Selfish Giving
JANUARY 17, 2017
Today on CauseTalk Radio , Megan and I talk to Dan Goldenberg , Executive Director of the Call of Duty Endowment , which was founded by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. Dan was last on the show in November 2015. Since then, the endowment has expanded on its cause marketing and the Endowment's impact. Never Miss a Show - Sign up for Email Updates.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
JANUARY 3, 2017
I apologize for the headline (and the macarons). I had to get you here and I knew “New Year’s Resolutions,” and sweets, might work. But here’s the thing – I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I think if you want to make a change, now is as good a time as any. Still, the start of a New Year is a time to rethink things, take a look at the big picture, and start something good.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Ann Green
JANUARY 11, 2017
At the end of November, I made year- end donations to 25 organizations. Because I was worried about people who would be left behind in the new administration, 11 of these were new donations. I wish I could tell you that all these organizations sent glowing thank you letters and have been following up with engaging updates and minimal additional requests for donations, but, alas, that is not the case.
Pam Moore
JANUARY 4, 2017
As humans, instant gratification is in our DNA. We live in a society that is built on instant gratification. When we want something, we want it now. We don’t want to wait in line or even wait for a mobile web page to load on our device. When consumers are inconvenienced by a wait of any kind they’ll head straight to the next website, store or skip the purchase all together.
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.
Nonprofit Tech for Good
JANUARY 24, 2017
Odds are your nonprofit has a LinkedIn Page. Most nonprofits have claimed their pages and set up the basics, but very few regularly post on their LinkedIn Pages. Snapchat and Instagram may be all the buzz, but ignoring LinkedIn Pages is a mistake. In addition the reasons listed below, the demographics of LinkedIn users bodes well for engaging donors and amazingly LinkedIn offers customer service.
The Agitator
JANUARY 10, 2017
In a year-end post, Please Don’t Eat the Poinsettia , I noted that the field of fundraising is filled with lots of myths, aphorisms and the equivalent of ‘old wives tales’. Some are true, some are not, and many persist for which there’s little proof one way or the other. I promised that in 2017 we’d explore some of these as we intensify our focus on evidence-based fundraising as opposed to myth-based or even experience-based fundraising.
Nonprofit Leadership Zone brings together the best content for advertising professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
JANUARY 23, 2017
Justyna Krygowska. Here’s the latest installment in our series on the “Day in the Life” of nonprofit communicators, where we ask you to describe your day in your own words. We need to hear from you! Don’t be shy – tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro. . Justyna Krygowska is the Communications Director of The Andrew Goodman Foundation.
Ann Green
JANUARY 25, 2017
It’s annual report season, for better or for worse. Often it’s for worse since many of them are long, boring booklets that put your donors to sleep. You don’t have to do an annual report, but you do need to share accomplishments with your donors. You may opt to nix the annual report and send short progress reports a couple of times a year or monthly e-updates instead.
Fundraising Coach
JANUARY 10, 2017
Whether your fiscal year starts now or is only part of the way through, January is a good time to evaluate your fundraising progress. To help you're planning, here's an email I sent our Fundraising Kick subscribers yesterday. Good morning, Kickers! Listening to a conversation between Stephen R. Covey and his son Stephen M.R. Covey last week reminded me of the work you do with major donors.
Nonprofit Tech for Good
JANUARY 1, 2017
Cause awareness and giving days can be very powerful themes upon which to craft and launch online fundraising campaigns. The real-time, in-the-moment nature of cause awareness and giving days often inspire donors to give provided that your nonprofit knows how to promote the days effectively. The first step is to decide which days to build a campaign upon and add them to your 2017 and 2018 editorial calendars.
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.
The Agitator
JANUARY 25, 2017
I love home remedies and old folk tales. They have their place in the Farmer’s Almanac and on embroidered wall hangings, but they’re grossly over-used and too often accepted as ‘truth’ or ‘best practices’ in fundraising. Perhaps no myth is potentially more dangerous for the long-term health of an organization than the clichéd dictum: “Mail more, raise more.
Selfish Giving
JANUARY 24, 2017
Today on CauseTalk Radio , Megan and I talk to Allison Weinhagen , Director of Community Engagement at City Market, a 16,000 sq. ft. community-owned food cooperative in downtown Burlington, Vermont. Anytime you check-out at City Market , you can choose to "round up" your total to the nearest dollar. Each month, the spare change collected during Rally for Change is split between three great non-profits that align with the co-op's mission.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
JANUARY 12, 2017
I recently contributed an article to the Communications Network’s biannual journal, Change Agent , called It’s Time to Level Up! In the article, I challenged foundations and other funders to skip the one-off communications projects and invest in building the expertise of nonprofit communications directors. That’s how we’ll level up the marketing maturity of the sector, in my opinion.
Ann Green
JANUARY 18, 2017
In my last post, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Year-End Fundraising – Part One , I gave examples of how organizations thanked me, welcomed me as a new donor, and recognized my monthly gifts after I gave my year-end donations. In many cases, I didn’t receive anything except a boring, email thank you acknowledgment. With a little extra effort, you can do better than that.
Advertisement
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.
Fundraising Coach
JANUARY 20, 2017
Year-end fundraising is a bountiful time in the life of the nonprofit. Giving Tuesday and holiday-themed asks are just the beginning of the strategies that nonprofits employ for the end-of-year season. But many of these practices are too beneficial to reserve for the end of the year alone. With a little tweaking, you can adapt these practices to your year-round fundraising.
iMarketSmart
JANUARY 4, 2017
As your supporters get bombarded with more and more messages from advertisers and competitors (other fundraisers) you’ll need to stand out. The best way to do that is to be more human, authentic and real. Here are nine ways to do just that this year: . Share personal stories with your donors. Be real. Be open, honest and transparent. Suppose your nonprofit got hit with a lawsuit or did something wrong.
