#FUNDRAISING: Outreach Tactics & Technologies Need To Adjust To Demographics
With the texts and tweets and the touchscreens and with those crazy(-cool) Google goggles and whatnot, a nonprofit would be daft to send those old-fashioned appeals by mail. The cost of printing and stamps, the hassle of upkeep of a database of address, the imposition of making potential donors find their checkbooks buried ever-farther into their desk drawers… who would bother?
But an extensive whitepaper from the folks at Convio makes it quite clear that not only is the traditional through-the-snail-mail appeal still a great way to solicit support for your charity, it is the hands-down winner over all media outreach. As the chart to the left reveals, outreach by mail achieves incredibly high response rates. That said − and unsurprisingly − the impact of mailers fades as one moves down the age groups, as Generations X and (especially) Y choose to respond to other media as well. What media will carry the donation message into the future?
| Category Advice, Advocacy, Aging, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Direct Mail, Donor Acquisition, Education: General, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Mobile, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Planned Giving, Public Relations, Publications, Resource, Social Marketing, Social Networks, Study, Technology, Technology for Aging, Technology for Nonprofits | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#HOWTO: Setup A Pheed Account & Why It Could Prove Valuable For Nonprofits
Pheed offers easy, and copyrighted, blogging
Alright, I admit that when I first heard about one of the newest social networks out there, Pheed, I was underwhelmed. Are we not overwhelmed with social networks as it is? But both professional engagement and personal curiosity got the better of me, and I signed up. The interface looks rather like Tumblr, whose praises we have often sung on this blog. The screenshot to the left is Pheed’s signup page: clearly it is pitched toward an artistic, and likely younger, audience. Nevertheless, it has a couple of features that nonprofits and charities could find especially useful as they present their own content via their social networks. Here’s how to sign up and see if it could be of use to your organization.
| Category Advice, Blogs, Branding, Cause Marketing, Communications, Copyrighting, Education: General, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Media Review, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Media, Public Relations, Reviews, Site Administration, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Tools, Web and Print, Web Design | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#COMMUNICATION: Is Your Nonprofit Staff Conversing With Both Audience & Each Other?
As social networks and social marketing have matured over the last two or three years, a debate continues as to how effective social media is to inspire action (be it making a purchase, donating to a cause, or risking one’s life in a revolution). But it seems to me that the argument is both older than modern social media (read any Marshall McLuhan lately?) and more complicated than trying to argue cause-and-effect. Social networks offer wonderfully inexpensive means to expand and magnify conversations, but they also create stunning amounts of ‘noise’ that readers have to learn to tune out without getting distracted (no easy task). But how can a nonprofit leverage the powers of social media to inspire action while also striving not to distort the outreach with too much talk?
| Category Blogs, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Development, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Media, Public Relations, Social Marketing, Social Networks, Storytelling | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SOCIALNETWORKS: 4th-Annual Social Media Week Will Educate & Inspire Worldwide
Attendance is just a few clicks away.
The first Social Media Week went live in 2008, as Twitter was just hitting the mainstream and Lehman Brothers announced it was going bankrupt and would take down the economy with it. For better and worse, much has change. And Social Media Week continues to expand. It started to stress connectivity across continents last year, and this year the list of host cities already includes Barcelona, Bogotá, Doha, Hong Kong, Jeddah, LA, Shanghai, and Turin (among others). Individuals can register at any point for this year’s program, and organizations can prepare submissions to offer sessions for next year. What will the 2012 week bring?
| Category Advice, Advocacy, Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Education: General, Event, Events, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Media, Public Relations, Publications, Resource, Seminar, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Webinar | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SOCIALMEDIA: Politicians & NonProfits Need Agility With Online Outreach
As the Democratic ‘nominee’ Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech last night in Charlotte, NC, a record number of tweets on politics were sent out − some 52,756 tweets-per-minute (tpm) being posted as he wound up. By contrast, Mitt Romney inspired 14,289 tpm, which was about half as many as reactions to Michelle Obama’s presentation two nights ago.
