Communicate!

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Fundraising Tuesday: A New Resolution

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For the new year, did your nonprofit make a resolution? I’m going to suggest you make a new and better one right now!

“Resolution” comes from the word resolve,  and that word has different meanings.

What we usually do around January 1 is “decide firmly on a course of action.” All too often, of course, that firm decision disappears before the month of January is out! (Think of all those unused gym memberships, for example.)

Another meaning of resolve is “settle or find a solution to (a problem, dispute, or contentious matter).” U.S. House of Representatives, I’m looking at you! What’s the resolution when twenty or so members want to gum up the works, not govern?

Resolution as clearer vision

High and low resolution

There’s another way to think about your New Year’s resolution. It comes from photography. A high-resolution image is one that shows you a lot of detail. It lets you see what you’re looking at more clearly.

This year, it’s time for your nonprofit to get a high-resolution picture of how you are communicating with your donors.

Questions to ask to bring donor communication into focus

What do you know about the people on your email list? Are their names correct?  Are their addresses up to date? Do you know what they care about, and are you segmenting your list so they hear about exactly what matters to them?

How often are you in touch with your supporters (and potential supporters)? And how often are you giving them something–an inspiring story, expert information, or something else that’s valuable to them?

Is your communication haphazard, or do you have a plan? Are you using a communications calendar so you never have to create something at the last minute? Are you reusing, repurposing, and recycling your content so more of your supporters see or hear it, on more different channels?

If the answers to any of the questions we’ve just been considering is “No,” or “Not nearly enough,” then it’s time to make a resolution in the first sense. Make a firm decision to make the answer “yes” this year. (And that will also be the resolution of your problem with keeping your loyal donors!)

 

 

 

 

TY Thursday: Thanks for Noticing My New Year!

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shofar

Child blowing the shofar to mark Rosh Hashanah

It’s September. You may be looking ahead to your end-of-year appeal and thank-you letter, and congratulating yourself on getting to it early, long before the new year.

But is it already too late? Is the year over?

Thank God, It’s a New Year

This time next week, many Jews will be celebrating the new year, with the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Wiccans and other pagans celebrate the Autumnal Equinox (Mabon) on Friday, September 22, which Jews outside of Israel consider the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

The Chinese New Year is next year on the Western calendar: February 16, 2018, to be precise. The Persian New Year, Nowruz, will arrive on March 21. The Cambodian New Year? Not until April 14.

And you thought the holiday season was in December!

Yes, You Can Keep Track

Let’s get real. Unless you’re a Jewish organization, you’re probably not sending out an appeal to your supporters timed for Rosh Hashanah. But ignoring the holidays that matter to your donors is not a good idea.

If you notice the new years that your supporters celebrate, they will be grateful. So few people in the majority population pay any attention at all. If you recognize  next week that it’s Rosh Hashanah (or next spring that it’s Nowruz, or Chinese New Year), you will get a lot of credit.

And it’s just not so hard to wrap your mind around the idea that there can be more than one new year. Your nonprofit may already be paying attention to the start of the new year, and the federal government’s budget year, and your own fiscal year. You know how to do this!

Sending Greetings to Your Mailing List

How do you wish people well on their holidays when you may have Christians, Jews, pagans, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists on your list?

Ideally, you keep a record of which holiday each person on your list celebrates. Then, you send personalized email to each one.

(It helps a lot if your email list is in a database instead of a spreadsheet, and if you use an email service provider like Constant Contact or MailChimp and not just Outlook or Gmail.)

If you haven’t kept records of which holidays are meaningful to which of your contacts, now would be a good time to start!

My Holiday Gift to You

While you are putting together those records, I’ll help you send holiday greetings to all. Here’s how: feel free to cut and paste the third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs of this message into your email and social media. Edit judiciously. Add these words: “To all our friends who celebrate these holidays, we send our warmest greetings.”

That’s it for now. Thanks! Who’s looking forward to Groundhog’s Day?

Top 75 Nonprofit BlogWe’re honored that Feedspot has named the Communicate! blog as one of the top 75 nonprofit blogs to follow in 2017. Read more about nonprofit marketing, fundraising, and thanking donors at www.dennisfischman.com

Your Nonprofit New Year’s Resolutions

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resolutions

10 easy ways to communicate better in 2017

It’s a new year.  Here are ten resolutions that every organization should make to improve their communications in 2017.

  1. Google yourself. What are the first things people see about you? Would you support the group you see on screen?
  2. Take charge of your brand. Create your own reputation through the news you make and the stories you post.
  3. Cultivate local reporters.  They work too hard: if you feed them human interest stories and photos, they’ll be grateful.
  4. Everyone in your organization speaks for you.  What are they saying to their friends? Do they have stories to tell your supporters?
  5. Your website: keystone of all your communications.  Ask an outsider to click through it. Is it easy to navigate? Informative? Fun?
  6. Facebook is a party, not a meeting.  Find ways to get your fans talking with each other.  They’ll come back more often and like you better.
  7. Which social media should your group use?  Depends.  Who do you want to reach?  Where do they go when they’re online?
  8. Horror movie: “I mail to dead people.” In January, take people off your postal and email lists if you haven’t heard from them since 2013.
  9. Photos: not just for breakfast any more. Your readers want to consume photos at every meal, including online posts.
  10. Your good name is your most valuable asset.  What’s it worth to you?  THAT’S the return on investment for your communications.

Resolutions are not made to be broken! You can do #1 right away, as in the moment you finish reading this blog post. The other items will take time, so make a plan. For instance, to put #5 into action, who are you going to ask to review your website, and will you get their feedback in person, or by email, or…?

As your communications consultant, I can help your nonprofit make 2017 the year you communicate better with your donors and raise more money. Let’s talk about how. Email me at [email protected] and let’s start the new year right.

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