Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could count on a certain percentage of people in your email list to donate to your organization, and a certain percentage of those donors to become passionate, sustaining members or even board members? Just like traveling through a forest, a guide can show your audience how to move on […]
Read More How to guide your audience to support your missionWith all that’s gone on this year, if you’re still sending generic, organization-centered communication, you’re doing a huge disservice. There has been some conflict about donor-centered vs community-centered, and Ann Green thinks we can have both. What you don’t want is to be organization-centered. You can’t communicate with your donors without focusing on them. This […]
Read More On the Road to Better Donor CommunicationThe CASE-Ross report, released by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), shows new philanthropic funds secured by UK and Irish highereducation institutions was £1.09 billion during the 2019-2020 reporting year. The new funds secured from philanthropic sources has remained higher than £1 billion for the third year running though average new funds […]
Read More CASE-Ross Support of Education Survey 2021Are you a cat person or a dog person? The answer to that might impact your choice of a (potential) mate. The experiment on an online dating site randomized the same male in two different photos, one holding a cat, one not. Women then “swiped” to show interest. The guy with the cat was considered […]
Read More Cat People and Dog PeopleGenerations of fundraisers and NGOs have been conditioned to a very insidious formula for the way we fundraise. This formula has evolved, it has mutated, but it is still very much alive. Essentially, this formula rests on humanising the donor, and then predominantly the white donor, and on dehumanising the predominantly non-white beneficiaries and more […]
Read More Inclusive communications in the fundraising and philanthropy sectorsEmily Taylor writes about listening – how to do it, why it’s important, and what we can learn from it. For-profits have been listening to their customers for years – tailoring experiences and clearly communicating their offerings in ways that make it easy to understand (think of a Starbucks menu or a Uber Eats delivery […]
Read More Human-centered design, design thinkingIn an effort to raise money and awareness for causes, nonprofit organizations often feel compelled to tell stories of desperate victims. Well-intentioned efforts to convey the urgency and severity of need lead organizations to reduce people to their problems. And to stand out in the crowded marketplace, organizations often conflate value with heroism, representing themselves […]
Read More 5 Ways for Nonprofits to Tell an Ethical Story“Poverty porn” refers to the use of pictures, video, the written word, and other forms of communication to present participant stories through a victimizing lens. These elicit feelings of pity and motivate donors to give. These media show helpless, passive victims just waiting for someone to rescue them. While dehumanizing language may bring in funding, […]
Read More “Othering” Language akin to Poverty Porn: Is Your Nonprofit Guilty?That’s a truism. You obviously have to have some spare cash if you are going to support a charity, but what makes this a particularly interesting point is the recent report from the Governor of the Bank of England, where he explains that saving deposits have increased in value by over £125 billion during the […]
Read More People who have more money can give more away“Write something good, and feel good about writing it.” That sentence is from award-winning writer Jacqueline Woodson in response to the question “What’s the goal of writing when you’re 15?” Being a writer is all about expressing your unique perspective with feeling and originality, not about having a huge vocabulary or getting published, says author […]
Read More Helpful advice for aspiring writers of all ages
