#ADVOCACY: Make Sure Pitch Has Call To Action, Not Just High Concept
What happens when you get corporate assistance to launch a new campaign, or pro bono development from a commercial ad agency? You can get some fabulous ideas and some valuable insights on establishing your brand. You can get your materials into some of the best publication and on some of the most visited sites on the web.
But as some of our colleagues at Sofii.org have discovered, you can also get a good deal of expensive nothing. The commercial backer or ad agency might not be sensitive to the constituents who want to be involved with various types of nonprofits. They might encourage outreach through channels that are quite unlikely to reach the people your charity traditionally reaches. They might give you a fabulous product on the design board (Indeed, I think it’s safe to say that they certainly will give you a fabulous design.) that falls flat in the real world. Let’s look at a couple of examples from Sofii.
Popularity: 1% | Category Advertising, Advice, Advocacy, Blogs, Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Communications, Copyrighting, Crowdfunding, Design, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Graphic Design, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Media Review, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Publications, Publications Design, Resource, Reviews, Sponsorship, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Study, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#INTERVIEW: Debra Askanase, Socialbrite.org Strategist, Offers Useful Advice To Nonprofits Using Social Media
Debra Askanase, founder of Community Organizer 2.0, is an “engagement strategist” who consults with nonprofit organizations on digital media. She is also a strategist for Socialbrite. Her background includes a decade of community organizing experience, followed by seven years in community economic development. 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 get into digital media? Did you reinvent yourself?
DEBRA: Yes, but it also seemed a pretty natural progression. I started off as a relatively traditional community organizer with multi-issue/low-income organizations. I moved into tenant organizing as well, then into economic development. I saw many of the same skills in leadership development that I saw in community and economic development. I worked with low-income immigrant entrepreneurs to start businesses. After doing that for seven years, I became very interested in business, from the perspective of how business can change society. So I went to business school and there seemed to be a confluence at that point. Social media was just gaining traction – this was 2007 and Facebook had just opened up beyond the college crowd – and I made that leap, intuitively, that social media is really community organizing. Here’s an opportunity where I can use my expertise in business strategy that I had been doing for seven years and my understanding of how people come together to change things. And I wanted to bring that interest to nonprofits. My entire experience had been working with nonprofits, so I understood that world from the ground up.
Popularity: 2% | Category Advice, Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Social Media, Social Networks, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Twitter, Twitter, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#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.
Popularity: 2% | Category Advertising, Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Crowdfunding, Development, eBook, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Media, Public Relations, Publications, Resource, SEO, Site Administration, Social Media, Social Networks, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | 0 Comments
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.
Popularity: 4% | Category Advertising, Advice, Book, Branding, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, Interview, LinkedIn, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Pinterest, Public Relations, Research, Resource, Social Media, Social Networks, Strategic Marketing, Tumblr, Twitter, Twitter, YouTube | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#INTERVIEW: Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications, Discusses Why Nonprofits Need to Embrace Video
Michael Hoffman is co-founder and CEO of See3 Communications and a leading authority on online video for nonprofits and online fundraising and outreach strategies. After turns as a political consultant and developer of Internet startups, he founded See3 to bring together his vision of the web and his passion for nonprofit fundraising. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: What was the concept of See3 when you founded it?
MICHAEL: See3 was a coming together of my background, which was really on the web side in terms of Internet business and strategy, and that of my partner, Danny Albert, which is video. Danny has been a documentary filmmaker for 20 years. Around 2004-2005, we both saw some trends that we call our ‘your chocolate and my peanut butter moment.’ I was telling Danny about changes on the web and the development of broadband (It’s hard even to remember that only a few years ago, some 90% of people were still using dialup). Broadband was around the corner and Danny asked me, ‘What does that mean? What will broadband do?’ And I immediately answered ‘video.’ When you have broadband web, the web will become a platform for video, just as it is with us talking over Skype now on this interview.
Popularity: 7% | Category Campaigns, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Facebook, Fundraising, Interview, LinkedIn, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Measurement, MySpace, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Perspectives, Pinterest, Posterous, Scoopit, Social Media, Social Networks, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Tools, Tumblr, Twitter, Twitter, Video, YouTube | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Tech: The Net Is Not Quite Dead, But It’s Not Your Mom’s Web Anymore
First of all, an adjustment/correction to yesterday’s story: Facebook pushed back its rollout of Timeline across all accounts until tomorrow, the 31st. Facebook did this rather quietly and did not state why, but you now have about 20 hours to get your Timeline up-and-running, as we outlined yesterday. (Thanks to Cody Damon of Damon Strategic for the heads-up!)
