January, 2015

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Marketing is Killing Fundraising. Seriously???

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

'Some fundraising bloggers/consultants have discovered a terrifying new boogeyman – the work of nonprofit marketing directors! Hurry, get the pitchforks and the lighter fluid. We got us some branding hocus pocus witches to burn! Oh, haven’t you heard the hysteria? Yep, nonprofit marketing and branding are apparently killing fundraising. Killing it, they say!

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Time For Some #DonorLove

Ann Green

'Valentine’s Day will be here soon, and what a perfect time to thank your donors and show how much you appreciate their support. If you haven’t expressed gratitude since you sent your year-end thank you letters, you need to do that soon. Aim to thank your donors at least once a month. You may not choose to acknowledge Valentine’s Day, but do something fun and creative to show appreciation in February.

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Are you lying to your nonprofit board members?

Fundraising Coach

'I''m not sure why it is, but so many of us outright lie when we invite people to our nonprofit board. We tell them, "It won''t be a lot of work. And it will be alot of fun.". But neither are totally true. Board work is work. Sometimes it''s hard. Sometimes it''s routine. And, yes, sometimes it is fun. I consistently get board members signing up for coaching because they were invited to a little more than a social club and blindsided when they are told they need to sell $1000 gala tickets.

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10 Goals for Nonprofit New Media Managers for 2015

Nonprofit Tech for Good

'After the holiday break new media managers return to work energized to update and implement their list of priorities for the upcoming year. The goals suggested below are fairly easy to achieve, yet transformative to a nonprofit’s new media strategy. Most do not require a financial investment, but preliminary results on the 2014 fundraising season are strong and if your nonprofit did well in 2014, investing in staff development in 2015 is a wise decision.

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Less Stress, More Success: Accounting Best Practices & Processes for 2025

Speaker: Amanda Adams, Fractional CFO, CPA

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Amanda Adams, 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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Good Meets Gadgets: Best Nonprofit Technology Conferences of 2015

EveryAction

'It''s almost hard to imagine what life at a nonprofit was like before we could blast out fundraising emails, share stories over Facebook, or issue a call-to-action via Twitter. ( Remember those days? ). Now, thanks to innovators + technologists committed to doing more good, technology has helped broaden the reach of nonprofits further than ever before.

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10 Thank Yous That Delight Donors

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

'Year-end is over! Now what? First, take a deep breath and give yourself a few moments of calm. Second, start showing those donors some love with a thank you. A basic thank you letter is a perfectly acceptable way to show a donor some gratitude. But if you want to go above and beyond and add some creative flair to wow your donors, go for it! To help get the creative juices flowing, I collected some favorite thank yous that I’ve personally received and some submissions that our nonprofit friends

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Make a Resolution to Keep Your Donors

Ann Green

'Happy New Year! I hope you had a nice holiday. I had a great two-week vacation in Florida with my family. I also hope you had a successful year-end fundraising campaign. Did you get a bunch of new donors and renewals, or did you lose some people? One of the biggest reasons donors flee is because they believe the organization doesn’t do a good job of staying in touch and keeping them engaged.

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Nonprofit Board Orientation – 3 tips to starting them right!

Fundraising Coach

'In a recent study , 75% of nonprofit executives said their board members weren''t sufficiently engaged. 3 out of 4! With numbers that high, you know there has to be a systemic issue. Nonprofits are doing amazing things around the world. People work and volunteer at them to add meaning and value to their lives. So there''s no way tens of thousands of people are waking up each morning saying, "I wonder how sufficiently un-engaged I can be with a cause I value today.".

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Mobile for Good: A Free How-To Fundraising Webinar for Nonprofits

Nonprofit Tech for Good

'Date: Tuesday, March 17. Time: 1-2:30pm EDT. Cost: Free! How to Register: Sign up. Presented by: Heather Mansfield. View: Complete Webinar Schedule. Based on more than 20 years of experience and 25,000+ hours spent utilizing mobile and social media, Mobile for Good: A How-To Fundraising Guide for Nonprofits is a comprehensive 256-page book packed with more than 500 best practices.

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The Year-End Giving Bonanza Is A Myth

The Agitator

'I figure there’s no time like the start of the New Year to begin dishing out some heresy. There’s an assumption among most fundraisers that the best charitable giving season is October, November and December — the so-called Year-End period. The assumption is based on the belief that donors are in a giving mood and they engage in all types of holiday gifting.

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Recognition Powers High-Performance — If You Do it Right

Speaker: Radhika Samant and Todd Wuestenberg

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.

