The best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place. – Seth Godin… [Read more…]
The Nonprofit Leaders Guide for a Capital Campaign Volume 7: Marketing Materials Marketing materials work, as a whole, to offer the prospect information that will help inform their gift. Each piece – from a time table to gift pyramid and site page to… [Read more…]
The Nonprofit Leaders Guide for a Capital Campaign Volume 6: Feasibility Study Results The capital campaign feasibility results are in! (If you are unsure how we got to this point you can read the beginning of the series by clicking here). Does it… [Read more…]
A student at a small college whom we counsel, sat with me in the office of the director of institutional advancement. I asked him what his story was. I wanted to know what brought him to this college. What did he aspire to… [Read more…]
The past week has been filled with talk about the Super Bowl – both the game and the commercials. This year, the large majority of the post-game ad talk was focused on the two commercials trying to gain awareness for causes. One was… [Read more…]
During the last week in January, the Chronicle of Philanthropy posted an article about year-end fundraising. Article might be the wrong word, it was primarily a list of nonprofits that had successful year-end fundraising campaigns with an encouragement to consider planning yours now.… [Read more…]
A few weeks ago there was an article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy titled, “75% of Young Donors Turned Off by Out-of-Date Web Sites.” Interestingly enough, this generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings want to see the same things that everyone wants to see:… [Read more…]
It’s been a little over a week since the Super Bowl and it seems that the only lasting memories (outside of Baltimore) are the ads that continue to run on television and online. As always, talking babies, silly animals and beautiful, scantily-clad women… [Read more…]
This is Part 1 in a mini-series that asks – how do people determine which organizations deserve their donations? While you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (or as a sign in my local library reminded me – you shouldn’t judge a… [Read more…]
Raise your hand if you have a “dummy” email address for businesses that you think might clutter your email box. I think a lot of people do this, but then no one wants to check these coupon, discount and spam laden accounts –… [Read more…]