I’m presenting a brand new webinar on April 29, 2014 called Email List Segmenting: Strategies to Increase Open Rates, Motivate Action, and Build Engagement. As part of the prep, we worked with our friends at Bloomerang to do a quick survey. We asked about whether your nonprofit was segmenting its list and how, and if not,…
I’ll admit that I am not into super big anniversary celebrations. Today my husband and I are celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary and we just returned from a nice hike with the kids, and will have a nice dinner at home. That’s good enough for me. And for most nonprofit anniversaries, I think the low-key…
We’ve opened the application process for the July to December 2014 session of our Nonprofit Marketing Guide Mentoring Program for Communications Directors. This will be the sixth “class” to go through the program. Helping you make good marketing decisions for your nonprofit is the primary goal of the Nonprofit Marketing Guide Mentoring Program. I want…
Alia and Mark over at Sea Change Strategies are two super smart cookies, so when they have a new report out, I’m on it. Their latest work of genius is The Missing Middle: Neglecting Middle Donors is Costing You Millions. Middle donors are those giving between $1,000 and $10,000 annually. Focus on this group —…
We’ve been telling you for years that most nonprofits need to create less formal communications. But we know a lot of you are not being heard by your executive director or board members. Kate Snyder, who is the donor communications coordinator for South Hills Interfaith Ministries and also runs Kate Write Now, shared how baby steps…
I’m working with a client to figure out ways they *wish* they could segment their email list in the future, so they can start collecting the data to do so now. It’s a very interesting conversation. Like most visionary conversations, you end up with a long list of possibilities. Some are more demographic in nature (e.g.…
Annual reports don’t have to be long, boring documents with pages and pages of financial statements that no one wants to read (even if they did understand all the accounting jargon!). Your annual report should be a celebration of what your donors have helped you do. I have been pushing alternative formats for annual reports…
Last week Diane Greenhalgh shared some tips on how to get your staff involved in creating content for you. Today she shares how to get your community of clients or supporters to help. ~Kivi Guest Post by Diane Greenhalgh of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association While there are certainly tactics for including constituent produced content in your editorial lineup, which…
Last week, I presented the lunch keynote at the AMA’s Cause Camp in Lincoln, NE. Participants held up a colored index card to indicate their answer to each question posed in the deck. You can play along too. Whenever you see the “Yes, No, Maybe” choices across the bottom of the slide, pick your answer…
When you write your donor communications, are you speaking to your donor’s inner angel or to their inner bookkeeper? The inner angel is the part of your supporter who decides to give you a donation or to volunteer their time with you because you have touched them in some way, and that angel wants to…
I have talked before about how your entire staff should be part of your marketing team no matter their job description. Diane Greenhalgh, director of web services of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, was featured in my book, Content Marketing for Nonprofits, and recently appeared as a panelist for one of our book club discussion webinars. She shares how…
I bet the conventional wisdom about how often nonprofits send email and direct mail to their supporters is this: nonprofits are sending direct mail less frequently over the last four years and sending email more frequently. But that’s not what our data says. At Nonprofit Marketing Guide, we’ve surveyed thousands of nonprofits for each of…
