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…
It’s been several years now since I first suggested in my nonprofit annual reports webinars that a postcard was the perfect format for many a nonprofit annual report. I’m so excited to see the idea taking hold, and love hearing stories like this one from today’s guest blogger, Tim Smith, who volunteers his communications and…
We always hear from nonprofits asking how other organizations organize their content. We’ve talked about Big Picture Communications Timelines and Editorial Calendars, but there are lots of great hybrids in between. Former Mentoring Program participant Carol Goglia, Director of Marketing and Communications at Communities Foundation of Texas, was kind enough to share her communications grid with us,…
I’ve declared April as Email Segmenting Month. I’ll be blogging about it a bunch, and presenting a new webinar on April 29. l’d love to highlight your experiences with segmenting your email list, so please take a moment to share a quick story or two with me. (Not sure what I mean? Here’s a post…