But what both parties know well is the fact that they must be ‘agile’ with their social-media outreach. They have to find ways to steer the narrative while many thousands of other voices also have the opportunity to steer that narrative. True, campaigns for the presidency take up far more online space than most any nonprofit, which is precisely why nonprofits can learn something from watching how the campaigns are trying to use social media.
| Category Advice, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Events, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Politics, Public Media, Public Relations, SEO, Social Media, Social Networks, Storytelling, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Web and Print, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#COMMUNICATIONS: Keep Storytelling In Forefront, Whatever Platforms You Use
Oprah Winfrey likes a book. BOOM! It’s a best-seller and a big movie. Justin Bieber retweets something that catches his eye. POW! It’s trending huge for forty-eight hours! Who wouldn’t want that kind of attention? Well, often nonprofits and charities don’t want that kind of attention. The best/worst case of this kind of virality is the Kony 2012 campaign, which we followed closely earlier this year and don’t have the stomach to repeat.
What nonprofits and charities want is steady growth in awareness, volunteerism, and donations. They don’t need the huge splash (some small splashes don’t hurt!), but they use the same social networks that the Oprahs and the Biebers of the world use. How do they use the same tools to develop dissimilar results.
| Category Advice, Advocacy, Blogs, Cause Marketing, Communications, Facebook, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Media, Public Relations, Publications, Social Media, Social Networks, Storytelling, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#FUNDRAISING: The Holiday Season For Donations Begins Now. Ready?
The pools are open and busy. The grill has cooled down since the July-4th Picnic. The MLB All-Star Game is tonight. It’s July. One of the traditional/old-fashioned ways to disrupt the heat is to hold a “Christmas in July” party, and your nonprofit or charity should be having one. Why? To celebrate the good work you have been doing for the last six months, and to energize yourselves for the critical holiday season of solicitation and fundraising that should hit its peak in mid-November and continue right through the new year. Yep, the groundwork for a successful holiday season needs to start soon, like tomorrow.
| Category Advice, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Crowdfunding, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Major Gifts, Marketing, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Planned Giving, Planned Giving, Public Relations, Publications, Report, Resource, Social Marketing, Strategic Marketing, Volunteerism | | 2 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#COMMUNICATIONS: Break The Sound Barrier To Encourage A Conversation
We welcome back Paul Jolly, Director of Jump Start Growth, Inc., a nonprofit fundraising and consulting firm in Washington DC. Today, Paul tells about the importance of breaking the sound barrier.
Back in 1947, US Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket/plane. Fighter jets break the barrier with ease nowadays, but it’s not the only sound barrier that must be broken. The sound barrier that a fund raiser hopes to break through is the sound of his or her own voice. More times than I care to remember, I have sat in the living room or office of a donor, hauling newsletters and annual reports out of my briefcase, talking about programs, accomplishments, plans. Blah, blah, blah. I am waiting for a signal from the person across the coffee table or desk, and he or she is waiting for me to stop talking.
| Category Advocacy, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Crowdfunding, Development, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Paul Jolly
#INTERVIEW: Derrick Feldmann, CEO of Achieve, Discusses The Millennial Impact Report Coming June 11
Derrick Feldmann is CEO of Achieve, a creative fundraising agency that produces The Millennial Impact Report, an annual research study of Millennial Generation donors. (The 2012 report will be released on Monday.) The agency also hosts the only national virtual summit, MCON, on Millennials annually. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: You have made Millennial donors a specialty. Isn’t it a little early to be worrying about the Millennial donors?
DERRICK: Absolutely not! If we have an expectation that this generation of 20- to-30-year-olds will be future significant supporters of our causes, we have an expectation now to involve them. If you are an educational institution, if you are a nonprofit, if you are planning a capital campaign in the next ten years, and you want more donor support, you had better start working with them now. There is an imperative to work with this generation.
