MKCREATIVE

#INTERVIEW: Jeff Brooks, Nonprofit Blogger, Author, and Creative Director

Jeff Brooks has been working on behalf of nonprofits for more than 20 years and passionately blogging about fundraising since 2005. He writes the Future Fundraising Now blog and is creative director at TrueSense Marketing. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: What do you consider to be the greatest challenge of being a good copywriter?

JEFF: What most people who are not professional copywriters get wrong is they don’t differentiate themselves from their audience. That’s why most fundraising is just bad. It doesn’t succeed the way it ought to because they say, I’m going to make this please me, and then it’ll please the others and then it’ll work. Well, that’s just wrong. That’s not how you create quality fundraising. You have to know your audience, and reach out to them, and 99 percent of the time, you’re going to hate it. You may say, I wouldn’t respond to this! And you’re absolutely correct, and it absolutely doesn’t matter.

Now If you want to talk about professional copywriters, I think what is difficult is taking dry, distilled- down-to-numbers program information and making it sing. Because that’s what you tend to get delivered: We fed this many people, and that’s up x percent from last year. That’s the kind of information you get and you have to say, how do I make somebody care? That’s the minute-by-minute challenge a copywriter faces.

MKC: I’ve been reading your blog for awhile and you’ve been preaching donor-centricity adamantly. Do you get the sense that anybody’s listening?

JEFF: Some people are. The thing is, the people who are reading my blog, or reading blogs at all, are the ones who are curious, who want to grow, and who are willing to change. The ones who need the help, who aren’t donor-centric, aren’t reading anybody’s blog. They’re not curious. So there’s sort of a preaching-to-the-choir quality to blogging.

In the fundraising industry, we are not donor-centric. We are navel gazers, and we expect our donors to gaze at our navels with us. I think that’s why direct mail response rates have been dropping for seven years in a row now. It’s because what we’re doing just doesn’t work like it used to. It’s wearing out. We’ve got a new audience of direct mail donors coming on board and they are more demanding. They want to be communicated with. In their commercial relationships with the companies they buy stuff from, they’re used to service and they’re used to being talked to as who they are. Most fundraising isn’t there. It’s saying, here’s your cancer bill. Pay it. That used to work, for a few reasons. One was, the older generation was more duty-driven: You give because you’re supposed to, you give because your church tells you to, you give because your family has always given. You didn’t have to be skillful at asking a person like that, they would just say, yeah, it’s my time to give. Not only that, but the competition in the mailbox has skyrocketed. There are probably 10 times as many appeals being sent out now as there were 20 years ago. So there’s that overwhelming noise, and the fact that younger donors, and I say younger meaning under 70, are a little more discerning. We actually see a behavior of larger gifts to fewer organizations. In the older donors, 70 and up, there’s just this behavior of sending 15 or 20 bucks to everything that comes across your door. Younger donors are saying, I need to be involved here, I need to know what’s going on, I need to care. So if we don’t get on board with talking to donors, instead of talking to ourselves, we’re in big trouble.

MKC: You also seem to have some strong feelings about nonprofit advertising. Would you like to talk about it?

JEFF: You’re talking about the “Stupid Nonprofit Ads” series. That is really about what I think is a huge scam perpetrated by ad agencies and other brand experts on the nonprofit sector. They bring commercial branding and advertising practices into the nonprofit realm and then misapply them. The reason it keeps happening again and again and again is it’s the glamour of the ad world: these are the big boys, this is where the real money is, they must know what they’re talking about, right? So they come in – and very often its pro bono so the nonprofit thinks, what the hell, I might as well do it, and they get these terrible ads that have no chance of making a dent in the problems of this world and motivating donors to do anything or care, much less give. So I kind of go after it, and I’m pretty mean about it, but it’s because I feel like it’s a big con, and we need it to stop. Plus I just like making fun of stupid stuff.

MKC: Is there anybody who does good advertising for nonprofits?

JEFF: Oh yeah, a lot of people do, and it will never win an award. No one’s ever going to show it anywhere, because it’s “bland,” it’s “ugly,” it’s “old-fashioned,” but it raises money.

MKC: Tom Ahern raves about the Domain Group formula for newsletters and he keeps saluting your role in it.

JEFF: We were doing mostly direct mail at Domain, and sometimes a client would say, could you do a newsletter for us? We don’t have anyone on staff to do it. When we did them, we made money. And at that time, the normal thing was for a newsletter to lose money. We started sharpening the techniques, we did some testing. We found that to be relentlessly donor-focused was critical, that to not be afraid to ask for money was good. I have a lot of clients where you can almost count on a newsletter being a more effective fundraiser than a direct mail appeal is. That’s not true across the board, but I have not lost money on a newsletter in decades. They are an effective fundraiser. The difference is, the old newsletter said, Look at us, aren’t we cool, look at all our great programs. The articles were long and boring, the headlines were dull. We found, just like in direct mail appeals, you had to get your eyes off yourself and on the audience. The reason they’re giving is they want to change the world, so you need to tell them, yes, you are changing the world, instead of, look at us, we’re changing the world. You still tell a story about their cool program, but you turn it a little bit, so it’s, ‘Look, donor, here’s what you made possible.’ You do that in subtle ways and direct, flat-out ways.

MKC: Has anyone attempted to convert the Domain Group formula to email newsletters?

JEFF: I’m trying to. I mean, we try to bring the techniques and the mindset. Email is a little different. I don’t think we’ve quite got it figured out. For now, email newsletters are nothing like as effective as print newsletters as fundraisers, and they’re less effective as fundraisers than e-appeals are.

MKC: You have been blogging since 2005. Have your goals for blogging changed?

JEFF: No, not really. The difference is, when I started, there were maybe three other bloggers in the fundraising space, and way fewer readers. Now I think there are over 100 fundraising-focused bloggers that I know about. I feel like I discover another one every week or so. And there’s just a larger audience. Thousands of people read these blogs now. That’s kind of cool. That means there’s an ongoing professional conversation happening. Before, the national conferences were the only place professional conversation happened, and most people weren’t going to those. So it was way less widespread than it is now. This is good. It means more people are able to get smarter.
Fundraising is a weird medium. A lot of things are counter-intuitive. Things work that you wouldn’t think would work, like longer letters work better than shorter letters. And there’s just a thousand little details like that. Some fundraisers seem to say, ‘We need to throw out everything we know, because it just seems so wrong to me.’ Then they watch their revenue go down the drain. This is very sad, because this isn’t just some stupid shampoo sales campaign. This matters. When you screw up, it matters that you screwed up. It means you can’t serve the way you’re called to serve. There’s a moral dimension to it.

You can follow Jeff on his Future Fundraising Now blog.

Guest blogger Don Akchin writes frequently about marketing and philanthropy at donakchin.com.

This interview series is produced with the generous support of the Nonprofit Marketing and Fundraising Zone.

Popularity: 5% | Category Blogs, Campaigns, Communications, Copyrighting, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Publications Design, Research, Special Series, Special Series, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | 0 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#PHILANTHROPY: Google Can Give Time, Resources, & AdWords To Nonprofits

February 20th, 2012

Google is the great behemoth of web searching and video hosting. Google.com is default homepage in millions of browsers and YouTube has inspired citizen journalists in war-torn Syria and video mashups of cute kittens in suburbia. Google.org is perhaps not as well known, but its philanthropic outreach is huge, and it offers that money and support numerous ways – some of which your organization can surely take advantage of!

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Popularity: 5% | Category Advertising, Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Desktop Apps, Development, Donor Acquisition, eNewsletter, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Site Administration, Social Media, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Video | | 0 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#INTERVIEW: Sybil Stershic, Consultant, Blogger, & Author of Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most

February 15th, 2012

Sybil Stershic, founder of Quality Service Marketing, is a long-time consultant and blogger on internal marketing and the author of Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care. A former chairperson of the American Marketing Association Board of Directors, she continues to lead workshops fort AMA including its “Nonprofit Marketing Boot Camps.” The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: You’ve chosen to specialize in internal marketing. How do you see that different from marketing to the outside world?

Sybil: It’s not that different in the sense that it recognizes that you have a critical audience – only this time they’re your employees and volunteers. Basically you can use marketing to educate them, motivate them and persuade them, just as you use marketing to educate, motivate and persuade consumers from the external side. What’s different, however, is that most organizations don’t recognize employees and volunteers as an internal audience that needs to be addressed. (more…)

Popularity: 4% | Category Advice, Blogs, Book, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, eBook, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Internal Marketing, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Resource, Special Series, Special Series, Strategic Marketing | | 6 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#PHILANTHROPY: What Might Inspire People To Give To Your Charity?

February 6th, 2012

The year’s fundraising drives are laid out before you and your colleagues. The sting of the Great Recession still hurst most Americans, even if the stinger is gone. The prospects can look intimidating. Even though your charity or nonprofit does good work and has the track record to prove it, this moment might be a good moment to look at a hard fact of fundraising: what will entice more donations, micro or macro, NOW?

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Popularity: 5% | Category Audio Interview, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Community, Crowdfunding, Development, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Sponsorship | | 1 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#INTERVIEW: Christina Attard, Philanthropic Advisor, Blogger, and Development Director

February 2nd, 2012

Christina Attard writes the “Ask Better-Give Smarter” Blog. As a philanthropic adviser, she helps both nonprofits with their development programming and individuals planning tax-smart donations. She has been a Gift Planning Officer at two Canadian universities and is currently the Development Director for a Christian diocese in Regina, Saskatchewan. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: How did you manage to get to this place of semi-guruhood from a B.A. in mediaeval studies?

CHRISTINA: How it actually happened is that I was starting university and paying my own way. I had some money saved, but not enough. When I went to see my Dean, a Sister of St. Joseph, she said, how do you plan to pay for your year here? I said, I’ve been praying about that and hoping for an answer soon. She said, that’s very nice, do you have a resume? (Yes.) Go get your resume and go to the financial aid office. I’ll call ahead, go see a woman named Pauline and we’ll see if she can get you through with some cash from a bursary. Pauline saw me and said, we have this bursary and you’ll be eligible for it, it’s still not going to be enough, do you have your resume? (Yes.)

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Popularity: 4% | Category Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Resource, Special Series, Special Series, Storytelling | | 0 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#FUNDRAISING: Impact Of Mobile Donations To Haiti Two Years On?

January 31st, 2012

Two years ago this month, Haitians endured a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that destroyed much of the infrastructure in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed over 300,000 people. The outpouring of support from numerous nations inspired faith that rebuilding after the tragedy would bring notable improvements to the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.

Unfortunately, two years on, much of the news concerns not the rebuilding of the island nation but the challenge of simply finding where the promised money and resources went. Much of it simply has not shown up as countries have given less (some news sources state as much as half) than first promised. But of what has arrived has often been diverted to non-Haitian companies or to corrupt local officials who overcharge for minimal services.

And yet we also have the data to show how much non-governmental was raised ($43 million) and how.

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Popularity: 3% | Category Case Study, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Publications, Research, Resource, Social Media, Study, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits | | 0 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#interview: Simone Joyaux, Nonprofit Consultant, Author, and Columnist

January 25th, 2012

Simone Joyaux is an internationally recognized consultant to the nonprofit sector on fund development, board development, and strategic planning and management. She writes a column, “Unraveling Development,” for the Nonprofit Quarterly. She is the author of Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last, now in its third edition, and is co-author, with Tom Ahern, of Keep Your Donors: The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: I have difficulty maintaining one blog. Why do you have three?

SIMONE: I made a decision that I wanted to do not just a professional blog, but I also wanted my website to talk about the world and social justice issues. Because I have always felt that there isn’t enough speaking out. I decided I would take the risk to speak out about my political and social beliefs on my web page, but that if I was going to do that, I had to distinguish between them, hence what I call “Personal Rants.” And then I thought, I have a lot of peeves about professional stuff, so I thought, okay fine, I’ll do professional, pet peeves and personal rants. Now I can do three posts in 30 minutes. I only post once a week, and you will notice, nobody is allowed to respond. You can send me emails, but you can’t comment. I have a job! I can’t possibly maintain comments from people.

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Popularity: 7% | Category Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Interview, Marketing, Nonprofit, Resource, Special Series | | 0 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#Interview: Allison Fine, Author & Analyst — Examines Intersection of Social Media & Social Change

January 18th, 2012

Allison Fine researches and writes about the intersection of social media and social change. She is the co-author (with Beth Kanter) of the bestselling book, The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, as well as the award-winning Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age. She hosts a monthly podcast for The Chronicle of Philanthropy called “Social Good.” The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: You’ve researched and written about social media and how it could impact democracy in the 21st century. Is the Occupy Wall Street movement along the lines of what you were envisioning?

ALLISON: Occupy Wall Street is absolutely part of the same DNA of social protests that we’ve seen for about the last ten years or so. They are widely distributed – meaning there’s no centralized organizing person or organization. They are fueled, but not caused, by social media – the ability to share messages, share photos, share videos, which are very powerful, is part of what’s stirring the pot and helping to organize the events. Occupy Wall Street has some of the drawbacks of this kind of mobilizing as well: the lack of a centralized message and the lack of goals. Whether or not those ultimately stop the momentum for these self-organized efforts locally will be interesting to watch.

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Popularity: 4% | Category Blogs, Book Review, Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Crowdfunding, Development, Direct Mail, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Resource, Reviews, Social Media, Special Series, Special Series, Sponsorship, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Tools, Twitter | | 1 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#Interview: Gail Perry, Fundraising Consultant, Trainer & Author of Fired-Up Fundraising

January 5th, 2012

Gail Perry is a fundraising consultant and trainer and the author of Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Your Board’s Passion into Action. She is a highly sought speaker and writes a popular blog. Her most recent venture is an online coaching group. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: What are the issues that are keeping your clients awake at night?

GAIL: I think the economy is just a huge issue. People are worried about whether they can raise the money they need or not. But I’m also seeing a really interesting problem. My consulting clients are struggling to learn how to take donors who are identified as potential major prospects and bring them into the major prospect arena by closing a gift. It’s a very delicate, step-by-step, intuitive process to bring a major donor along. That’s a lot of what I’m teaching my clients, all these little subtleties of developing that type of relationship.

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Popularity: 31% | Category Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Crowdfunding, Design, Development, Direct Mail, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Research, SEO, Social Media, Special Series, Special Series, Sponsorship, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Twitter, Web Design, Writing | | 1 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#interview: Tom Ahern — Author, Award-Winning Journalist, and Communications Consultant

December 21st, 2011

Tom Ahern is the author of four books on fundraising communications, with a fifth on the way. An award-winning magazine journalist, he has written case statements for numerous campaigns and is a popular communications trainer and consultant. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: You’ve written four books. You’ve trained hundreds, maybe thousands of communicators, and by now you’d expect everybody knows what to do. Yet you’re still in high demand! How do you explain this?

TOM: How fast can you actually change the characteristic habitual behavior of communications in an industry as big as the nonprofit industry? At one point there were 1.6 million charities in the United States alone, and we’re not the only mature philanthropic market.) Some of the models that are well entrenched are just, I think, wrong. Yet everybody borrows from each other, they copy each other. And so you’ve got widespread bad practices, not best practices.

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Popularity: 5% | Category Communications, Community, Conference/Congress, Cross-Post, Design, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Graphic Design, How-to, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Publications, Publications Design, Social Media, Special Series, Special Series, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | 0 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#Interview: Howard Adam Levy, Principal of Red Rooster Group

December 7th, 2011

Howard Adam Levy is Principal of Red Rooster Group, a New York City-based branding, marketing and design agency for nonprofits. Howard, who began working with nonprofits as a graphic designer in 1991, founded the agency 10 years ago. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVEnonprofit blog.

MKC: What is most challenging about branding nonprofits?

HOWARD: Nonprofits face a wide variety of constituents, from clients, referral sources, donors, partner organizations, board members and others. So a lot more is involved in reaching out and developing messages and strategies for each of those audiences.

Businesses, especially small businesses, can make unilateral decisions on their marketing. Nonprofits are typically more consensus oriented. And particularly when it comes to the brand, you really want to get everyone’s input and have a feeling that everyone is contributing to the process of what we’re all about. So you need a process that can build consensus in a politically neutral environment and get everyone feeling really good about the brand and their role as brand ambassadors.

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Popularity: 6% | Category Blogs, Branding, Campaigns, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Design, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Graphic Design, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Publications Design, Slide Presentations, Social Media, Special Series, Special Series, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Web Design, Writing | | 1 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#Fundraising: How To Apply For A Grant From Intel

November 21st, 2011

This week in our ongoing periodic series on grant providers and how to apply for their support, we look at the tech company that helps build Microsoft and Apple computers: Intel. The corporation is best known for its processors and motherboards and for its 5-note jingle - but its stand on corporate social responsibility is truly impressive. A post on the company’s CSR blog site by Perry Gruber back in 2008 nicely shows the synergies Intel envisions between corporate wealth and nonprofits and charities that do work that also helps those corporations who support them. A (Flash) video about Intel’s more recent philanthropic outreach can be viewed here.

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Popularity: 6% | Category Banking & Finance, Blogs, Civics, Communications, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Nonprofit, Nonprofit | | 0 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#Interview: Michael Stein, Author, Blogger, & Veteran Nonprofit Technology Strategist

November 16th, 2011

Michael Stein, Senior Account Executive for Donordigital, is a veteran nonprofit technology strategist whose areas of expertise include online fundraising, email messaging, email list growth, blogging, website content, mobile messaging, and social media. With Nick Allen and Mal Warwick, Michael wrote the groundbreaking 1997 book Fundraising on the Internet: Recruiting and Renewing Donors Online.

The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVEnonprofit blog.

MKC: How did you get into this field?

Michael: About 20 years ago, I was working for an environmental group just as the Internet started to emerge. I got in on the ground floor, building bulletin board systems for Greenpeace activists and others tracking toxic chemical emissions around the U.S. I helped build the pioneering Internet provider called IGC.org that trained nonprofits to use the Internet, which then morphed into the first experiments in online fundraising on the Web for Rainforest Action Network. In the mid-1990s, I hooked up with legendary direct mail fundraisers Mal Warwick and Nick Allen, and we started to think about what the future of fundraising might look like with the evolving Internet. Together we wrote the first book about fundraising online.

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Popularity: 10% | Category Advertising, Advice, Blogs, Branding, Campaigns, Communications, Community, Copyrighting, Cross-Post, Database, Development, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, iPad/Tablet, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Special Series, Storytelling, Technology, Tools, Twitter, Writing | | 0 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#Interview: Mazarine Treyz of the Wild Woman’s Fundraising blog and author of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising

November 2nd, 2011

Mazarine Treyz writes the Wild Woman’s Fundraising blog and is the author of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising. A nonprofit fundraising consultant and trainer, she is also a social media trainer for the City of Austin, Texas.

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Popularity: 9% | Category Advice, Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Social Media, Special Series, Special Series, Twitter | | 0 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#Interview: Paul Jones, President of Alden Keene and Associates, an Agency Specializing in Cause Marketing

October 25th, 2011

Paul Jones is President of Alden Keene and Associates, a boutique marketing firm that specializes in cause marketing. His Cause Marketing blog is “dedicated to highlighting and dissecting the best and the worst cause marketing promotions and campaigns.” Paul worked for many years at the Children’s Miracle Network before beginning his own consulting practice. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVEmedia blog.

MKC: How long have you been writing your blog?
PAUL: In October it will be five years.

MKC: Had you been in business longer than that?
PAUL: I actually had. I opened the business in 2002, although I was still working full-time for a local nonprofit. Then I broke out on my own in 2005 and the blog was just a natural way to get my voice out there and on a topic I’m very familiar with, as well as an opportunity to do a little bit of marketing.

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Popularity: 3% | Category Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Cross-Post, Grants and Funding, Interview, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Special Series, Special Series, Sponsorship | | 0 Comments

Written by: Don Akchin

#Fundraising: How To Apply For Grants From The Gates Foundation

October 24th, 2011

Two weeks ago we pointed out that Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, has somewhat adjusted Apple’s position on philanthropic efforts – at least those of its employees. In our ongoing series on helping our readers find sources of grants and apply for them, we turn to the Gates Foundation, founded by Microsoft’s previous CEO, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda. Such different cultures between Cupertino, CA and Redmond, WA.

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Popularity: 2% | Category Civics, Community, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Research, Resource | | 0 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#Fundraising: How To Apply For A Grant From Apple (Sort Of)

October 10th, 2011

This story is the first in a periodic series of research projects to give you the quickest onramp to begin developing programs and relationships with some major foundations.

We begin with the most valuable company in the world, whose recently deceased CEO inspired and infuriated many millions.

The passing of Steve Jobs last week has inspired all kinds of love, various remembrances, a couple of movie options, and a few thorny reminders that neither he nor the company he founded – then saved – have been engaged in philanthropic causes in any public way. Some have jumped to the defense of his seeming lack of philanthropic interests, and even the Chronicle of Philanthropy granted that though neither Jobs personally nor Apple gave to nonprofits, their innovations and products have reconfigured, almost entirely to the better, ways that nonprofits function.

It is impossible to assess Mr. Jobs’s philanthropic legacy without discussing how Apple’s technology has changed the way nonprofits operate. Devices like the iPhone and iPad have helped many organizations communicate efficiently. They have allowed groups to improve the way they respond to disasters, communicate with supporters, and carry out day-to-day work.

Despite that charitable account of Apple’s influence in the philanthropic world, Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, was quick to suggest a slight altering of company’s position on giving. Is Apple going to think different about the issue of corporate philanthropy?

Tim Cook’s initiative seems small and largely to be driven largely by internal company dynamics, as his announcement was originally made within Apple’s corporate system: Apple will match donations made by its employees up to $10,ooo a year. But could it be the beta of a more expansive and public engagement with the nonprofit world? At this stage, admittedly, the one thing to be done to encourage philanthropy from Apple is to encourage philanthropy from its employees on your donors’ list.

Apple’s history entwined with Microsoft – and Steve’s braided with Bill Gates‘s – is ‘complicated,’ with slights and high praise going back and forth. In our next installment in this series, we shall look at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and how your organization could benefit from its many major grants.

Are you reaching out to Tim Cook’s Apple Inc. or any of his employees? Please let us know what you have heard and how those employees are treating the matching-gift policy! Moreover, as our series unfolds, please share your experience with the organizations you contact and/or let us know of some resources we have missed. Thanks!

 

Popularity: 4% | Category Civics, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Research, Resource | | 0 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

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