Friday, July 9th, 2010
Yesterday I reminisced about the “old days” when a small handful of “big brand” media delivered the news that fueled the fire in the belly of donors to many causes. Through their coverage, those same media — NY Times, PBS, CNN, NPR — also provided the credibility ... Read more
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
My nonprofit fundraising and communications experience has been grounded primarily in the world of advocacy organizations, as opposed to mainstream charities focused on health research, education and the like. And more narrowly still, advocacy of the center-liberal persuasion. For groups like ... Read more
Monday, June 14th, 2010
Ricky Van Veen started College Humor in his dorm room. The website now has 10,000,000 unique visitors a month, and his company produces TV shows, films, live tours and books. [Another one of those guys we love to hate!] In this article, 10 Web Content Urban Legends, he shares his thoughts on ... Read more
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Pew Internet Research has issued two studies that should be great interest to nonprofits in the advocacy and community action spaces. The first, Neighbors Online, notes the increasing use of online tools by citizens interested in tracking community events, news and issues. Most folks still engage ... Read more
Monday, June 7th, 2010
The catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico has intensified the never-ending debate over just how close non-profits should get to corporate benefactors whose behavior is sometimes the antithesis of everything the non-profit seems to stand for. Although The Nature Conservancy has never hidden the fact ... Read more
Friday, May 21st, 2010
Fenton Communications has just released its latest survey of donor attitudes and behavior, looking at 1000 nationally representative US donors who have given at least $20 in the past year. Plenty of interesting findings to chew over here regarding giving plans for the coming year, attributes of ... Read more
Monday, May 17th, 2010
Last week in my Promise Me post, I urged nonprofit fundraisers to connect your "asks" as much as possible to specific goals. Then commit to your donor/prospect that your organization will break its back to achieve those goals, and report regularly on your progress toward them. Then I ... Read more
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Our friend and digital marketing consultant Nick Allen of DonorDigital developed this issue advocacy site — http://doilookillegal.com — for folks to express their opposition to Arizona’s new racist anti-immigrant law. Clever way to get folks engaged and use social media to spread ... Read more
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Yesterday I talked about the OgilvyOne supreme challenge of salesmanship — selling a plain red brick. I’ve been thinking about what might be the equivalent challenge in the nonprofit arena today … is there a cause or charity that’s metaphorically the "red ... Read more
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
I was intrigued by this email fundraising appeal from Environmental Defense Fund (one of my alma maters), because it offered me some choice as a donor. However, I don’t think EDF pushed the choice concept as far as they could (see MyProjects for a look at what real ... Read more