Organizations might not have them as a focus because they may not have the largest capacity to give right now. It’s been a bit tricky for some organizations to figure out parallel tracks of involvement for constituents who don’t necessarily have large capacity but in volumes could give a lot.
(more…)
| Category Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Grants, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Report, Resource, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks, Special Series, Strategic Marketing, Study, Twitter, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#COMMUNICATIONS: The Number One Way To Gain Site Or Blog Readership Is…
If your nonprofit or your charity has any online presence at all, you want readers to engage your content, click through the link(s), visit the site, and get involved with money and/or time. If you are a blog writer, you want pretty much the same, though gifts might also/instead mean advertising dollars because so many people come to your site. And, of course, no reason a nonprofit can’t have a blog that carries those ambitions for the blog and the site that hosts it.
The million-dollar question is: “How do I get people to move from scanning the headline to clicking on it and getting engaged?”
| Category Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Development, E-Mail, eNewsletter, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Newspaper Article, Permission Marketing, Public Relations, Publications, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#COMMUNICATIONS: Visualizing The Impact Of Social Media, Especially Email
Click To Enlarge
Human beings are wired to pick up visual cues before we pick up textual ones. Social media and the internet love visuals too, because visual communication can travel quickly through networks and beyond the original linguistic group. We did a story on the MKCREATIVEmedia Blog last week about the eBenchmark study of 2012 by NTen and M+R Strategic Services that highlighted the ongoing importance of email outreach. What better way to follow that up than with their infographic showing the power of email.
We call your attention to such metrics as the fact that 35% of all online giving in 2011 came through email, whereas all other platforms together made up the other 65%. Therefore, email remains the single biggest tool in a nonprofit’s outreach toolbox, but it should not be considered the only tool. But how to be successful with email?
| Category Advice, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Crowdfunding, Development, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eBook, eNewsletter, Fundraising, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Relations, Publications, Resource, Site Administration, Social Media, Social Networks, Video | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SOCIALMEDIA: Online Communication Is A Team Sport
Prep your staff for social media success
Difficult not to start this post with a shout-out to the Baltimore Orioles, who beat the Red Sox at Fenway last night after 17 innings. One of the best of the many anomalies of the game is the fact that the O’s Designated Hitter, Chris Davis went 0-for-8, with 5 strikeouts − and was the winning pitcher, throwing two shut-out innings when the rest of the staff was used up. It takes a team, and everyone contributes something critical to the overall success.
And it should be that way for your nonprofit or charity as well. Whatever the extent of your staff, you need to structure a social-media team who are dedicated to listening, contributing, and monitoring your outreach both quantitatively and qualitatively.
| Category Advertising, Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Crowdfunding, Development, eBook, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Media, Public Relations, Publications, Resource, SEO, Site Administration, Social Media, Social Networks, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#INTERVIEW: Chris Forbes, Co-Author of Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits, Offers Great Advice to Groups
Chris Forbes is the co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits and a certified guerrilla-marketing coach. His varied background in marketing includes experience in the faith sector and work on five continents, and he has pioneered several media initiatives in public relations, television, radio and the Internet. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: What drew you to the marketing field?
CHRIS: I grew up in a marketing family. My mom had a product-administration service and worked with grocery stores and established networks with, say, free samples of food. When I was 14, she wanted me to dress up as Twinkie the Kid in a big foam-rubber costume to pass out Twinkies. When I was 15, she wanted me to dress up as Freddy the Fresh Guy from Wonder Bread. Then at 16, she asked me to be the Planter’s Peanut guy, but you have to wear leotards for that costume. I drew the line there.
| Category Advertising, Advice, Book, Branding, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, Interview, LinkedIn, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Pinterest, Public Relations, Research, Resource, Social Media, Social Networks, Special Series, Strategic Marketing, Tumblr, Twitter, Twitter, YouTube | | Comments Off
Written by: Don Akchin
#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.
