Gail Perry is one of my favorite major donor fundraisers and board advisers and her last three blog posts have been full of fabulous advice on getting your board fired up. All of her advice applies to getting people excited to help in other ways too, like with marketing (you know, all that communication in…
“Marketing” is still considered a dirty word by some and misunderstood by many in the nonprofit world despite how important it is to furthering your good cause. Beth Ann Spiegel shares some tips on how to get your colleagues on board. ~Kivi Guest Post by Beth Ann Spiegel, Fund Development and Communications Associate of The Arc…
Annual reports – when they are done right – can be a great marketing tool showcasing your nonprofit. I cover nonprofit annual reports quite a bit, and thought I would share how this nonprofit went about creating both a print and online version of their annual report. This step by step description will give you…
I recently interviewed Robert Rosenthal, vice president of communications and marketing at VolunteerMatch. Robert talks about how VolunteerMatch has moved away from paid advertising toward content marketing — creating multimedia content that draws people in. For VolunteerMatch, those people fall into two institutional audiences: nonprofits and corporations. Watch as Robert outlines the strategy. (Sorry the…
During last week’s free webinar on Helping Your Staff and Board Become Great Nonprofit Marketers (register to watch the recording), I asked nonprofit marketers to tell me why they didn’t currently have the level of cooperation they might like from their fellow staff members and board of directors. Of the 300 or so participants, almost half (48%)…
Earlier this afternoon, I hosted this month’s free webinar, Helping Your Staff and Board Become Great Nonprofit Marketers. We will add the recording to our Freebies Page this evening if you want to sign up to watch the recording. During the webinar, I talked a lot about giving other staff members and your board the tools…
Can you help me answer this question? “My name is Matt Silva, and I work for a nonprofit based in San Francisco called EARN. At EARN, we give low-income working families the power to create prosperity for generations. I’m a member of EARN’s first-ever communications team, and we’re thinking strategically about what roles and functions…
This is Part 2 in a series of posts that Julia Reich will share with us about how to hire a graphic designer or design firm. ~Kivi Guest Post by Julia Reich, Julia Reich Design In my last post, “How to Hire a Graphic Designer or Design Firm, Part 1: Where to Look” I offered suggestions…
This is Part 1 in a series of posts that Julia Reich will share with us about how to hire a graphic designer or design firm. ~Kivi Guest Post by Julia Reich, Julia Reich Design If you’ve never worked with a designer before, the task can seem daunting. I’ll try to demystify the process. Intro You…
I’ve run into more than the usual number of nonprofits who have crappy websites built by consultants lately. I’m not talking subjective design preferences here, but flat-out terrible decisionmaking and implementation. When I’ve questioned the nonprofit communications staff about these websites, the answer is always “The website consultant did it that way.” Enough is enough.…
This blog is all about helping small nonprofits and one-person marketing departments communicate as effectively as possible with their supporters. Sometimes the best way to do that is to outsource your content creation to a professional freelance writer. The problem is that there really aren’t all that many writers who specialize in producing the kind…
My favorite session at last week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference was “This is Iron Chef . . . Battle Nonprofit.” Three teams made up of consultants from four different agencies (Beaconfire Consulting, Forum One Communications, Free Range Studios, and Firefly Partners) got together on a Sunday for a strategy and design competition. Their challenge was to…
