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.

| 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

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

January 31st, 2012

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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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| Category Case Study, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Publications, Research, Resource, Social Media, Study, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits | | 1 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

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

January 5th, 2012

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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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| 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

#HowTo: Online Anonymity & Security Pivotal For Holiday Season

November 25th, 2011

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We don’t intend to be scare-mongers on this blog with so many stories on internet/cloud security. A minority of us will ever have our organization’s site hacked or email breached. The thing is, preventing such invasions is not especially difficult but prevention is a dynamic endeavor. As technology changes, and hackers’ tools changes with it, your organization must adjust accordingly. And once your information is compromised, you’ll desperately wish you had taken a few steps of prevention earlier.

Last week we discussed the need to secure passwords and to vary them across sites because our information is not so much ‘anonymous’ as ‘pseudononymous.’ Aggregates can be used to build up a coherent image of online you by pulling bits from a few frequented sites. We also noted that we would continue the story by looking at the need for security and anonymity for the networked machine – which is what we turn to today.

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| Category Advice, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Desktop Apps, E-Mail, How-to, Marketing, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Research, Resource, Reviews, Site Administration, Social Media, Software Review, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits | | 2 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#Tech: Online Security For Your Person-Not Just Your Passwords

November 18th, 2011

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What is to be done?

Securing one’s passwords, email accounts, and banking information rightly gains the lion’s share of attention in the media. Having one’s email hacked into – even if the account contains no particularly personal or truly incriminating information – can be a terrible headache for oneself and for one’s family and friends.

But are we aware of just how much of our activity is tracked and counted and bought and sold as we browse the internet outside any personal accounts? Computer scientists at Stanford Law School’s ‘Center for Internet and Society’ have been pursing this issue for a few months now, and they trace the myriad ways our identities are shared via even the most innocuous of surfing.

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| Category Advertising, Case Study, Communications, How-to, Marketing, Measurement, Media Review, Public Relations, Research, Resource, Reviews, Site Administration, Study, Technology, Web and Print | | 1 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

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

October 24th, 2011

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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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| Category Civics, Community, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Nonprofit, Research, Resource | | Comments Off

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

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

October 10th, 2011

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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!

 

| Category Civics, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Nonprofit, Research, Resource | | 1 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#Tech: Pew Internet Project Breaks Down Use Of Communications Tech Across Generations

September 27th, 2011

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Click to enlarge (from the Pew Internet Project)

The contours of the findings of the Pew Internet and American Life Project report on ‘Generations and their Gadgets’ you probably already know: Younger Americans use more mobile devices than older Americans. Older Americans generally access the internet from a desktop computer, whereas those under 35 tend to do so with a laptop/netbook. Etc.

But within those contours the project’s latest study, this one by Kathryn Zickuhr, we see growth in mobile use across all generations, and we even see some reticence to own any device across all generations as well.

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| Category Aging, Campaigns, Communications, Fundraising, GI Generation, iDevice, Internet, iPad/Tablet, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Media Review, Nonprofit, Public Media, Public Relations, Report, Research, Resource, Seniors Life, Silent Generation, Social Media, Technology, Technology for Aging, Web and Print, Web Design | | 1 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#Aging: A Good Read On Changing Retirement Opportunities For This Rainy Day

September 8th, 2011

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As the Eastern seaboard tries to find somewhere to put all this rain, besides on top of all the rain Irene left us, you might be looking for a good policy read to while away the dark and stormy night. Researchers Richard W. Johnson, Barbara A. Butrica, and Corina Mommaerts of the Urban Institute of have recently published the white paper, “Work and Retirement Patterns for the G.I. Generation, Silent Generation, and Early Boomers: Thirty Years of Change.”

The study was done with a grant from the U.S. Social Security  Administration (SSA) funded as part of the Retirement Research Consortium (RRC) at Boston College. The paper/PDF can be downloaded from The Policy Archive.

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| Category Aging, Assisted Living, Communications, Community, Grandparents, Independent Living, News and Current Affairs, Publications, Report, Research, Resource, Retirement Living, Seniors Life | | Comments Off

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#SocialNetworking: Jumo And Good Join To Create Largest Nonprofit Network

August 22nd, 2011

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We have followed the development of the Jumo website and network over the last year or so, and that organization has recently announced a development ‘merger’ with Good.is that will make it/them arguably the largest nonprofit socially-conscious network around.

The union will bring together Jumo’s model of searching for and supporting projects by topics with Good.is’s focus on stories, data, and news about a myriad of projects near and dear to the ethically-driven, the socially-engaged, and the community-oriented. What will the merger entail, and what might it mean for nonprofits and social-action groups who want to extend their outreach?

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| Category Advocacy, Blogs, Campaigns, Civics, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Development, eNewsletter, Environment, Fundraising, Marketing, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Politics, Public Media, Public Relations, Research, Reviews, Social Media, Volunteerism, Wellness | | Comments Off

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#Interview: Sarah Durham, Nonprofit Communications Strategist & Author of “Brandraising”

August 17th, 2011

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

Sarah Durham left the world of corporate communications and marketing in 1994 to launch Big Duck, an agency that works exclusively with nonprofit organizations to help them communicate effectively so they can fulfill their missions. She is the author of Brandraising: How Nonprofits Increase Visibility and Raise Money through Smart Communications (Jossey-Bass, 2010). The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.