Today’s tech topic is related in so far as it is about how we interact with Facebook and other online services in new ways. The traditional ‘internet via browser’ model is fading away, to be replaced by a more precise paradigm − one that moves us from our mobile devices directly to the service/platform/medium that we want. The opportunity it presents will streamline, and perhaps redefine, the internet as we knew it. How?
Popularity: 3% | Category Advice, Apple, Case Study, Communications, Desktop Apps, Fundraising, iDevice, iPad Apps, iPhone Apps, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Media Review, Nonprofit, Publications, Report, Resource, SEO, Site Administration, Social Media, Software Review, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Web Design | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SM4NP: ROI From Social Media May Be Elusive, But It’s Not Impossible
If you search for information about how to measure returns on investment in social media, you will be quickly reminded about just how new social media is in the business and nonprofit economies. Mathematicians are still searching out formulae and quality-control gurus want to talk about the developments of relationships that will bring customers and donors a bit later down the road. One of the underlying themes, though, is that no one doubts the value of social media writ large, even as we try to quantify that value and/or make it predictive of our outreach.
Perhaps success can be measured in hard, but not precise, numbers. Moreover, we should also consider social media as a ‘value added’ component to the core vocation of our nonprofit or charity, rather than as a fundamental element. How might we do both?
Popularity: 2% | Category Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Social Media, Strategic Marketing, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#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, Perspectives, Perspectives, Publications Design, Research, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#INTERVIEW: Jocelyn Harmon, Vice President of Sales, Marketing & Customer Success at Network for Good
Jocelyn Harmon is Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Customer Success at Network for Good. She has been writing Marketing for Nonprofits blog since 2007. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: You have said a focus of your blog is helping nonprofits succeed online. When did you latch onto the online piece of marketing?
JOCELYN: I was working at the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, from about 2004 to 2006. Our goal at NCNA was to help nonprofits run better as businesses. My job was to do marketing and raise money for NCNA. I was also tasked with helping our member organizations be better marketers and fundraisers. I started doing a lot of work with a group called NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network, and through them I met some really interesting people: Holly Ross from NTEN, Billy Bicket at TechSoup, and of course I met Katya Andresen (Network for Good) at that time. They were talking about how technology was going to revolutionize the way that nonprofits work – from programming to marketing to raising money: everything was going to move online, and nonprofits were going to be left behind if they didn’t hurry up and get on board. I thought, well, this is really cool. The other piece for me is the promise of technology to level the playing field. I’m an African-American woman, I have a strong history in my family of social justice work, so I love the idea of people having access to tools where they can be publishers, where they can have a voice, where they can connect with people potentially all across the world. So I got really passionate about the power of technology to change nonprofits, and how people with access to tools like that could change the world.
Popularity: 3% | Category Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Fundraising, iDevice, Interview, iPad Apps, iPad/Tablet, iPhone Apps, Mobile, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Perspectives, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Tools, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#PROAGING: Social Tech Rewiring Social Connections For Millennials
Each generation seems predisposed to believe the next generation will be materially better off but intellectually or spiritually weaker. Whether it’s Socrates complaining about writing over memorizing, John of Salisbury lamenting the rise of law schools in twelfth-century England, or Grandpa Simpson opining about how much better everything was in his day, thinkers tends to lament the technologies their children develop.
We might now have lived in a internet-connected world long enough to get a meaningful sense of how connectedness might be changing the ways be think and interact with information and with each other. On this year’s Leap Day, Elon University’s School of Communication and the Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report entitled “Millennials will benefit and suffer due to their hyperconnected lives” – a report meant to see how the Millennials see their own world and its future.
Popularity: 3% | Category Advice, Aging, Civics, Communications, Marketing, Nonprofit, Publications, Report, Resource, Social Media, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Aging, Technology for Nonprofits | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#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?
Popularity: 4% | 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 | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SM4NP: In Search For ROI, Can We Put A Number On A Relationship?
