Resilience is the ability to withstand, recover, return, and thrive in the face of adversity or a traumatic event. Resilience is an ongoing process that develops over time. Furthermore, our perceptions, culture, family, experiences, and training all influence our resilience. While we all have our strategies for dealing with life’s challenges, the use of positive … Continue reading How to Build Resilience
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Development Content: Five ways to reframe your donor stories
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
What To Do When Someone Is Bringing Down Your Team
Tolerating performance or behavior that negatively impacts the team is choosing to signal to the team that you are OK with it. The only choices you really have in situations like these are to Tolerate, Train, or Terminate. Shane Snow took this advice to heart over the years and made a flowchart as a reminder … Continue reading What To Do When Someone Is Bringing Down Your Team
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
Why the things you hate make good appeals
That informal language is undignified... A fundraising appeal is not a business letter. Say it again. Keep saying it until you believe it. An appeal should read like a letter from a dear friend. Or better yet, like a phone call from that friend, transcribed. So yes, there will be contractions, because people use contractions … Continue reading Why the things you hate make good appeals
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
How Accessible Data Can Make Nonprofits More Effective
Can you think of a time when a new strategy didn’t work, results changed unexpectedly, or a goal was missed? Through the power of hindsight, you may be able to see right away if it was due to a knowledge or skills gap. A recent study into these competencies showed that at least 59% of … Continue reading How Accessible Data Can Make Nonprofits More Effective
The Importance of Having a Multichannel Fundraising Campaign
Year-end fundraising season is starting to gear up. However, if you just send one fundraising letter and wait for the donations to come in, prepare to be disappointed. Your donors have a lot going on and may put your letter aside to handle later, and then never get to it. Of course, you can also … Continue reading The Importance of Having a Multichannel Fundraising Campaign
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
Propper Fundraising 