Which of these situations are all too familiar?

1) People call your organization asking for assistance with issues you don’t focus on, because they confuse your nonprofit with another nonprofit.

2) You don’t have an “elevator speech” because it’s just too hard to explain what it is you do in 30 seconds.

3) You have trouble finding your own organization’s table at a community festival, because your banner and materials look just like everyone else’s.

4) When your board members talk to potential donors about the work you do, it seems they’re describing a completely different organization than the one you work for.

In all of these cases, your organization is being confused with others, overlooked or misunderstood. You have no real “brand” — no clear organizational identity, reputation, or single contribution you’re best known for.

Crafting a strong, clear and recognizable brand enables audiences to understand who you are, and how they can get involved. They are more willing to donate to you and volunteer, because they “get it” — and can easily explain it to their friends and family.

courtesy of Nancy Schwartz of the Getting Attention blog

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The signs of an economic downturn continue as a new study shows that donations made in response to direct-marketing appeals are growing at a considerably slower rate than in past years, according to a new study reported on by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Direct-Marketing Appeals Produced Sluggish Results Last Year
By Elizabeth Schwinn

“The signs of an economic downturn continue as a new study shows that donations made in response to direct-marketing appeals are growing at a considerably slower rate than in past years, according to a new study of many of the nation’s biggest charities.

Direct-marketing donations to 70 charities grew by a median of 1.5 percent, meaning that half the groups achieved greater increases and half fared worse. Organizations did not keep up with the 4-percent rise in inflation or the 2006 increase of 2.8 percent.”

Read the complete article here.

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A selection of recent articles and postings around the nonprofit world you may find of interest; first in our Jewish world followed by some links to recent non-profit blog posts.

A new study examining efforts at long-range planning in synagogues found that — under the right conditions — outside consultants, if armed with an understanding of both the business and the nonprofit worlds, can help congregations formulate strategic blueprints for the future. But the encouraging findings contained in “Strategic Planning in Congregations: Capitalizing on Opportunities for Organizational Change” came with a few caveats.

Annual Survey of State Laws Regulating Charitable Solicitations

Did you know that over 40 states require nonprofits conducting online fundraising campaigns to register with their state? This includes any other state into which solicitations (including e-mail) are directed.

Non-Profits on Video: Using YouTube to Promote Your Cause

Conventional wisdom says that it is the small nonprofit organizations who stand most to benefit from Web 2.0 opportunities, where so much can be accomplished for such a small investment of time and resources.

Online video, for example, puts multimedia broadcasting into the hands of organizations that could never afford to buy television air time. There’s no charge to post an unlimited number of video on YouTube, for example, and a camera and computer are all the gear you need to get started.

But is online video-sharing really a useful communication tool for you? Is it an effective way of connecting with others who share your interests, and spreading your nonprofit’s message?

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59. The dark cool stones of the Kotel, smoothed by thousands of hands and millions of tears.

60 Ways I Love Israel

by Rachel Bookstein on The 60 Bloggers project; a co-production of Jewlicious.com and the
Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

Shabbat Shalom form Jerusalem

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MyJewishLearning.com is proud to announce the creation of its Editorial Fellowship program. The inaugural two-year fellowship will begin in September 2008, concluding in August 2010.

The fellowship is open to recent college graduates interested in writing, editing, Jewish life, and new media.

MyJewishLearning.com, a transdenominational source of Jewish information, is currently undergoing a major site redesign, ramping up technological capacities and integrating new features, including video and an Ask-the-Expert function.

Qualified candidates should have strong writing and editing skills and an in-depth knowledge of Jewish history, culture, and tradition, as well as familiarity with the web and web publications.

for more information click here

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Compass is a new guide that will highlight the most inspiring, innovative and sustainable Jewish projects in Europe today.

Inspired by Slingshot, Compass is a project of the Westbury Group, a network of 25 international Foundations with a shared interest in enhancing Jewish life in Europe. Compass will feature the 50 most inspiring organizations in Europe today in a Zagat-style guide.

With Compass, the sponsors hope to create a map of European Jewish activity that will inspire and encourage donors, supporters and innovators across the Jewish world. They are now seeking nominations. This is a great opportunity to gain recognition from a project or organization that you are involved with or know about.

The guide aims to identify organizations which fulfill the following objectives:

• demonstrate new and effective ways to serve individual European Jewish communities
• strengthen Jewish culture in Europe
• ensure richness, diversity and vibrancy of Jewish life in Europe
• collaborate with other minorities and/or build relationships in mainstream culture

Nominations must be submitted by May 1 2008. Contact compasscarolyn [at] aol.com for more information.

(thanks Rachel)

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Several weeks ago we wrote about a special Purim Solidarity Rally for Israel. What was unique about this event was your ability to participate from wherever you were; in other words it was going to occur on-line.

Now that the rally has passed, we asked Eli Feldblum (one of the event architects to tell us about the specific results and provide us with some background into using social media for philanthropy.

“Word of mouth” has long been recognized at the most effective way of marketing a product. One person telling a friend about a product or service is as organic as advertising gets. Absent the usual skepticism that comes along with traditional advertising, word of mouth marketing imparts its message to the listener with an inherent trust. An ad might lead you astray; a friend would not.

On the web, WOM takes on a new form in the shape of social media marketing (SMM). The social internet, often called Web 2.0, has brought WOM and relationships online. Instead of asking a friend for a great video, you go to YouTube and trust what their audience has selected for the day. Looking for great sites to pass time or in a specific category? You’d likely visit a social bookmarking site like Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us before calling a colleague. Even your communication with friends and relatives may take place via a social network like Facebook instead of over the phone or even by email.

Social media sites not only make WOM communication easier, but also more effective and more far-reaching. If the average person can reach 400 people via traditional word of mouth, he can reach 40,000 or more online.

All this makes social media a great outlet for promoting social or philanthropic causes. People generally seek the advice of friends, family and coworkers when donating to charity, and are often recruited to join causes by people they know. Online, those numbers can be staggering.

I recently had the opportunity to promote an online rally for solidarity with Sderot. We aimed to make it the largest online rally ever—and we aimed to do so in only two weeks. Harnessing the power of the social internet, we were able to do so in that short time frame. We reached out to more than a million potential viewers, and got more than 125,000 people to log on simultaneously to a site built two weeks prior to host the rally. Together4Israel.org made history, breaking internet and philanthropic records. And it was achieved primarily through the power of social media.

Video

One of the best ways to get the word out online is through video. Streaming video, and the sites like YouTube that support it, has become the backbone of the new internet. Those sites are among the most visited online and, according to a recent study, the amount of video streamed online in 2007 was greater in size than everything accessed on the internet in the ten years preceding 2007. No matter what your cause or event is, you can create a video to promote.

For Together4Israel, we created a promo video with scenes from Sderot that explained to viewers that all they had to do to make a difference was visit the site to watch the rally and thus stand, virtually, in solidarity with victims of terror. We released the video on YouTube and garnered nearly 300,000 views, many of whom attended the live rally.

Creating a successful video—and benefitting from that video—is actually a pretty easy task, as long as you follow a few basic rules. First, you have to make a video. Notice that I didn’t say “you have to make a good video.” Content is no longer King online, as long as your packaging and presentation are done well. Still, you need a video. The video should clearly explain who or what your cause benefits, how the viewer can help and—most importantly—where they can help. Make sure your video is branded through and through. Begin with a title screen, keep a watermark on the video through the duration of the video and end with a splash screen containing instructions. If you are trying to lead people to a website, all three elements should contain the URL.

Once you have a video made, you need to promote it. This is a time sensitive campaign, so make sure you are ready before you upload or push your video anywhere.