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Quick Takeaways from the Pew Social Media Report

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

'The folks at the Pew Research Center recently published updates to their Social Media Report. Here are a few highlights: Facebook still reigns supreme. It comes as no surprise that 71% of all online adults are on Facebook, which also sees 70% of users engaging with the site at least daily. More older adults adopting social networks. But they’re mostly on Facebook. 56% of all online adults 65 and older now use Facebook, which equals 31% of all seniors.

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WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE? 6 Tools and Techniques for Finding Friends and Influencers on Facebook & Twitter

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

'For more tips and examples, join me next Thursday, January 15th at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific), for my brand new webinar Where Are My People? How to Find Your Audience on Social Networks. (Recording available if you can’t attend live.). Let’s face it – not all followers on social networks are the same. Some are more influential than others, on social and in real life.

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How Do You Acknowledge Your Memorial Gifts?

Ann Green

'I’ve been to several memorial services over the last few years. I guess that’s what happens as you get older. In most cases, the families designated charities to donate to, often in lieu of flowers. I’ve always liked this. You get to honor someone and support a charity, as well. I gave five memorial gifts over the last two years.

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Nonprofit Blog Carnival – Celebrating your nonprofit cause

Fundraising Coach

'Photo courtesy of Chris Gorski used under Creative Commons licence It is my pleasure to be hosting the February Nonprofit Blog Carnival! With Valentine''s Day in February, the last three years have focused on "loving": loving nonprofit staff. loving donors and keeping them coming back. and loving nonprofit leaders. Breaking out of the rut. This year, let''s shake it up.

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Why Every Small Business Needs an HCM Solution: A Comprehensive Guide

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.

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5 Ways to Communicate Better in the New Year

Mission Minded

'There are best practices of branding and communications that any nonprofit can put into place without a lot of hullaballoo. Like the new year’s resolutions so many of us make this time of year, employing best practices sometimes just comes down to reminding ourselves of the common sense good habits we already know we should […].

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The Risk Not Taken

The Agitator

'At the start of the year Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud’s Director of Analytics, in his post 5 Things That Won’t Happen in 2015 hit on what I consider the biggest risk facing nonprofits these days — doing nothing. Sure, not so long ago maintaining the status quo — repeating the same activities year after year — was considered less risky than innovation.

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Next Frontier of Storytelling in the Nonprofit Sector

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

'Editor’s note: This post was written by Vanessa Chase , founder of The Storytelling Non-Profit. You can check out more thoughts on storytelling on her blog. Or, if you’re in the mood to watch a webinar on storytelling, you can download the archived version of her Nonprofit911 webinar. Storytelling is quickly becoming part of the everyday fabric of nonprofit fundraising and communications.

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5 Ways to Make 2015 Filled with “Matterness”

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

'Allison Fine. Today Allison Fine joins us to talk about what she call “matterness” – making other people matter more in your work. For more on this, check out her latest book, Matterness: Fearless Leadership for a Social World. ~Kristina. Guest Post by Allison Fine. Keeping up your New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and exercise more may begin to slide as January soon becomes February, but there is something you can be fantastically successful at this year – leading fearles

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Best Practices to Streamline Compensation Management: A Foundation for Growth

Speaker: Joe Sharpe and James Carlson

Payroll optimization can be one of the most time-consuming and complex factors of small business management. Yet, organizations that crack the code on streamlining employee compensation often discover innovative avenues for growth. With the right strategies in place, outsourcing and streamlining payroll processes can result in substantial time and resource savings.

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Can Your Organization Pass the Donor-Centered Test?

Ann Green

'We hear the term donor-centered a lot, and it’s pretty self-explanatory. You want to focus on your donors’ needs and interests and take into account that not all donors are the same. Is your organization donor-centered? Find out by taking this test. Fundraising Appeals. Are your fundraising appeals focused too much on your organization – rambling on about how great you are?

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Make Social Media Matter More: Part 1

Getting Attention

'Pressure. You feel it. I feel it. The pressure to generate social media miracles. It’s still there, even this many years in. And whether the source (that you’re keeping up, have a billion Facebook likes or Twitter followers, or your Instagram strategy is driving action) is your boss, board chair and/or your colleague in programs, it’s a problem.

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6 Ways to Make the Most Out of Your Association Membership in 2015

EveryAction

'This week kicks off the American Society of Association Executives ’ (ASAE) semiannual Association Management Week and it''s got us thinking: professional associations are hugely essential resources to the individuals that belong to them and the industries they serve. That said, how can you make sure you''re getting the most out of your association membership?

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The Tale Of The Bigger Bottom Line

The Agitator

'Harvard Business Review calls it a strategic tool with “irresistible power”. To Entrepreneur magazine it’s the “major business lesson of 2014”. Companies and nonprofits like American Express, Random House and PBS are paying up to $3,500 for a workshops on it. What is this exciting phenomenon that’s become a new buzzword? It’s the ancient art of storytelling — that fundamental human activity which has been around since the advent of fire.