The Agitator
JANUARY 5, 2017
I’m writing this post with great trepidation. Because I want to float the idea that 2017 should be a year for unprecedented donor acquisition. But as Agitator readers well know, deep down Roger and I continue to believe that too many fundraisers and organizations inexplicably, indefensibly neglect donor retention. Consequently, it almost pains me to write a post saying: ‘Put the pedal to the metal’ this year on donor acquisition.
Selfish Giving
JANUARY 10, 2017
Today on CauseTalk Radio , Megan and I talk to Alex Meysman , national event director at Love Your Melon (LYM). The online retailer donates 50% of the profits from each sale made to find a cure for pediatric cancer and to support families impacted by cancer. From LYM’s Cyber Monday sales alone, they donated over $400,000 to Pinky Swear Foundation and CureSearch.
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.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
JANUARY 19, 2017
Email is still gold. And the shift from quantity to quality is ON! These are some of the key takeaways from the new Luminate Online Benchmark Report 2016 by Blackbaud. The report aggregates data from July 2015 to June 2016 from 631 mature Luminate Online customers — orgs with at least 3 years of consecutive usage data. Download the Luminate report here.
Ann Green
JANUARY 4, 2017
Happy New Year! I hope you had a good holiday. I just returned from my family’s annual trip to Florida. It’s quite a contrast from dreary Boston, but at least there’s no snow (yet). I also hope 2016 was a good year for your organization, and 2017 will be successful, too. You can help ensure that by starting the New Year on the right track. Here’s how.
Mission Minded
JANUARY 25, 2017
Mission Minded is excited to share our design work in support of San Francisco Opera’s 2017-18 season. As Matthew Shilvock takes the helm as General Director, San Francisco Opera’s season campaign communicates the strong connection between the vitality of the arts and the vitality of San Francisco. “The City is in a great period of […].
iMarketSmart
JANUARY 18, 2017
I failed to get into business school. I hoped to be a business major at the University of Maryland in the 80’s. But my ability to read, comprehend and recapitulate the institution’s business lessons was not so good. I didn’t make the cut and failed to get even close to acceptance into the business school. So, I decided to become a journalism major instead even though I wasn’t very good at writing.
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!
The Agitator
JANUARY 18, 2017
“All you need is love, da…da…da-da…da. All you need is love, da da da-da da. All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.” The Beatles say so (and raised more money than most of us). Agents of Good says so. And Jeff Brooks says so. So it must be so. So let the donor love flow! Says Agents of Good: “We are calling for a #DonorLove revolution.
Selfish Giving
JANUARY 3, 2017
Sarah Durham, Big Duck. Today on CauseTalk Radio , Megan and I talk to Sarah Durham , CEO of Big Duck , a communications firm that is a leader in Brandraising - a proven approach to fundraising that puts the focus on marketing, branding, and communications. On the show, Megan, Sarah and I discuss: Speaking of brands: Where did Big Duck come from? Why branding is important for nonprofits.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide
JANUARY 30, 2017
Winston C. Trumpet. Here’s the latest installment in our series on the “Day in the Life” of nonprofit communicators, where we ask you to describe your day in your own words. We need to hear from you! Don’t be shy – tell us what you do in a typical day as a nonprofit communications pro. . Winston C. Trumpet is an eighteen-year veteran in the nonprofit management field.
Care2
JANUARY 16, 2017
Social media marketing has become an integral part of building online community and advocacy. Through social media channels nonprofits are able to engage directly with their audiences, fundraise a bit, and have important conversations about the critical issues they work on. Facebook and Instagram are two of the most popular social media networks that nonprofits use and these platforms are continuously releasing new updates that can help nonprofits engage with their audiences more effectively.
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.
Getting Attention
JANUARY 4, 2017
Guest bloggers Beth Kanter & Aliza Sherman wrote The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit , a must read for communicators & fundraisers. If there is one thing we can agree on, it is that that last quarter of 2016 was especially stressful. Not just the usual hectic workload of year-end campaigns, but a difficult election season—a combination that has left many nonprofit communications professional feeling overwhelmed and.
iMarketSmart
JANUARY 20, 2017
The left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies crunched the data from Giving USA Foundation’s annual philanthropic survey to figure out who was giving what. Here’s what they determined: Itemized charitable donations increased +104% between 2003 and 2013 (10 years) from households with earnings of at least $10 million/year. Similarly, donations increased +57% during the same period from people making $500,000 or more (the top 1%).
The Agitator
JANUARY 31, 2017
Lots of great questions and comments popped up in response to The Dangerous Dictum of “Mail more. Make more” Especially appropriate was a question by Tom Ahern : “Is there a bottom line for various sized groups?” Of course, as other commenters noted, there are different approaches depending on the organization or type of organization. For example, as Chip Heartfield noted , the political or advocacy organization in the midst-of a hard-fought, time-sensitive campaign is likely to use differ
Selfish Giving
JANUARY 31, 2017
Today on CauseTalk Radio , Megan and I talk to Jessica Li , Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Kansas , about a new article that explores how corporate social responsibility efforts are perceived by different cultures. These efforts may not be effective for all consumers or in all countries. Download the Transcript. Download the Transcript - EP200.
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
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
245 
Let's personalize your content