The following steps are for YouTube, as they handle the majority of videos online, but they will work for any video sharing site. First, set up a profile. Don’t make it generic; use the available space to explain who you are and what you do, include images and make sure to take advantage of every opportunity to link back to your site.

Second, optimize your video. Pick a title that will appear to the viewer and leave them wanting more. Words like “exclusive” and “leaked” help. Pick an interesting thumbnail from the ones offered by YouTube—but bear in mind that the thumbnail will be 130×100 pixels, so make sure you pick a clear one. If no thumbnails look good, add a few seconds to the splash screen at the end of your video to get a new set of thumbnails.

Comments—good and bad—will help your video become more popular, so fight the urge to remove negative comments. If your video can spark controversy and conversation, that’s better for your popularity within YouTube and for converting viewers to sympathizers; nothing will get someone onto your side than boisterous idiots on the other side.

Lastly, you need to push the video. Your goal is to get to one of YouTube’s lists, primarily to the Most Viewed for the Day list. YouTube gives you 48 hours to acquire honors, like getting on that list, but you should aim to get on a list within 24 hours, so that you have some time to enjoy your honor. The trick to honors is remembering that not every view of your video will happen on YouTube. Most, in fact, will happen on other sites that embed your video. You can encourage this behavior. Before you upload your video, seek out blogs and websites that agree with your cause and ask them to embed and feature your video on their sites. Find places to embed your video—via blogs, sites and the social sites described below—and your video will rise to the top.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are the heart of WOM marketing, as they work only on pure reputation. If members of a social bookmarking community like a site, they vote it up (generally known as upmodding). The more people bookmark or vote for a site—or a video or image—the higher it rises on the bookmarking site’s Most Popular list. Like YouTube, your goal here is to make your site as popular as possible as quickly as possible. And like YouTube, preparation is key. Do you know people sympathetic to your cause? Do you have email lists of donors? Ask them to help you out without having to contribute any cash. They can vote up your stories and leave comments to start a discussion. They can also rate and favorite your YouTube video. If you mobilize this group of sympathizers before you post your story to Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us, they can help you quickly rise to the top of those sites.

You can also use social bookmarking sites to help push your video by submitting to these sites right after you upload it to YouTube.

Social Networks

Social networks are what most people think about when they hear about social media marketing, and rightly so. Networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Hi5 are more popular than ever before—and they are perfectly positioned to help promote your cause.

Focus on Facebook, which is primed to soon be the largest social network and boasts the most diverse audience. Create a page for your cause and invite your friends to join. Do the same with a group, and add your cause to the Facebook Cause application. Facebook is naturally viral; if you invite all your friends to something and ask them to invite their friends, it won’t be long before your cause is in front of thousands. Unlike the above sites, there are no time restrictions to become popular. Quite the opposite. It may take time for your group, event or page to become really widespread and popular. Make sure to begin pushing via Facebook as early as possible.

Promoting your social or charitable cause via social method is an easy, inexpensive and effective way of getting the word out in large, but organic, fashion. As advertising on the internet becomes more and more prevalent, more people tend to ignore it. Reach out to those same people via these methods and ensure the success of your cause.

Eli Feldblum, a a recognized SEO and SEM expert, is CEO of RankAbove - Search & Social Marketing.

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Well, after many emails and endless phone calls and the crunching of many, many pixels, 60Bloggers.com is up. What’s that site all about? Well, May 8th is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel. You’ll notice lots of events happening in Israel and in communities around the world meant to commemorate this historic occasion. 60Bloggers.com is meant to do the same, but on the blogosphere. Consequently, we’ve put together a nice broad group of bloggers, some well-established, some relatively new, representing (I hope) ideological, religious and geographic diversity. Over the course of the next 60 days each will write one blog post on 60Bloggers.com where they will write something related to how they feel about Israel at this momentous juncture in time. We don’t plan on editing any of the posts for anything except for formatting, spelling and grammar, so really, anything is possible. We’ve already got our first post up - 60 Ways I Love Israel by Rachel Bookstein, Hillel Director of Long Beach Hillel and “stylist” of the Jewlicious Festival. In the coming days we’ll have posts by Bruno Bitter of Jewish Hungarian blog Judapest, Harry Rubenstein from The View from Here and Jerusalemite, Esther Kustanowitz from My Urban Kvetch, Tomer Altman from OyBay - and the list goes on and on. You can see who else is participating on the side bar, and of course, you can count on me to keep you updated.

