"Don't Eat The Brown Matzah"

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Celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary with a new dance from Moses. Brought to you by Birthright Israel.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH3crBQyyhY[/youtube]

Chag Pesach Sameach

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem

According to a new survey of arts patrons, an increasing number are reading e-mail on their phones. E-mail marketing now has to fit the screen of an iPhone as well as a laptop! Make sure your messages are keeping up with the preferences of your customers. More at Patron Technology Blog.

Implementing and maintaining a successful blog may be the most critical aspect of your online fundraising efforts. There are many reasons a non-profit should host a blog. For fundraising, there are a few basic reasons why blogging makes sense:

• Blog Readers are an Ideal Audience - The typical blog reader is young, wealthy, active, and influential. Blog readers are 11 percent more likely than the average Internet user to have incomes of or greater than $75,000. (Clickz.com)
• Continuous Communications Leads to Continuous Donation - Blogs offer the element of human interaction and constant communication needed to truly drive home your organization's goals and objectives. Staff members will be more informed and motivated, and supporters will become lively, engaged, and ready to ...
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  Tags: blogging, web 2.0

Has your non-profit taken the the next step and started posting to a blog? If so, do you find yourself looking for readers and subscribers? The same fundraising principle that advocates putting the donor first can also be applied to blogging. Blog about subjects that your potential readers/donors are interested in. In the words of David from JournalMarketing, "Promote yourself by shutting up" ... not literally of course, but this means less self promotion and more talk about topics your donors will find interesting. This may mean not writing about your organizations' latest project or donation drive, but it could mean writing about a current event that your donors are most likely following closely. Don't know what holds your readers attention? Now is a good time ...

I first met Matt Barr last summer at the opening night event for the inaugural season of the cutting edge Creative Zionism incubator. I admit it; I just could not get my head around his concept of using rap to teach Bible stories. Was I wrong! Almost a year later, Matt has a CD in production, studies at Pardes, works with visiting Birthright Israel groups, is preparing for a tour this summer of Jewish summer camps and produced the Haman's Song video. And now, just in time for Pesach, Matt, together with 12Tribe Films Foundation, introduces a new video titled "Moses Rap". [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzg9yoaW2XY[/youtube] You can find the words here. Creative Zionism II, premiers in about nine weeks. ...

Or, do all organizations with a blog need a policy? How do you determine when a nonprofit blogging policy is needed? How do organizations create policies? Here's a story from behind the firewall of a large nonprofit organization - the names and particulars have been changed - but here's how the blogging process unfolded:

As the organization's blogger, I facilitated creating the policy. There was/is a lot of fear about encouraging the use of social media in our ranks, so it seemed like a doable first step. Laying down rules makes everyone think they have more control and it helped everyone to feel better. My ulterior motive was to send the message that using social ...

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Tags: educate, web 2.0

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. Study: Consultants May Hold the Key to Future of Synagogues 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...