The mainstreaming of Twitter It’s official — Twitter is mainstream. While the microblogging service has been around since 2006, it’s just now reaching mass appeal. Case in point — last week saw a well-publicized “battle” between Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and television network CNN (@cnnbrk) to see who would be the first to one million followers [...]
Read more...Dr. Jakob Nielsen, a guru of usability known worldwide, has just released a study on Donation Usability: Increasing Online Giving to Non-Profits and Charities. Nielsen doesn’t normally foray into nonprofit topics, and while he certainly isn’t a fundraising expert, he is a web usability expert, so when he releases a study on donation usability online, [...]
Read more...Check out this innovative take on fundraising from the folks at the agency Ogilvy & Mather Dusseldorf. So here’s the question. Is this kitsch or keeper? In other words, is this a viable way to do fundraising, or an overly slick marketing ploy to use cute little model-children to raise money? Have at it. Thanks [...]
Read more...We’re all tired of bad news about the recession. Now’s the time to use it as a platform for your ministry. Become a “player” in recovery. City missions feed hungry folks and set them on the path to personal recovery. Relief and development agencies do the same for people around the world. Prison ministries do [...]
Read more...Nonprofits need to understand that the current economic crisis makes their work more important than ever. And they need to communicate that effectively. Today’s messaging must emphasize the critical nature of continuing what we’re doing and doing it better. “We’re resetting some things to ride out the recession.” “We’re restructuring to work stronger and smarter.” [...]
Read more...I use TweetDeck to subscribe to a search for the word “fundraising” on twitter, on Tuesday this update flashed up: RT: @kanter RT @marionconway @marcapitman Fundraising Secret #34: Ditch your email newsletter? The “RT” stand for Re-tweet, in other words this isn’t you’re idea you’re just passing it along. The post pointed to this article [...]
Read more...DM news recently had an interesting article on color use. Bottom line: traditional color doesn’t necessarily boost results. Creative color use does – Forget the full color wash. Spot color or a chart of graph (or fundraising offer line) provides added visibility if you haven’t used color everywhere else. Color can increase brand recognition by [...]
Read more...Seattle’s “Fund for the Needy” hit a new high in December, up by $5,000 over the previous record, which was that 1999/2000 dot com bust. A total of $668,000. Just goes to show . . . “Hard times are here, and the America that gives more to charity, per capita, than any other country in [...]
Read more...Years ago one of my early marketing mentors, Keith Jespersen, taught me that strategy needs to come before technology. So often, we get caught up in a new technology and jump at the opportunity to use the technology only to find out that it didn’t produce the results we were after. I’m guilty of this [...]
Read more...If you hang around here long enough you’ll see posts about Pew Internet and American Life studies. The project does some of the best primary research on Internet use in the United States. A recent study looked at how people in different generations use the different parts of the Internet. A few observations. Things that [...]
Read more...