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As we mentioned last week, first-time donor retention is a measly 19%. You can do so much better with just a few small changes. Start with the first thing your donors get after giving – the thank you! Last week we gave you 5 fresh ideas for thank yous. Today we give you 4 more: 1. Record a Video Message. One of my all-time favorite thank-you emails came from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), with a link to a short video.
Many of you are working hard on your year-end appeal. You may have also participated in #GivingTuesday. If you think you can rest easy after the fundraising season is over, think again. Your work has just begun. You need to communicate with your donors at least once or twice a month throughout the year. If you’re getting butterflies in your stomach wondering how you’re going to pull this off, then you need a communications calendar (also known as an editorial calendar).
Nonprofit Tech for Good began as a “Nonprofit Organizations” Myspace Page in 2005. In the 10 years since the “Nonprofit Organizations” brand has expanded to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Storify, Flipboard, Periscope, and most recently Snapchat. Nonprofit Tech for Good is a one-person operation and one person can only do so much.
Don't let this happen to you! Last night, my wife and I were doing some year-end giving. We went to a nonprofit we love and found this on their donation page: Where there should have been a giving form, there was just a line of code. No way to give online at all. Don't let this happen to you! This isn't the time of year to have a broken donation link!
Your financial statements hold powerful insights—but are you truly paying attention? Many finance professionals focus on the income statement while overlooking key signals hidden in the balance sheet and cash flow statement. Understanding these numbers can unlock smarter decision-making, uncover risks, and drive long-term success. Join David Worrell, accomplished CFO, finance expert, and author, for an engaging, nontraditional take on reading financial statements.
During the holidays, many people celebrate by getting together with family and friends, eating too much, exchanging gifts and drinking lots of hot cocoa. In the nonprofit world, the end of the year usually also means sending a fundraising appeal letter to your supporters. Before you fire off another letter asking people to support your nonprofit, review these tips to increase giving rates and make your constituents feel more like part of your mission.
It’s been quite a week for watching the philanthropic parade go by — featuring gifts in size from one extreme to another and given through the widest variety of methods and channels in history. From the birth of Baby Max Zuckerberg and her parents’ $45 billion gift in her honor to be used toward “improving this world for he next generation” … to the seasonal appearance of the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle on malls and street corners (and online ) … to the record-setting results of #Giv
Donors are Testing Nonprofits, and Nonprofits Are Failing. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, first-time donor retention is a measly 19%. While repeat donor retention is much better at 63%, that still means 1 in 3 current donors don’t give again. Overall, the median donor retention rate is just 43%. It’s not a huge mystery as to why.
Donors are Testing Nonprofits, and Nonprofits Are Failing. According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, first-time donor retention is a measly 19%. While repeat donor retention is much better at 63%, that still means 1 in 3 current donors don’t give again. Overall, the median donor retention rate is just 43%. It’s not a huge mystery as to why.
For the last couple of years, I’ve done my year-end giving online on #GivingTuesday. The day before I purchased Christmas gifts on Cyber Monday, and there wasn’t much difference in the process. Is it #GivingTuesday or Asking Tuesday? On #GivingTuesday I was inundated with emails asking for donations, just like the day before I was barraged with emails from Amazon and Zappos.
Cause awareness and giving days can be very powerful for online fundraising. The real-time, in the moment nature of social media increases the likelihood that donors will be inspired to give to your nonprofit on cause awareness and giving days provided that your nonprofit knows how to promote them effectively. The first step is to decide which days to build a campaign upon and add them to your editorial calendar.
Before we get into these 7 major principles for major gift fundraising (including planned gifts), let’s review some neat stats first. In the United States, 72% of gifts come from individuals and wealthy individuals are responsible for most of those gifts. According to figures from the Giving Foundation and the Fundraising Effectiveness Project , 83% of the dollars from individuals came from just 12% of the people and 70% came from just 3%.
Gretchen Barry is a guest contributor for Nonprofit Hub. Gretchen has been a leader in corporate communications and marketing for 20+ years. She has published numerous articles related to charitable giving and is a passionate advocate for public schools. Gretchen has donated her time to numerous causes including Relay for Life, Girls on the Run, Rebuilding Together and just recently became involved with the local land trust.
Traditional budgeting and forecasting methods can no longer keep pace with today’s rapidly evolving business environment. Static budgets, rigid annual forecasts, and outdated financial models limit an organization’s ability to adapt to market shifts and economic uncertainty. To stay ahead, finance leaders must leverage a future-forward approach—one that leverages real-time data, predictive analytics, and continuous planning to drive smarter financial decisions.
A perennial question in fundraising shops between now and the end of January will be, “Did we make the numbers for 2015?” Regardless of the answer, there are several questions that are far more important for the future of your organization, and there’s no better time than in these closing days of 2015 to ask and answer them. The three most important questions: “What is our retention rate?
Controlling your own calendar and to-do list is essential to being a CALM not BUSY communications director. Of course, you don’t have complete control, but I bet you have more than you think you do — or can get more control with some practice and discipline at saying “No” to new requests for your time and attention. The problem is that saying “No” is hard!
A few days ago Ev Williams, one of the cofounders of Twitter and the CEO of Medium. said the future of media lies in platforms like Twitter, Facebook and, Medium. “There’s going to be a convergence of distribution points for media,” Williams said. “And it’s going to make less and less sense to publish on the Web.”. Of course social media giant founders like Williams and Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, would like to see this convergence happen, as it would greatly benefit their platforms.
Unlike the.ORG domain which can be registered by any individual or brand (but mostly registered by nonprofits and socially conscious for-profits), the new.NGO and.ONG domains can only be registered by nonprofits, charities, NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and ONGs (non-governmental organizations in a romance-based language ). Think about that for a second or two.
Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio, Director of Corporate Brand
Do you really know your donors? Not just what they give, but who they are? 👥 In this interactive session, we’ll break down how nonprofits can use behavioral indicators (affinity, recency, frequency, and monetary value) to build prospecting segments that go beyond wealth screening and actually align with donor identity. You’ll walk away with practical strategies to move beyond basic demographics and cultivate supporters based on how they already engage with you!
I’m worried about fundraisers who get too excited about Giving Tuesday. Yesterday I received Giving Tuesday emails from a bunch of charities and I was surprised at how self-centered and disrespectful they were. That led me to wonder if December might be when nonprofits end up losing a ton of donors as a result of their abuse of the permission bestowed upon them by their donors (investors).
Behind involved, dedicated and committed board of directors, your nonprofit can achieve great things. However, when board members aren’t all pulling their weight, they can sink an organization. When the bad outweighs the good, Simone Joyaux , who has worked as a consultant with boards of directors for the past 27 years, said nonprofits can’t be afraid to remove a nonprofit board members, especially when they are ineffective.
Tom and I spend lots of time and spill lots of digital ink over building donor relationships, the importance of retention and donor experience. So I was mighty pleased to see that our UK fundraising friend Matthew Sherrington has managed to distill a lot of what we’ve had to say into a single post. In a SOFII piece titled Why Asking and Thanking Is All Wrong Matthew, who loves to rattle the cage of conventional wisdom, quickly reviews — then dismisses — many of the niceties and intr
In case you missed this great stuff, here are our Top 10 blog posts published in 2015, according to Google Analytics page views: 10. 5 Easy Hashtag Hacks for Nonprofit Marketers by Kerri Karvetski. 9. A Great Nonprofit Annual Report in a Fabulous Infographic by Liesl Manone. 8. Repeat: 31 Phrases to Use in Email Lift Notes, Resends, and Reminders by Kerri Karvetski. 7. 7 Free Tools to Improve Your Nonprofit Marketing by Billy Attar. 6.
Payroll compliance is a cornerstone of business success, yet for small and midsize businesses, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of federal, state, and local regulations. Mistakes can lead to costly penalties and operational disruptions, making it essential to adopt advanced solutions that ensure accuracy and efficiency.
Does your nonprofit use ecommerce as a big part of its fundraising strategy? Then you need to explore the “Buy” button from Google, Facebook and Pinterest. Google Buy Button. As you know Google searches are a significant source of traffic. Google’s “Buy” button makes Google even more powerful. Here’s how. When users go to Google to search for your organization’s product, Google generates a search results page displaying your product.
