Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now blogged today about some email fundraising lessons from the Obama campaign shared in Bloomberg Businessweek, one of which is that ugly emails work better than pretty ones. Quoting here: “Every time something really ugly won, it would shock me: giant-size fonts for links, plain-text links vs. pretty ‘Donate’ buttons. Eventually…
Happy Friday! Here are your Mixed Links for this week. First off, a reminder that you can save $100 on our Annual All-Access Pass until December 31st. For only $365 you’ll get training your nonprofit needs for the entire year. And next year, you’ll have access to even more training as All-Access Pass Holders can…
The survey for our 2013 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report will close tonight! Please add your voice if you aren’t one of the more than 1,300 nonprofit communicators participating in the survey so far! Here is your last sneak peak at the early data, before we provide the preliminary release during our free webinar on December 12. The report…
I read an article this morning in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and I highly recommend you do too: The Permanent Disruption of Social Media The gist of it: “Social media has chipped away at the foundation of traditional donor-engagement models. A new study highlights the realities of donor behavior and how organizations can redesign…
This may have been the “Year of the Thank You Video” – lots of really great stuff arrived in my inbox in the last week. So much so that even the well-written Thanksgiving messages without videos seemed a little boring and dated to me. The ones with video felt so much more alive and real.…
NTEN and CharityDynamics have released a new report called “Nonprofit Donor Engagement Benchmark Study: Insights into Donor Engagement Behavior and Preferences.” It includes a number of fun facts: — The vast number of people who give to charity give to multiple charities. — It pays to become a donor’s “favorite” charity, because individuals give 67%…
While most people get what you are doing when you use a thermometer to report the level of donations you have received toward your goal, I don’t think they make much sense as a visual for achieving fundraising goals. What do thermometers have to do with your cause? Probably nothing, but yet that’s what a…
As the people at #GivingTuesday say, “We have a day for giving thanks. We have two for getting deals….Wouldn’t it be great to have a day for giving back?” And that’s what #GivingTuesday is all about – changing the typical consumer mentality that occurs between Thanksgiving and Christmas and turning our attention toward helping others. This year #GivingTuesday is…
I received lots of post-Sandy email from nonprofits, with content all over the map, from direct pleas for assistance for those affected, to educational and advocacy emails tying severe weather to climate change. In looking through them all, one stands out: This email I received the day after the storm passed through Washington, DC from…
Here are your Mixed Links for the week. First off, I hope all of my readers in the Northeast are safe and recovering from Hurricane Sandy. Network for Good has set up a Hurricane Sandy disaster relief donation page. It lists several organizations you can donate to safely. It’s that time of year again — lots of…
I’ve been working with one of my coaching clients, Children of the Nations, on their fall fundraising campaign, which they call Hope for the Children. In addition to the direct asks for financial support, I suggested that they come up with several “engagement” asks to pair with the ask for money throughout the campaign, which…
Humor is one of the fastest ways to connect with people on a human, emotional level, but so many nonprofits are afraid to even give it a try. “The work we do is no laughing matter,” they say. “What we do is very serious. We can’t possibly make light of our work.” So earnest. So…