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How to Scale Recurring Giving for Sustainable Growth

Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio, Director of Corporate Brand

Is your organization ready to build a recurring giving program that not only sustains but also propels your mission forward? 🚀 In this new webinar with industry visionary Tim Sarrantonio, we’ll guide you through the critical steps to establishing and scaling a successful recurring giving program. Whether you’re starting fresh or enhancing an existing program, this session will provide the strategies you need to deepen donor relationships and secure long-term support!

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Why Should Funders Know About Your Brand?

Mission Minded

'Who needs to be educated about your brand? Your stakeholders? Of course. Your board members? Definitely. But what about your funders? It may seem tricky, but it’s really a no-brainer. Recently, I had the privilege of attending several presentations made by a nonprofit’s Executive Director and Development Director to its key funders. This orgainzation had […].

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4 Ways To Make A Story Come Alive

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

'Laurel Dykema. Guest blogger extraordinaire Laurel Dykema is back with us to share how you can change up your storytelling technique. ~Kivi. Guest Post by Laurel Dykema of Mission India. As nonprofit writers, we share stories about real people … their struggles, victories, and joys. But if you’re like me, sometimes the words you use to tell an amazing story can feel a little flat.

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2014 Year-End Giving Results in Big Win Online for Nonprofits

Nonprofit Marketing Blog

'It’s no secret that year-end giving is an important source of donation dollars for most nonprofits. Last year was no exception and we saw a lot of “generous procrastinators” giving big online in December 2014. When we looked at organizations who received donations on the Network for Good platform in both December 2013 and December 2014, we saw an 18% increase in total donation volume year over year.

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1 Week into 2015: Where are You Headed?

Getting Attention

'This practical, doable marketing plan template takes you from goals to benchmarks, work plan, action and impact! Those New Year’s resolutions—including the ones we set for marketing and fundraising work—are so hard to keep. That’s because most resolutions are action items, rather than goals (the real “what we want to get to”).

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Engage, Empower, Excel: Transforming Performance in the New Era of Work

Speaker: Radhika Samant and Adri Glover

The world of work has fundamentally changed. The series of waves that the pandemic began have rippled through the Great Resignation, quiet quitting, the Great Regret, and other eloquent phrases that boil down to the same thing: people aren’t engaged at work or enabled to perform at their best. The truth is that engagement and enablement is more important than ever, but how we do it is the critical differentiator for many organizations.

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5 Questions about Nonprofit CRM Tools You’re Too Embarrassed to Ask

EveryAction

'A brand new year is here, and everyone is resolved to make improvements to the way they live, work, and even their nonprofit website ! What''s more, folks are seizing the opportunity to get organized + do business better. For nonprofit pros, that means streamlining your processes, integrating your systems, and doing a better job communicating with your donors.

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Being Unforgettable

The Agitator

'I’m teasing out the first month of the year for all it’s worth in terms of recommendations for my 2015 ‘To do’ list. Frankly, I’m doing a lot of stealing from the advice I see others giving, massaged against what I deem most important to fundraising success. Here’s an example: Recommendation #4 on my 2015 ‘To do’ list: Become unforgettable to your donors.

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Be My Valentine? How to Show Donors You Care

NonProfit Hub

'We’re all searching for that special someone. You know, the one who will stick with you through thick and thin. That person who understands you and who just gets it. Wait, I was talking about donors—weren’t you? It’s time to stop looking for a one-night stand (er, I mean one-time donors). Because have you seen your organization lately? You deserve those donors that aren’t the giving and leaving type.

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REPORT: Facebook Levels Off While Instagram Rises

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

'Image source: https://flic.kr/p/7CdtRG. (Reading this on email? Be sure to click over to the post to see the graphics.). Nonprofits, it’s time to see other people (besides those on Facebook). According to the latest research from Pew Research Center , more Americans are branching out from Facebook to try second and third social networks. Instagram in particular jumped 16% percent in the 18-29 age bracket, and 9 percent overall across all adults.

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Pricing for Profit: How to Set, Negotiate, and Succeed

Speaker: Igli Laci, Strategic Finance Leader

In today’s competitive market, pricing is more than just a number — it’s the cornerstone of profitability. The right pricing strategy ensures that you capture the true value of your offering, paving the way for sustainable growth and long-term success. Join Igli Laci, Strategic Finance Leader, in this exclusive session where he will explore how a well-crafted pricing approach balances customer perception with business objectives, creating a powerful tool for securing both competitive advantage a