When you gather compelling stories—about beneficiaries, donors, or volunteers, or other players—to share in campaigns, thanks, and other communications, you gain a powerful complement to your data and anecdotal understanding of the people you want to engage. Together, these insights forge a shortcut to engaging hearts, minds, and wallets.
But it can be tough to source the right stories. Stories Worth Telling, a useful guide from the Meyer Foundation, reveals a damaging disconnect in the way organizations collect stories. Almost universally, organizations rely on program staff knowledge and relationships to gather stories, though the department overseeing the storytelling process is typically fundraising (54%) or communications (42%). Yikes!
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Nancy Schwartz in storytelling
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Tags:all-org messengers, connection, Mom's Rising, Stories Worth Telling, storytelling
We’re springboarding into 2018 fundraising with all of its challenges. Tax bill, anyone?
Joking aside, it may seem like your team’s hard work and limited resources aren’t enough. You know how much you could bring in, if only…
Good news! There is a way to move past this seemingly insurmountable barrier—Launch a team of messengers to drive your 2018 campaigns to a strong finish. Enlist your colleagues and board members to boost your nonprofit’s reach and relationships for little or no cost. The best part? They’re already motivated to help you reach your goals.
Take these three steps to identify, inspire, and launch your giving ambassadors:
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Nancy Schwartz in All-Org Marketing Team
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Tags:2018, all-org messengers, fundraising, Nonprofit Communications, nonprofit marketing
Dear Nancy: I saw how stories about our clients—powered by a photo or two—fueled our last two year-end campaigns. They were highly successful and I planned to feature the same kind of profiles this year.
That plan changed radically last month when our social workers urged us to put our clients’ privacy first and stop using client photos. Our staff has agreed to respect their expertise and honor their request.
What are some practical alternatives I can put to work in these last few weeks? And how do I move forward with client photos in the future, as our stories aren’t as strong without them?
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Nancy Schwartz in storytelling
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Tags:client confidentiality, client photo, fundraising, Nonprofit Communications, year-end campaign
Guest blogger Mark Horvath founded and leads Invisible People. Today he shares how to boost your YouTube views from meh to magnificent. BTW, Mark’s video version of this post features bonus tips not found here! Here’s Mark…
I was thrilled with the performance of Invisible People’s YouTube channel for the last few years. With a focus on homelessness education, an average of 40,000 monthly views was fantastic, or so I thought.
That changed after we joined Patreon a few months back and I started to pay more attention to YouTube. The lightbulb went off when I typed “homeless” into the YouTube search bar. Invisible People undoubtedly has more videos from homeless people than any other content creator. All that came up was prank videos and other awful content that was so far from the truth about homelessness. None of our videos were showing in search with the keyword “homeless.” I knew I had to fix this, and here’s how:
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Guest Blogger in Video
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Tags:fundraising, Invisible People, Mark Horvath, Nonprofit Communications, nonprofit marketing, nonprofit storytelling, nonprofit video, Patron, storytelling, Video
Follow up. It’s vital but so tough to do right.
Either we don’t know what to say, fear “bugging” the very folks we want something from, or both. So we don’t follow up enough or well, which undermines engagement and results—no matter how compelling our campaigns may be!
Follow up shows we care
It also signals realism and camaraderie; conveying our understanding that (just like us) our folks get asked for a lot of things by a lot of people; are busy and need reminders; and that changing habits or behavior is hard. When we follow up consistently, with thought and evident effort, we’re building the ongoing relationships likely to foster long, loyal relationships with our people. Priceless.
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Nancy Schwartz in Strategy
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Tags:autoresponder, follow up campaign, fundraising, Nonprofit Communications, nonprofit marketing
You face an uphill battle to recruit volunteers and retain them at ever higher and more effective levels of engagement. For those of you with small or all-volunteer organizations, there’s absolutely nothing more important. And, as time and budgets get tighter, and reliance on volunteers increases, it’s harder than ever.
There’s a proven yet seldom-used method to boost success in both dimensions AND extend your organization’s reach and impact without adding budget or hires: Building your team of passionate volunteer messengers.
The value of launching your volunteer messengers is huge; a real win-win doable with limited time and expense. Take these seven steps to launch your team of passionate volunteer messengers. I’ll follow up with posts on each step, starting with the most productive pilot program I know:
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Nancy Schwartz in All-Org Marketing Team
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Tags:all-org marketing team, Nonprofit Communications, nonprofit marketing, volunteer, volunteer management, volunteer messengers
Do you bring yourself—with your passions, personal history, and personality—to work, or do you check “the real you” at the front door?
Here’s hoping you bring “all of you” to work. It’s the only way to feel fully at ease in your job, to nurture the relationships you need for success and satisfaction (for you and your organization), and to bring the greatest value to your role and responsibilities.
Take James Porter, director of communications at The End Fund. James recently asked me (via email from his personal address) to donate to the END Fund in support of his participation in a marathon this June. He describes the race, and the cause, then links his passion for his work (and participation in the race) with his experience of being marginalized as a gay boy growing up. His story is moving, memorable, and forges a quick and strong connection with readers. For James, the personal is professional:
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Nancy Schwartz in Professional Development
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Tags:James Porter, Nonprofit Communications, nonprofit marketing, personal is professional, Race to See the End, The End Fund
Yes, this has to matter to you. Maybe you dodged the bullet of the most recent global cyber attack. But the next one or the ones after that could wreck your communications impact and a lot more. If or when your organization gets hacked, it’ll bring all activity—including communications and fundraising—to an absolute standstill. Even worse, it will require an enormous investment of time and budget to repair and get back up and going; even with that, critical donor data, program stats, and email lists may be lost or corrupted.
So do something about it, even if your ED or IT staff or consultant is standing still.
My husband, Sean M. Bailey, happens to be an expert on cybersecurity and the recent author of Hack-Proof Your Life Now. What’s great about Sean’s advice is that it’s efficient and doable. He advises you take three steps asap to protect yourself and your organization:
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Nancy Schwartz in Strategy
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1 comment
Tags:cybersecurity, database, donor database, fundraising, Hack-Proof Your Life, IT, marketing planning, Nonprofit Communications, nonprofit marketing, Sean M. Bailey
There’s a proven way for your organization to start and strengthen vital relationships with the people whose support, loyalty, and actions you want—donors, volunteers, and even staff (too often overlooked here).
This approach is easy to learn and execute. And it’s something you do on a personal level all the time: Getting to know and understand others with whom you want to build a friendship—learning what’s important to them and how their days go. These insights enable you to focus in on what’s important or interesting to both of you, and how best to keep in touch via a commonly-used channel (social, mobile, text, mail) at a receptive time.
Here are four proven methods of harvesting these priceless insights:
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Nancy Schwartz in Audience Research
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Tags:aclu, Audience Research, marketing planning, messages, nonprofit communications jobs, nonprofit marketing, WIIFM
Invest 13 minutes A.S.A.P. to