ROI can bring strong relationships as well as income to nonprofits
Who doesn’t want a high return on investment? Whether that investment is time or money, any business or nonprofit wants to see it put to good use and wants to see some reward for it. With the explosion of social media over the last five-to-seven years, we have watched a kind of bi-polar reaction to the development of an online/social media strategy. One tendency is to believe that with the new website and Twitter plug in, your organization’s work is done. The other is to strive to boost the number of Followers and Friends ever higher, though often be frustrated that each Facebook Friend is not donating each time he or she signs into their account. Perhaps we should envision a sweet spot between such extremes, for ourselves, for our clients, and for our constituents.
Popularity: 4% | Category Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Internal Marketing, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Site Administration, Social Media, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Technology for Nonprofits, Twitter, Video Interview | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#INTERVIEW: Sybil Stershic, Consultant, Blogger, & Author of Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most
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, Perspectives, Perspectives, Resource, Strategic Marketing | | 6 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#SM4NP: Beware Not Of SM But Of SM Snake Oil & Silver Bullets
Should you? Must you?
If we aren’t careful, we might be entranced to believe social-media networking platforms have been around for quite a while. I mean, if Facebook is valued at $5 billion in its Initial Public Auction, then surely it’s a tried-and-true company that still has room to grow. Right?
Before you jump over to your E*Trade account, you might ask yourself “What has Facebook (or Twitter, for that matter) done for me?” That query, if you are a nonprofit or a small business, can be tricky to answer, unless you started with a plan and with some measurable goals that can be stood next to what you have in fact done. And sometimes, what you want done can get a nice push from social media but social media won’t necessarily do the heavy hauling. And that’s ok!
Popularity: 4% | Category Advice, Blogs, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community Gardens, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Site Administration, Social Media, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Technology for Nonprofits, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Communications: Postal Rates Raised Last Week – Not For Nonprofits
The United States Postal Service has been struggling financially for the last few years. The Bush Administration saddled the service with pre-paying its future retiree benefits for a decade (2006-2016), a demand uniquely imposed on the USPS. Bush’s policy meant the service went from profits in the $1.4 billion range in 2005 to one that has laid off thousands of works, closed numerous branches, and still needs to raise postal rates in an effort just to stay open. So what he did to the postal service he did to the country.
This past Monday many postal rates changed. For example, first-class mail went up by a penny and its guaranteed one-day delivery (depending on distance) was removed. Or perhaps you didn’t notice?
Popularity: 3% | Category Advice, Campaigns, Civics, Communications, Community, Direct Mail, E-Mail, Fundraising, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newsletter, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Politics, Publications, Strategic Marketing, Web and Print | | 0 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.
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, Perspectives, Perspectives, Resource, Reviews, Social Media, Sponsorship, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Tools, Twitter | | 1 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#ProAging: CES Highlights Tech For Boomers On-The-Move
This past 10 through 13 January saw the annual International Consumer Electronics Show present some of the up-and-coming technologies for the next year(s). The CES “is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $186 billion U.S. consumer technology industry.” Most of the news pertains to the latest smartphone or smart TV, but for the past three years the CES has also supported the ‘Silver Summit.’ This exhibition-within-an-exhibition focusses on technology for older citizens. It also awards ‘Silver Choice Awards,’ a couple of which we wanted to relay to our readers – along with video access to a round-table on the future of technology for retiring Baby Boomers.
Popularity: 5% | Category Aging, Apple, Boomers, Community, Design, Events, Health, iDevice, Independent Living, iPad Apps, iPad/Tablet, iPhone Apps, Marketing, Nonprofit, Reviews, Seniors Life, Software Review, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Aging | | 2 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#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.
Popularity: 4% | Category Campaigns, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Facebook, Fundraising, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Social Media, Strategic Marketing, Twitter | | 0 Comments
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.
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, Perspectives, Perspectives, Research, SEO, Social Media, Sponsorship, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Twitter, Web Design, Writing | | 1 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Development: Make The Nonprofit Video – Don’t Sweat The ‘Viral’
Happy New Year to our much-appreciated readers! May your 2012 be notably donor-rich and Mayan-free. In case we are not here in 360 days, let’s get right to work.
We turned our attentions toward video outreach last December, and we begin this year’s posts with a story expressly about a business that turned an internal demonstration into a massive video campaign. The takeaway of the ‘Will It Blend?’ series, though, is to make your video brief, friendly, perhaps a bit off-kilter, and don’t worry about whether the video goes viral. Consultation and strategy are the foundation – Your organization must be invested not in polished production, but in long-term outreach.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD