Anyone Who Doesn’t Smile …

December 31, 2007

From our Agitator backlist … Happy Holidays!

Presidential candidate Bill Richardson is running two of the best political ads ever in Iowa and on YouTube.

These spots communicate his experience and record — easily the match (or better) of any other candidate — in a wonderfully imaginative, memorable and ingratiating manner.

Too flip? Nah … anyone who doesn't smile when they see these spots, AND get the message, should have his or her voting privilege taken away.

To all nonprofit fundraisers and communicators: With all the buzz about the right message, microtargeting, new media, blah, blah, blah … here's a reminder that plain old CREATIVITY counts when it comes to changing hearts and minds.

Bill Richardson, you deserve a raise!

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Kid Squanders Relief Money?

December 28, 2007

From our Agitator backlist … one of my favorites of all time.

Happy Holidays!

I apologize in advance to all the international child support agencies whose crucial work on the ground (and direct marketing) I fervently admire. But I can barely pick myself up off the floor after reading this “expose” from one of my absolute favorite sources of humour, The Onion. Here's just a peek …

“I could see that Mtumbe was a little free with his money, and I let it slide, probably for too long in retrospect,” said Anderson. “If I continue to let him get away with this kind of thing, the next thing I know he's got a glue problem.”

For the record our family supports a child … you should too. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can't do it all. Here's a place to start.

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Beware Of Greeks Bearing Gifts!

December 27, 2007

From our Agitator backlist … Happy Holidays!

Richard Conniff in his “Basic Instincts” blog/column at the New York Times propounds the Rule of the Decent Interval.

It holds that the value of a good deed decreases in direct proportion to how badly you need the resulting good will.

Conniff illustrates his rule with several recent examples, like Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, of “charity” prompted by urgent needs to evade — or at least soften — legal reprisal. Charity as protection money.

It's a marvelous piece, enriched with great Catholic school nostalgia as well as with excellent comments from readers.

The erudite commentator ACW reminds us that, according to Dante, the first terrace of Purgatory — even before the first stairs of atonement for specific sins — is reserved for the deathbed confessors.

Personally, I'm more of a long range planner. In my Catholic school days, the promise from the nuns was that if you attended First Friday Mass for nine consecutive months, you were guaranteed a pass to heaven. Sort of a religious “Get out of jail free” card.

Highly motivated, I made my nine Masses by the fourth grade … opening the door to a worry-free life of sin and debauchery!

However, with all the modernizing in the Catholic Church since my youth, I can't vouch that the offer still stands for you johnny-come-lately's.

You might still need to buy yourself salvation with a hefty dose of philanthropy … it's never too late.

Tom

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New Zealand War Machine

December 26, 2007

From our Agitator backlist … Happy Holidays!

I don't know what this post has to do with anything, but here goes …

Just saw a pie chart depicting how New Zealand government was going to spend its 2007 budget, totalling NZ$56.1 billion.

A whopping 3%, or NZ$1.7 billion is allocated to “Defence.” I suppose that's roughly the Pentagon's stationery budget.

In NZ, the big bucks go to Health (21%) and Education (16%). And still, there's spirited debate over whether there are too few primary teachers and inadequate medical services.

And yes, there are “anti-war” protesters in NZ. Talk about a tough advocacy job … I can see the direct mail appeals and e-mail action alerts: “Just say NO to bazookas!” Recall, NZ is a nuclear-free zone.

Did I mention that NZ's budget surplus will exceed the Defence allocation?!

Imagine a US federal budget where 3% went to Defense! What in the world would we do with all that left-over cash?

Just something to dream about on a Monday morning.

Tom

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A Christmas Carol To Leave You Smiling

December 23, 2007

To get into a wonderful holiday spirit, listen to this remarkable rendition of O Holy Night.

[Just click directly on the song title. It will take a few moments to activate your media player and download, but it's worth it. Don't forget to turn your audio on.]

The Agitator Guarantee: This performance will leave you smiling well into the New Year, or we'll refund your Agitator subscription fee. But you must listen to the entire performance.

Happy Holidays!

Roger and Tom

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The Nonprofiteer Is, Well, Agitated

December 21, 2007

And we love it!

Today she takes a whack at those who complain that there are too many nonprofits out there. (The Agitator confesses to having “fewer is better” days.)

Her argument in a nutshell: If our political system was remotely responsive (jabbing her finger in particular at whimpy Democrats on privacy and Iraq funding issues) and law-abiding (jabbing here at an Administration that flouts its utter disdain of constitutional checks and balances), then perhaps fewer citizens would feel they needed to take matters into their own hands.

Amen to that!

It's year-end … be generous to the nonprofits of your choice!

Roger & Tom

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Kudos to SickKids Foundation

December 20, 2007

Claire Kerr thinks her colleagues at Toronto's SickKids Foundation deserve an Agitator raise for making it easier for donors to make tribute gifts online.

