Higher education and nonprofit communications teams tend to turn their noses up at donor profiles. Their reaction isn’t unfounded; college alumni magazine readership surveys, for one, consistently show that donor profiles and gift announcements rank last in interest among types of content in these publications. After working for more than a decade on both sides … Continue reading How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Development Content: Five ways to reframe your donor stories
The big question your donors want you to answer: WHY
Why should I give you money? Why should I care about your work? Why will this matter to someone? Too often, we focus on HOW. We love to talk about how we do the work. All the cool ways we accomplish great things. A new process. A unique way of tackling a problem. All of … Continue reading The big question your donors want you to answer: WHY
#GivingTuesday tweets that got noticed vs those that didn’t
Go on Twitter and search up the #GivingTuesday hashtag and you’ll find a never-ending torrent of tweets by non-profits trying to get the attention of digital passersby. Given how jam-packed the market is, and how short peoples’ attention spans are on Twitter, if there’s anything a non-profit can do to get even ONE like, or … Continue reading #GivingTuesday tweets that got noticed vs those that didn’t
Maximize Your Donations During the Last Week of the Year
If you only looked at how nonprofits spend most of their efforts during year-end fundraising season, you might think that Giving Tuesday is the most important giving day of the year.However, the data tells a different story. Giving Tuesday brings in 4.3% of online year-end revenue.December 31st brings in 15.5% of online year-end revenue.The last week of the year as … Continue reading Maximize Your Donations During the Last Week of the Year
7 Powerful Public Speaking Tips From One of the Most-Watched TED Talks Speakers
You'd never know it, but Simon Sinek is naturally shy and doesn't like speaking to crowds. At parties, he says he hides alone in the corner or doesn't even show up in the first place. He prefers the latter. Yet, with some 22 million video views under his belt, the optimistic ethnographer also happens to … Continue reading 7 Powerful Public Speaking Tips From One of the Most-Watched TED Talks Speakers
The Pixar Pitch! Telling your Story Crisply and with Clarity in order to Compel Action
In order to move others, we need to become much better at clearly stating what it is we want and where it is we want people to go. Daniel Pink presents the Pixar Pitch as a prime tool in thinking about this. Pixar Animation Studios, starting with Toy Story, is one of the most successful … Continue reading The Pixar Pitch! Telling your Story Crisply and with Clarity in order to Compel Action
15 Most Valuable Emotional Intelligence TED Talks on Youtube
Emotional intelligence gets a lot of attention in the field of leadership research, and it is drawing increasing attention from many other fields as well. By increasing empathy and compassion through accurate awareness and acceptance of emotions, real widespread change can be ignited. Daniel Goleman wrote the book Emotional Intelligence and his personal “awakening” into … Continue reading 15 Most Valuable Emotional Intelligence TED Talks on Youtube
Educational fundraising: how to structure your Regular Giving year
Whether you are working for a school, university, college or are outside the world of education: when creating a Regular Giving programme, there tend to be a number of pillars. Telephone campaigns, mass mail appeals and more bespoke approaches usually end up being core parts of your programme. Of course this depends on the data … Continue reading Educational fundraising: how to structure your Regular Giving year
How to design kick-ass pages and products by simply asking some questions
Every organisation wants to design digital solutions with a rich user experience. To do this, they need a thorough understanding of how people interact with technology and experience these solutions. As humans we are hardwired to spot certain patterns and responses in our surroundings. We use these responses and patterns when we are solving problems … Continue reading How to design kick-ass pages and products by simply asking some questions
Most public sector messages are not direct marketing
The ICO says public sector organisations can send ‘promotional’ messages which would not be classed as direct marketing, if they are necessary for a public task or function. This is significant. ‘Promotional’ messages have always been considered as ‘direct marketing’ before, regardless of whether they are sent by commercial companies, not-for-profits or the public sector. It … Continue reading Most public sector messages are not direct marketing
Propper Fundraising 