Registration has just opened for Session #9 of our Communications Director Mentoring Program, taking place January – June 2016. I admit it — this is my favorite program out of everything we do at Nonprofit Marketing Guide. It’s so exciting to watch a group of nonprofit communications directors grow professionally in huge leaps and bounds,…
Kristina and I spent most of Saturday working on our Big Picture Communications Timeline for 2016. This is the exercise that I highly recommend you do BEFORE you attempt work on an editorial calendar. And if you are an office supply nerd, like we are, it’s a great excuse to go shopping! So many beautiful…
When I talk to community-based nonprofits that serve local or regional areas about content marketing or thought leadership, I often hear excuses like, “We aren’t the experts. The national groups are. Why would anyone listen to us about this issue, when we just serve this little corner of the world?” While national groups may have…
On Wednesday, we are releasing a new 45-page e-book and webinar on How to Tame Your Wild and Unwieldy Editorial Calendar. The e-book includes ten different templates or schedules to use as a starting point for building out your calendar, along with lots of additional tips and advice. The schedule will help you figure out…
We’ve talked to lots of nonprofits about how their editorial calendars develop over time, and we’ve identified three major drivers behind them. These drivers are not actual people, but rather how your nonprofit approaches its mission and, in turn, how that affects your communications. If it helps, you can think of these concepts as cartoon…
If you are a long-time member of our Nonprofit Marketing Guide community (or just someone who pays attention to this kind of stuff), you may have noticed that we have been experimenting quite a bit the last year with various training and coaching formats. I’ve been in search of the sweet spot between one-off, quick…
Every year in January, we release the Nonprofit Communications Trends Report. But, naturally, there are quite a few steps that come before that, including developing the list of questions, which we are starting on now. Some questions are perennial, like: Which communications channels are most important? How often will you communicate via print and…
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…
