts of Writing for the Web and Email - A Webinar, 2/20/08Â ($49)
I’m lining up several great speakers for additional events in March and April, along with developing some new courses of my own. Subscribe to this blog (upper left of blog homepage) or to my monthly Nonprofit Marketing Tips e-newsletter (middle left of site homepage) to keep up-to-date with the schedule, special offers, and more.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
Do you know the important differences between how people read on paper and how they read on a computer screen? Do you understand how those differences drastically change the way you should write for your website visitors and email newsletter readers?
If you aren’t sure, I’ll show you how to go from confused to confident in under an hour. Register for my next live webinar happening Thursday, December 13, at 2:00 p.m. ET. (That’s 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. CT, Noon - 1:00 p.m. MT, and 11:00 a.m. - Noon PT).
From the comfort of your own desk, you’ll learn the important differences between reading and writing on paper and online, how to make your writing more appealing to online readers, and simple word choice and formatting tricks that can drastically improve your website’s or email’s performance.
You’ll also learn ways to organize your thoughts and ideas to match the way people use the Web and how to convert your existing print publications for use online.
If you want your website visitors and e-newsletter subscribers to actually read what you write, instead of quickly navigating away from your web pages or deleting your email, you have to learn to write in a whole new way. This webinar will show you how.
Registration costs just $49. When you consider how much time you spend on your website and e-newsletter, that’s a tiny investment to make sure your messages get across. During the webinar, you’ll have the chance to ask questions over the phone or via chat, using a toll-free, user-friendly webinar service.
Get the details and register today!
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Posted by Kivi Leroux Miller on Nov 28, 2007 in
Annual Reports,
Nonprofit Communications,
Online Courses If you missed my free webinar today on “Getting Ready to Write Your 2007 Annual Report,” you can now view the 37-minute recording online at no charge. Here is the registration page.
It covers what information you need to be gathering now, what decisions you should make before the end of your fiscal year, and what you can put off for a few months. Today’s participants also asked some great questions, so even if you don’t sit and watch the video (although I do have some fun slides), it’s worth listening to while you putter around in your office with other tasks.
Here are a few comments from today’s participants:
“Great webinar… Clear and relevant.”
“Good, clear, high-level content.”
“I found the seminar very helpful - it confirmed for me that we are on the right track with our approach . . . Thank you so much for your time and insight.”
“Thank you - this was very informative.”
“I found the information and the Q&A session extremely helpful.”
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
I’m hosting another free webinar: Getting Ready to Write Your 2007 Annual Report.
As the end of 2007 draws near, nonprofits need to begin thinking about their annual reports for the year.
– What information do you need to compile?
– What decisions should you be making right now?
– What can you put off for a few more months?
– Do you really need an annual report?
Get the answers to all of these questions and more during this free webinar on Wednesday, November 28 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (that’s Noon Central, 11:00 a.m. Mountain, and 10:00 a.m. Pacific). Register Now.
If you are a regular reader, you know that I hosted a free webinar on brochures last month using GotoWebinar. This time I’m trying ReadyTalk. I’ll report back a comparison of the two services after this annual reports webinar for any of you who may be considering a cost-effective webinar solution for your organization.
More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)
