Hating statistics and other cold hard facts, and loving stories instead, is very popular in our field right now. I’m mostly on that bandwagon too. But what if you could use a good statistic to help tell your story? I saw this Austim Speaks PSA with Toni Braxton on TV recently, and it caught my…
Sometimes the work you do is newsworthy on its own and it’s worth the time to pitch your story to reporters. But there’s also another way to get your name in the news: Newsjacking. David Meerman Scott has published a fast read all about the process in Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a…
Happy Friday! Join me for some Mixed Links . . . Let’s start with some free webinars. Nancy Schwartz is hosting The 4 Keys to Pitch-Perfect Messaging on February 7 at 1:00 p.m. EST. During this webinar, you’ll learn how to create relationships with your supporters through strong messages. Atlas of Giving released a report indicating…
Nancy Schwartz asked, “What are your dreams for nonprofits?” My dream for your nonprofit is that you decide what you are really all about — what makes you different — and that you be that organization, and forget the rest. Consider this excerpt from Peter Bregman’s book, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get…
After the 10 Changes to Make in 2012 webinar, I received an email from Sherry Kirschenbaum about how her organization uses an editorial calendar to organize ideas for their newsletter and media pitches. I was so impressed with how Sherry was connecting such a diverse number of those “special months” to her organization’s mission and…
I recently finished two books that I found helpful, and I think busy nonprofit marketers can learn from them too. They approach productivity in two very different ways, but there are definitely some common elements too. I’m not going to summarize the books for you — you can read other reviews that do that. Instead,…
My default content strategy for nonprofits is the Three Gs: Be Genuine, Generous and Grateful. Seems the being Generous part is the hardest, so I’m going to try to give you more examples of how nonprofits can be generous to their supporters. It can start with identifying a problem your supporters are having. Take, for…
After taking a year off, I’ve done it again: I gave $25 year-end gifts to 20 national nonprofits that I had not previously supported so that I can see what kind of donor communications I get throughout the course of year. I’ve called this the “What I Got When I Gave” experiment, but you might…
As I’ve said before, presidential campaigns are great for nonprofit marketers and fundraisers because they give us a sneak peek into how we’ll be engaging our supporters and motivating them to volunteer and donate in the years to come. The current edition of Newsweek has a very interesting description of what the Obama campaign is…
Getting back into the swing of things after the holidays is tough. Let’s have some Mixed Links. We get a lot of questions about project management so I thought I would share one of our readers’ suggestions. Dana Wilson recommends a tool called One Page Project Manager. It lets you track any project on a single…
Last month, I asked you to take a quick poll on what you found most challenging about content marketing. By far, the biggest problems are lack of staff time or budget to produce content, followed by producing the kind of content that engages supporters/clients. Looks like I have my marching orders for writing some new…
I’m writing a new e-book to be published this spring by our good friends at Network for Good on how you move from doing a print newsletter to an email newsletter. If you’ve been through the process, you know it’s not as easy as it sounds! Do you keep doing the print version, or for…
