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Nonprofit communicators want to know how they can measure their own success (we are working on a webinar to help with that). One way is to compare your work to industry benchmarks. In the nonprofit world, there are several annual studies that give us a glimpse into what's happening in our sector, especially with online…
I recently taught at workshop at the Land Trust Alliance's southeast regional conference where I had participants sketch out a story they wanted to tell to their supporters over the summer. This is what we call a communications arc. You pick an overarching story you want to tell over the course of several weeks or months,…
I hear it all the time from nonprofits: "Our e-newsletter doesn't work." "Direct mail doesn't work for us." "Social media doesn't work for us." When I probe a little deeper, what people often mean is that their communications don't seem to be motivating people to do what the nonprofit wants, whether that's donating money, signing…
I’m teaching Creating Awesome Content: Ideas for Nonprofit Writers on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, for our All-Access Pass Holders. I hope you’ll join us! The recording will be available in our training archive for Pass Holders 24 hours later. Racking your brain for creative ideas for your next newsletter article or blog post? Here are 13 supporter-focused headlines…
Every nonprofit should have a crisis communications plan – whether it be for a potential crisis of your own making or something out of your control. It doesn’t matter, because you can’t ignore it either way. Komen for the Cure couldn’t ignore that it made a programmatic decision that enraged many of its supporters. The…
During our February 2012 free webinar, Helping Your Staff and Board Become Great Nonprofit Marketers, I suggested that nonprofit marketers start by working with their staffs and boards to make sure that everyone was comfortable answering some basic, conversational questions about the nonprofit. The question is in bold, and the "marketing speak" for why it's…
One of my recommended 10 Changes to Make in 2012 (webinar recording available now; e-book coming soon) is to make your communications more visual. Why? Visuals can often convey information more quickly than text (you know, a picture is worth a thousand words). That makes a big difference when people are zooming through their inboxes and…
I just finished a webinar called "Nonprofit Writing Stinks: Bring Your Writing Back to Life" for our webinar series All-Access Pass Holders. The recording will be available later tonight on the Pass Holders Dashboard if you missed it. Cutting back on the Blah, Blah, Blahs was a big point of discussion. When I think about the…
Saying thank you to your donors, and saying it well, is only polite, right? The truth is that good thank yous are much more than good manners: they are a very smart and savvy fundraising strategy. Donors are Testing Nonprofits, and Nonprofits Are Failing Sixty-five percent of first-time donors don’t make a second gift. That’s…
I presented a webinar called "The New and Improved Nonprofit Annual Report" three times in 2011, where I urged nonprofits to stop producing long, printed annual reports and to look at shorter, more readable and viewable, alternatives. I asked the same two poll questions each time: at the beginning of the webinar I asked what…