MKC: First of all, as Chico Marx once asked, “Why a Duck?”

Sarah: I think the true answer is deep and Freudian and subliminal, but the conscious answer is, when I was starting Big Duck, I was leaving Disney Consumer Products, where I had worked on some of the branding issues around Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto, and I think I had the mice, the ducks and the dogs in my head. I wanted to come up with something that had the personality I was going for – creative, playful and sort of open-ended and flexible. (more…)

| Category Advertising, Advice, Blogs, Book Review, Branding, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Direct Mail, Facebook, Facebook, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Relations, Publications, Research, Resource, Reviews, Social Media, Special Series, Twitter, Writing | | Comments Off

Written by: Don Akchin

#Aging: Ford Motor Co. Features Fonts For Baby Boomers – How Lame Is That?!

July 7th, 2011

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Click to enlarge

As Margo Channing famously said, “You better buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

The issue that has fired all cylinders is that the Ford Motor Company is designing a series of cars over the next few years with larger fonts and gauges in order, in part, to appeal to Baby Boomers. Out of the gate, the 2011 Ford Explorer has signage and text some 30% larger than previous generations, and Ford promises to expand the use of larger fonts over the next few years.

Catey Hill of SmartMoney.com noted Ford’s studies of dashboard legibility that argued for safety in larger fonts: “The move is an effort to make it “easier for people of all ages, particularly aging baby boomers, to read display fonts,” the company said in a statement. (Ford conducted a “legibility study,” which found that people’s eyesight begins to decline in their 40s and worsens from there; these results mimic the results of previous studies as well). Of course, it’s also likely an effort to sell more cars to the lucrative boomer demographic.”

As Boomers move toward retirement age, they will soon be a larger American demographic than children under five. So why would it be lame for Ford to adjust the fonts on the dashboards of its cars? Of course it would not be lame: not many five-year-olds in the car-buying market. But try talking sense to Tristan Hankins over at Carscoop.com.

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| Category Advertising, Aging, Automobiles, Blogs, Communications, Dashboards, Design, Independent Living, Marketing, Opinion, Press Release, Public Relations, Research, Retirement Living, Reviews, Seniors Life, Technology | | 1 Comments

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

#Development: Should You be Focused On Donor Retention Rather Than Acquisition?

June 23rd, 2011

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The Agitator blog asked Agitator readers a simple question:

What percentage of your nonprofit’s 1st time donors make a second gift?

The final results of their survey show:

32% — less than 30 percent converted
29% — 30-39 percent converted
22% — 40-49 percent converted
17% — 50 percent or more converted

When they compared these results with a Forbes Insight Survey of marketing executives in the private sector, the Agitator came to one conclusion: nonprofit development staff should make donor retention a higher priority than acquiring new donors. Sounds counter-inituitive, no? The numbers suggest otherwise

Donor retention through ongoing relationship building: It’s the low-hanging fruit that will reap a large harvest!

Read the full article here.

| Category Advice, Blogs, Case Study, Communications, Cross-Post, Crowdfunding, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Major Gifts, Marketing, Measurement, Nonprofit, Research, Resource, Storytelling, Study | | Comments Off

Written by: Marco Kathuria

#Social Media: Are We Engaged or Distracted? Both?

June 3rd, 2011

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Sorry to interrupt, but...

Social media can take a great deal of our time and attention. But is that time and attention being taken away from being productive at work or being engaged with our surroundings? A recent survey from Harmon.ie, as reported at FastCompany.com, demonstrates how digital interactions often are digital distractions. And the distractions add up to over $10,000 in productivity losses per employee over the year.

How do the numbers break out and how have people responded to the not-so-surprising news? Can we have some cake and eat it too?

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| Category Communications, E-Mail, Marketing, News and Current Affairs, Report, Research, Resource, Social Media, Technology | | Comments Off

Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD

Study: UMBC Seeking African American Women Age 65+ for Research Project

June 2nd, 2011

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Image via Wikipedia

The Retirement Living Sourcebook reports that researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County are conducting a study on older women and want to be sure the study is representative of our diverse population. You are invited to help by participating in the study (if you are eligible) and by sharing this invitation widely with your friends, family and networks.

“African American Women, Age 65 and older who do not have children and are willing to share their experiences and views on later life are asked to take part in a research project to discuss the lifestyles of older women and the joys and challenges of later life.”

This study is funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Participation will involve three (3) private interviews in your home (or at another place, if you prefer) and each interview will last approximately 90 minutes. All information will be kept confidential.

All participants will be paid $100 for their time.

If you are interested in participating, please contact:

Amanda Mosby
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Office:  (410) 455-5935
[email protected]

| Category Measurement, Research, Resource, Study | | Comments Off

Written by: Marco Kathuria

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