| Category Blogs, Campaigns, Communications, Copyrighting, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Publications Design, Research, Special Series, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | Comments Off
Written by: Don Akchin
#PUBLICPOLICY: Online Privacy Becomes Concern For Service Providers
Perhaps the most famous statement of internet privacy from 'The New Yorker' (1993)
Online privacy has been a notable concern for many citizens almost since the inception of the internet, and certainly we have often discussed the issue on our blog over the years. A decade ago, the question of privacy largely was answered with calm warnings to use common sense and with explanations of the averages working against anyone being able to assemble any meaningful aggregate of the real you.
But now not only do companies exist precisely to aggregate your online behavior, millions of us willingly offer our own aggregations via our social-network platforms of choice. Those who strive to ensure some privacy of individuals have been lobbying the federal government to block certain aggregations and pressuring companies to offer ever more powerful privacy controls to customers and members. What seems to be the state of the discussion now?
| Category Audio Interview, Blogs, Civics, Communications, Community, Facebook, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Politics, Public Relations, Site Administration, Social Media, Strategic Marketing, Web and Print | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#TECH: Facebook Timeline Rolled Out-Nonprofits Roll In
Last week a much-anticipated feature was released by Facebook’s developers. No, not the stock IPO (Initial Public Offer), but the Timeline feature/app that can turn one’s activities online into, well, a timeline. In one sense, one’s posts and posts of one’s friends (including organizations) created a proto-timeline. What the new feature offers is the opportunity for one’s activities outside Facebook to be brought into one’s Timeline, a development of what the folks at FB call ‘The Open Graph’.
The paradigm, and the opportunity to develop applications to link your nonprofit/business/media conglomerate/reading circle/music application…, was first presented in mid-January and now some 80+ such organizations have developed apps (the numbers shift periodically as more organizations make such apps, but some are blocked after being reviewed by Facebook). The numbers of nonprofits taking advantage of Timeline are not yet huge, but many are discussing how they might in the near future.
| Category Advertising, Branding, Cause Marketing, Communications, Crowdfunding, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, Measurement, Media Review, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Reviews, Site Administration, Social Media, Software Review, Storytelling, Technology for Nonprofits | | 4 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Interview: Allison Fine, Author & Analyst — Examines Intersection of Social Media & Social Change
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.
| 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, Permission Marketing, Resource, Reviews, Social Media, Special Series, Sponsorship, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Tools, Twitter | | 1 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Inteview: Amy Eisenstein, Fundraising Consultant and Author of 50 Asks in 50 Weeks
Amy Eisenstein is a “no nonsense” fundraising consultant for local and national nonprofits. She is the author of 50 Asks in 50 Weeks: A Guide to Better Fundraising for Your Small Development Shop. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: Your book is targeted specifically to small shops. Is that because you have a particular affinity for them, or they need more help?
AMY: The big shops invest in training, in all sorts of specialists and consultants, so even though they’re often struggling as well, they have more resources to put into development. But I have to say that most nonprofits in this country are operating with small shops, with very few exceptions. The universities, hospitals and a few national nonprofits have more than three development staff members, but a large majority of the nonprofits in our country and around the world have sometimes no paid development professionals, and usually one, or maybe two if they’re lucky. So yes, that’s why I targeted small shops. They need a lot of help.
| Category Campaigns, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Facebook, Fundraising, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Social Media, Special Series, Strategic Marketing, Twitter | | Comments Off
Written by: Don Akchin
#Interview: Gail Perry, Fundraising Consultant, Trainer & Author of Fired-Up Fundraising
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.
| 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, Permission Marketing, Research, SEO, Social Media, Special Series, Sponsorship, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Twitter, Web Design, Writing | | 1 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Interview: Nicole Harrison is the founder of SocialNicole.com and host of #nptalk
Nicole Harrison is the founder of SocialNicole, a Minneapolis agency that provides online and social media communications services for businesses and nonprofits. She is also the host of a weekly Twitter chat about nonprofits, #NPTalk. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: Does your agency provide only online services?