Whether your nonprofit operates on a calendar year or fiscal year, what happens in December is critically important to your annual fundraising success. Did you know that giving spikes at the end of the year, every year? Fully one-third of December's gifts occur on December 31. So, how can you raise more money in the last four weeks of the year? Look at LYBUNTs What's a LYBUNT?
Enset , the world’s only nonprofit domain registrar, is offering a 50% discount on the new.NGO and.ONG domains launched in May exclusively for NGOs, ONGs, nonprofits, and charities. To see if your first choice of domains is still available, search enset.ngo and enter coupon code: TECH4Good at checkout to receive the 50% discount. The average price is $59.99 thus only $30 with the discount and that’s for both a.NGO and.ONG domain because domains are sold as a bundle.
Chances are if the day has a special moniker, Americans like to spend money on it. Black Friday. Shop Local Saturday. Cyber Monday. Giving Tuesday. The weeks following Thanksgiving are a period when money flows like a river. Nonprofits have carved out a nice little niche for themselves with the last day of the run. However, what if nonprofits didn’t have to be restricted to just one day?
Employee recognition has often been deemed a "feel-good" initiative, tied closely to rewards. While we understand its importance, we tend to associate recognition with intangible outcomes like engagement and sentiment, rather than direct impacts on retention and high performance. In today’s workplace, the true ROI of recognition lies in its ability to regenerate tangible, business-driven results.
With all your online solicitation programs firing away like an AK-47 on auto-pilot until January 1, I don’t think fundraisers are doing much heavy lifting today or tomorrow … unless it’s setting big presents under the Xmas tree. But maybe — over some spiked punch at the office Christmas party — you are contemplating and chatting about your year’s performance — yours individually and your organization’s.
Love it or hate it, #GivingTuesday has become a VERY BIG DEAL for nonprofits. By every measure, this giving day has exploded into a new, influential holiday. According to the Case Foundation , which set out this year to measure the collective reach of Giving Tuesday, total online donations processed on Giving Tuesday more than doubled from 2014, to a staggering $116.7 million given by 698,961 online donors.
As communicators, we are passionate about the work of our organizations. We dedicate time to crafting the right message, honing our target audience, and getting the message out.
I relish the roll out of trends at the end of each year, digesting them in the context of what’s working for our clients and passing on what matters most to nonprofit marketers. I’ve seen typically broad-ranging predictions for 2016, but these two constants central to our work have been heralded by multiple sources: Data, drawn from all channels, will continue to grow exponentially in volume.
Managing HR tasks like payroll, compliance, and employee data can overwhelm small businesses. That’s where a Human Capital Management (HCM) solution comes in. Our eBook, Why Every Small Business Needs an HCM Solution: A Comprehensive Guide , shows how an HCM system automates tedious processes, ensuring your business stays compliant and efficient. You’ll learn how to simplify payroll, eliminate costly errors, and empower your employees with self-service tools.
Nonprofit Tech for Good is based in St. Louis, Missouri and the vast majority of our webinars are scheduled to accommodate nonprofits on the East Coast of the United States and Canada and Western Europe. All webinars are presented live and not recorded ( for good reasons☻) , so nonprofits in Australia and Oceania are often unable to attend live unless they are willing to wake up very early.
Today, we’re exactly 15 days away from the end of the year—enter all of the cliché sentiments about what a year it has been, all we’ve accomplished and how time really flew by (even though those statements are true). Sometimes making your organization better doesn’t have to start with a huge leap. Instead, improving can start with a tiny action and a promise to keep trying to be better.
According to his publisher Jerry Panas’ ASKING is America’s top selling fundraising book. Aimed primarily at board members the book is designed to provide helpful advice and motivation to ask for a gift while taking the fear out of the process. And, according to the publisher, all in a 59 minute read. So it figures that in the course of his guiding, goading, and persuading board members to seek funds for the organizations they serve, Jerry has heard a lifetime’s supply of excuses from board mem
When I added the Nonprofit Communications Confidential aspect to our Day in the Life Series, I wanted you to have a place where you could share your frustrations about your job, not only so you would have a place to vent, but also so we could understand the biggest issues you’re facing and help come up with some solutions. But then I thought maybe we shouldn’t just focus on the negative, and created a second form for those of you with healthy work relationships.
Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System
Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Duke Heninger, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.
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