It’s time for a Nonprofit Marketing Guide community project! We get these questions all the time . . . What should my editorial calendar actually look like? Does it need to be online? Which software should we use? And of course, there are a million ways to do it. Which is not an especially useful…
“Sharing Your Progress” season is coming up fast. That’s when you talk about the highlights and victories of your year, and thank donors for helping you make it happen. We usually see these communications start in mid-November, peaking around Thanksgiving, and then leading into year-end appeals. Regardless of the format that your communications take, you’ll…
Your reaction when your Executive Director says, “This looks TOO nice.” via GIPHY Heard this one before? The theory is that donors will think you wasted their money if any of your communications look like they cost you cash money to produce them. This theory holds that all of that money should be going to programs…
I hear comments like these all the time — and these are real comments from our recent survey . . . I spend too much time doing things that aren’t important and don’t have time left for what really matters. My “do this eventually” list is growing and out of control. I am…
My first professional love is working with nonprofits on their communications and marketing — training, advising, and coaching them — I think of it as the sweet life. My second love is helping others who want to live that sweet life too by dedicating their consulting or freelancing careers to serving the nonprofit sector like…
You may have noticed some strange code on the end of links you click in emails or from social media . . . things like utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email. But do you know why that code is there or what it is doing? Or that you should be using it too? UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module, and the…
Here’s a question that came in last week . . . Hello Kivi, Do you have any resources that will help me to measure our communications effectiveness? Our numbers are increasing: clients served, sales at our thrift stores, donations, etc., since I was hired as the organization’s first Communications Coordinator a year ago. But…
All this week, we are taking a look at what it means to be a CALM Communications Director (Collaborative, Agile, Logical, and Methodical). Today, let’s talk about being Methodical. You will always be short on time. You will always be surrounded by distractions. That’s why it is so important to be grounded in proven methods…
All this week, we are taking a look at what it means to be a CALM Communications Director (Collaborative, Agile, Logical, and Methodical). Today, let’s talk about being Logical. Many people mistakenly believe that good marketing is all about the creative. The right words, the perfect images. And those are important, without a doubt. But…
All this week, we are taking a look at what it means to be a CALM Communications Director (Collaborative, Agile, Logical, and Methodical). Today, let’s talk about being Agile. If you work in nonprofits, things are always in a state of flux. Same for marketing. To be successful, it pays to be good on your…
All this week, we are taking a look at what it means to be a CALM Communications Director (Collaborative, Agile, Logical, and Methodical). Today, let’s talk about being Collaborative. Communications directors are the translators and bridges between the people doing the work (inside the nonprofit) and the people supporting and benefitting from that work (outside…
Someone asked me the other day what the outcome of our Communications Director Mentoring Program and other coaching programs really was . . . what was the ultimate result of communications coaching? The word that instantly popped into my mind and off of my tongue was CALM. Communications directors are usually very busy, often frazzled, people. They…