NICOLE: Actually, no. What you see on our website is pretty much geared towards online, but we’re actually doing some strategic on-the-ground fundraising help for small nonprofits, such as sponsorships and building their base. A lot of clients come for social media but they need all these other pieces as well. We try to offer solutions and help them see how these different pieces tie together.
| Category Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Interview, Marketing, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Social Media, Special Series, Strategic Marketing, Twitter, Writing | | Comments Off
Written by: Don Akchin
#Interview: Howard Adam Levy, Principal of Red Rooster Group
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.
| 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, Permission Marketing, Publications Design, Slide Presentations, Social Media, Special Series, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Web Design, Writing | | 1 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Communications: Fine Tune Twitter Use To Enrich Outreach
The idea of using Twitter can overwhelm some, and how to use it as a smart tool for strategic engagement seems downright contradictory to many. Yet as the social-networking platform matures – Rather, as the people who use it explore that myriad ways to make it work for them – an ever growing number of provable strategies are being developed. A significant part of what can bring success to your nonprofit or small business is not simply the adoption of the platform, but the honing of the strategy that makes that makes it work for you.
One of the leaders of the use of social media in the business and nonprofit world is Brian Solis, whose most recent book is Engage! Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web. Brian has also shared some of his most successful tactics in a recent article in FastCompany magazine – and we want you to be aware of some of them.
| Category Advice, Book Review, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Community, Fundraising, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Relations, Publications, Reviews, SEO, Social Media, Technology, Twitter | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Interview: Michael Stein, Author, Blogger, & Veteran Nonprofit Technology Strategist
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.
| 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, Permission Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Special Series, Storytelling, Technology, Tools, Twitter, Writing | | Comments Off
Written by: Don Akchin
#Tech: Near-Field Communication Now Allows Two-Way Exchanges Of Information
The NFC Forum announced last week a technology protocol that allows NFC to be able to work in two directions synchronously. The press release touted the flexibility of two-way communication and the standards established at the outset to ensure universal access:
The extension of the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) to peer-to-peer use in SNEP is a significant advance. Previously, NDEF was applicable only to NFC tags in reader/writer mode. Now, SNEP enables the use of the openly standardized NDEF in peer-to-peer mode, making seamless interchange of data a reality. Application developers no longer need to concern themselves with how their NDEF data gets transferred between NFC-enabled devices. By providing this capability, the SNEP specification makes the difference between reader-writer and peer-to-peer operation modes disappear – a major step towards global interoperability of NFC applications.
What does all that mean for the technology and for the ways nonprofits can utilize the technology?
| Category Communications, Fundraising, Geo-Location, iDevice, iPhone Apps, Marketing, Media Review, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Press Release, Publications, Technology | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SocialNetworks: Is Facebook Too D@%n Complicated? Depends On What You Want To Share.
We got the notion for this story from Chris Taylor at Mashable.com, who argues that the geeks at Facebook are so excited about adding and tweaking their platform that they are leaving befuddled an ever growing section of their membership. The latest changes have driven him to distraction:
Take the Ticker, for example, that real-time stream of information which now crowds the right-side of your Facebook page with a lot of distracting noise. Or look at the Like button: That was a very popular all-purpose tool that spread rapidly across the Web. Everyone knows what it means to Like something. But Facebook couldn’t leave well enough alone.
The changes in FB’s layout and Timeline storytelling are not yet implemented for most of us, but they will mean a phenomenal amount of sharing of your online ‘life’. Are you going to accept the flow of your information to the larger world, or are you going to take the time to lockdown or at least curtail some of your sharing?
| Category Advice, Blogs, Communications, Community, Facebook, Facebook, Geo-Location, How-to, Marketing, Media Review, Opinion, Permission Marketing, Site Administration, Social Media | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD