I just discovered a new and pretty smart online giving site that not only makes it easier to make online donations but also lets you establish your own personal giving budget, assign monthly donations among any number of causes and pay less in transaction fees. Givv.org makes so much sense and is so responsive to the way online donors, especially those who make small donations, behave. All you have to do is set up your account, list your recipient causes and how much you want to give each of them and you are basically done, unless you want to change or add recipients. Because Givv.org acts as a gift aggregator, and uses PayPal to process all transactions, transaction fees are lower than if you went to each nonprofit's web site and made your gift there. Instead of having to manage separate giving … Continue Reading
Seriously, It’s No Joke: You Need to Manage Your Personal Brand
I am not sure exactly when personal brand building became the powerful force it is today, but I do know that the growth in social media coupled with consumers love of smart phones and PDA's (not sure which fueled which) gave everyone a no-cost way to create and build their own personal brand. Creating and maintaining a strong personal digital presence has become an important priority for lots of people for all kinds of reasons. If you are looking for that next job, have an expertise that others might value, are involved in things or have interests that might connect you to new and also interesting people, you should think about and carefully shape and nurture your personal brand. On the other hand, if all you want is attention, be forewarned that you might get what you seek but at a cost you may … Continue Reading
Your Brand: A Valuable Asset
Today, most nonprofits know that maintaining strong, positive brand positioning is as important to their health and well-being as are their activities aimed at keeping donors informed and engaged or their staff members motivated. Yet, like so many things we have to worry about, understanding what it takes to maintain brand excellence is markedly different than it was just a few years ago. Today, with so much of a brand's identity is channeled through informal social networking and other web 2.0 user-directed interactivity rather than paid advertising and traditional media coverage, how do you protect and nurture your brand? What and who do you measure to understand brand impact? And, does it make any sense to try to measure brand impact in traditional ways when influence and brand value have been … Continue Reading
Gaining a Positive Marketing Perspective
I guess it is human nature to constantly look for and examine our flaws and shortcomings. What is unfortunate is how much energy we put into analyzing our weaknesses and so little taking note of the things we do that are good and effective. As nonprofit marketers, we spend a good deal of time searching for the right way to communicate information that will positively move people and strengthen their support of our organizations. We all know that uplifting messages and statements of positive results are more effective than messages of despair. Yet paradoxically, we spend very little time looking at and examining the things we do that are good and effective. With so much emphasis on what is wrong, what needs improving, what missed the mark, we are failing to see and fully utilize those things we … Continue Reading
The Top Ten Skills You Want in Your MarCom Professional Now
With increasing frequency, nonprofit CEOs ask me what skills they should look for in hiring a marketing and communications (MarCom) professional today. CEOs understand that while certain skills and experience are a constant, the advent of the technology revolution requires mastery of an entirely new skill set and the facility to quickly adopt and smartly apply the next important emerging digital applications. Determining which skills your nonprofit will benefit from most, depends to some degree on your organization's primary function (fundraising; relief work; education; etc.), on its size and organizational structure (management reporting ladder; key functional areas; etc.) and a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish with your marketing and communications efforts. There are, … Continue Reading
Is Your E-Mail Awe-Inspiring?
The New York Times February 9th article by John Tierney, titled "Will You Be E-Mailing This Column? It's Awesome" offered some fascinating insights from a recent University of Pennsylvania research study. The researchers, Jonah Berger and Katherine A. Milkman intensively studied The New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, checking it every 15 minutes for six months in the period between August 2008 and February 2009. They determined that people preferred emailing articles that a) had positive as opposed to negative themes and b) were lengthy and on intellectually challenging topics. But more revealing was their analytic conclusion that "readers want to share articles that inspire awe.." Based on prior research the Penn researchers had conducted, they determined that people were more … Continue Reading
Rethinking Your Video Marketing
I have produced a lot of nonprofit videos over the years. Their primary purpose was to motivate potential donors to give. Some were received very well; others not so much. A well-known Hollywood producer I once met told me that making a hit is a hit-and-miss experience... sometimes you strike gold and sometimes tin. His words of wisdom have stuck with me. Today, creating a hit video is really not the point. It is all about being in the moment and in front of your audience frequently and in powerful, real ways. The rules of engagement have changed. It no longer makes sense to invest heavily in one single, high production values video and hope it resonates with your potential donors sufficiently to warrant the time, money and talent put to the task. While centerpiece videos have a place in your … Continue Reading
Tell Me a Story
Last Sunday evening I happened to watch a CBS 60 Minutes tribute to the creator of this groundbreaking news magazine, Don Hewitt who passed away late this past year. In clips from his 40 year career at CBS, Hewitt repeated one simple truth he held onto that redefined broadcast news for generations of viewers. "Tell me a story," was the mantra Hewitt repeated over and over again when asked the key to the program's success. Hewitt understood there was no complicated formula, just the understanding that people respond to a good story told well. As I look at how we communicate news today, the heart of Hewitt's message still rings true even as the information comes in a relentless flow and seeps into our minds through a multitude of channels. The noisy flood of news and information coming toward … Continue Reading
GreenSpeak 2: Effective Green Messaging
How you communicate your environmentally-green program is as important as how many cans your organization recycles, kilowatts hours you save, or automatic faucet shut-offs you install. If people don't respond to your hard work, greening frustration can be one unanticipated outcome of your worthy efforts. What to do to get your greening messages heard and your green works supported? Here are a few good ideas learned from nonprofits all across the country. Walk the Talk. Marti Michaels at the Riverdale (New York) YMHA says they achieved their best results when they put real programs into action. Simply talking about their environmental efforts didn't change behavior. But doing things that demonstrated action did. Their well-publicized environmental, family fair, where participants could drop-off … Continue Reading
Green Speak 1: The Value of Values Communication
I have been speaking with lots of nonprofit leaders about what they are doing to make their organizations "greener" and how they are building support for their efforts through smart communications. What I have discovered is that deciding to undertake an environmentally-sustainable program requires leadership, planning and a well-conceived communications strategy to get everyone on-board and keep them there. Since there is so much good work worth knowing about I have decided to make this a two-part blog. Part 1 focuses on the value of communicating green through your core values. Part 2 (next week) will focus on how to build momentum for your green program using smart communications tactics. When you talk to an organizational leader invested in his/her organization's green program you are … Continue Reading
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