So… what are you waiting for? Go visit 60Bloggers.com and tell all your friends to do the same!

David Abitbol, aka ck of Jewlicious fame, is a pioneer in the Jewish blog-o-sphere. The 60 Bloggers project is co-production of Jewlicious.com and the Let My People Sing Festival. It is published daily for 60 days to celebrate Israel’s 60 birthday.

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We have all seen stories of how media exposure has helped facilitate change. Certainly the downfall of New York’s last governor was accelerated by a New York Times article.

But what about the blog-o-sphere. And particularly in our Jewish world, what place do blogs play and what place (in an ideal world) should they play.

The blog world has been instrumental in bringing into the open the apparent on-going strife at the UJC. Whether it is from anonymous bloggers at Disunited Jewish Communities or a long established communal leader and critic like Richard Wexler blogging with particular insight at UJ Thee and Me, blogs have made a visible impact. The former even bearing mention in a recent LA Journal story, As Jewish communities unite, disconnects persist, on the UJC’s problems: “The lives of UJC top executives have been made even more unpleasant lately by an unidentified blogger who seems to have a direct pipeline into UJC’s inner workings.”

What role did the blogs play in bringing this story to the attention of the Jewish Journal? Rumor has it The Jewish Week is planning a story on the same subject.

What is fact, the established media has been just as obsessed as the UJC in trying to identify the source.

We have several posts in the works from established bloggers whose audience is the Jewish demographic. Hopefully this will provoke meaningful discussion on the role blogs play.

In the meantime check out the LA Jewish Journal article; you can find it here.

An excerpt: “According to a number of Jewish leaders, many of whom played key roles in the merger discussions, their expectations for UJC have remained largely unfulfilled, to put it diplomatically.

Part of the fault, the critics say, is structural, and some are missteps, such as the elimination of the popular UJA brand name. But most of the criticism focuses on the performance of the UJC leadership, which is faulted for operating in a vacuum, avoiding vigorous discussions before implementing decisions, lack of passion and energy, and terrible staff relations, marked by the departure of five key senior staffers during the past year.”

eJewish philanthropy has extended an invitation to Howard Rieger, UJC’s CEO, for a guest post response to the Journal article. Howard has not responded (updated April 18th).

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Most of our readers — and possibly you reading this — don’t have children, let alone grandchildren…and that means we have time, and obligation, to build the world we’d like them to live in.

As such, PresenTense ran an amazing event last night in Jerusalem, focused on the future of education in the Jewish State. And you didn’t have to be in Jerusalem to participate (I’m in New York at the moment): all you had to have is a connection to the internet. Here’s one example of a remote-participant, Gabby Schoenfeld:

(Gaby is an an informal Jewish educator who is trying to enable young Jews to have life-changing experiences through service and social justice programs in Israel and throughout the world.)

“I want my grandchildren to know how to ask questions. I want them to have strong Jewish and secular knowledge bases, but more importantly, I want them to understand how to ask questions in order to gain more knowledge. As a group leader for many kinds of Jewish trips and programs, my most satisfying moments are those in which I am able to set a tone and atmosphere in which the participants feel comfortable to constantly ask me questions–about Israel, about Judaism, about Shabbat, about me, and my life choices. Sometimes the questions are amazing, but sometimes people just don’t know how to ask or where to start. I want my grandchildren to be educated in a nurturing but challenging environment, one in which they learn how to ask questions about anything and everything.”

You can read more — and contribute — online