Here's her story …

Hi Agitator !

I was inspired by your ‘You Deserve a Raise’ column to tell you why I think a group of people at my own charity really deserve a raise for putting donors first.

Traditionally, SickKids Foundation has always taken online tribute donations as either “in honour” or “in memory”.

We asked donors to choose “in honour” or “in memory”, fill out an online donation form and type a message for their card in one of the fields. The card info was pulled as a report by a Donor Services Rep, then created in Filemaker Pro, printed and mailed to the tribute recipient.

This was a lengthy process on the back-end and was also pretty inflexible for donors – there are lots of reasons that people might donate in someone’s name that don’t fit into either category.

In the spirit of putting donors first, the tribute team worked with our marketing team to create a range of new colourful cards that are not occasion-specific. Our in-house programmers and new media team then built a web application that allows donors to choose any card image, type any message, preview the card fully, address it & make a donation online – for any reason or occasion.

An integrated print application sends the information to our in-house printer to be printed on the cards. The application was also designed to be used by our reps on the phone — when donors call in, our reps can use the web application to create a donor’s card quickly.

The focus was to let donors tell us what they want to use the cards for, and we’re finding they are very creative.

Many people are using the application to create cards as party invitations, thank-yous, holiday cards, announcements, “thank you for your business”, and all sorts of functions that would not have been possible under the old “in honour” / “in memory” system.

The card application has been in use since Oct. 1st, under phase one, and they are working towards a phase two with upgrades and improvements based on donor feedback for the new year. I’m super proud of my charity for building this and think they deserve kudos for giving donors new ways to interact with us.

Claire Kerr

You can look at the cards here.

Claire, The Agitator's elves agree, the tribute card team deserves a raise. And just in time for Christmas!

Roger & Tom

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Using Creative To Build Relationships

December 19, 2007

Thanks to Ann Handley at Marketing Profs for this post about a marvelous piece of creative.

Not just creative to please its creator, but an effort to make a routine communication — a mundane one in the hands of most marketers — both stand out and trigger an emotional connection.

What follows is a shipping confirmation email sent to a customer who had just ordered some music from CDBaby, the online music store …

“Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, November 18th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year.' We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh…

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent musichttp://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000″

No communication from your nonprofit should be permitted to be mundane. Not one.

Every one creates an impression. Every one gives you the opportunity to express the personality of your organization. To stand out. To build an emotional connection.

“Edgy” isn't the answer for every organization. What you're shooting for is “authentic” and “memorable.”

Make a resolution today: “I will find the most boring communication my organization routinely issues, and make it sing.”

Roger & Tom

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1,210 Marketers Report Their Email Strategies

December 18, 2007

Marketing Sherpa has done another of its Benchmark Guides, this one on Email Marketing.

An executive summary gives a preview of what over 1,000 email marketers are doing, and what's working for them.

But the serious comparative data comes with a price tag … $347 plus S&H.

If I were raising $350,000+ from email appeals, I'd want this volume on my bookshelf. Testing variables. Metrics to track. Heat maps. Video in emails. Segmentation & personalization practices. And more. Yes, I'd pay 0.1% of my online revenue for this data.

If I were raising less, I'd just sign up to get on the email list of online fundraising sensation Ron Paul, and watch for ideas there!

Tom

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10 Principles To Inspire Your Brand

December 17, 2007

Here are ten principles to consider as you go about defining and communicating your brand. Offered by marketer Max Kalehoff, they distill neatly what others take books to say.

As a nonprofiteer, whether you think of your organization as being in the brand-building business or not, you are. Because, regardless of what you consciously do or don't do, your stakeholders are busily at work building your brand for you … and more importantly, for themselves.

To simplify their lives, they are forming impressions of your nonprofit, emotional and rational (in that order), and combining those into a shorthand filter that they'll use, often unconsciously, to welcome or resist future interactions with you.

Recognizing that your customers (current and potential donors, activists and other stakeholders) have the upper hand, still, following Max's principles, you can certainly have some impact on how favorably or not this branding process turns out.

Here are his principles:

1. Transparency2. Authenticity
3. Humility

[These first three are all about earning trust.]

4. Simplicity

[Make it easy on yourself and your stakeholders.]

5. Inspiring
6. Personality
7. Stories

[Above all else, a “brand” is a relationship grounded in some emotional connection. These three principles are at the root of building the relationship.]

8. Consistency

[Brand critics love inconsistency. And there's nothing that online brand critics like to communicate more than inconsistency (read: hypocrisy).]

9. Flexibility

[Be ready to adapt based on feedback from primary stakeholders. But, don't try to be all things to all people.]

10. Receptivity

[As Max points out, you need to listen carefully to implement well the other principles. But in addition, the perception (based on reality) that a brand does “listen” is fast becoming a mandatory ingredient for a successful brand of any kind.

Apply these ten principles to your nonprofit. How well do you score?

Tom

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