NP Marketing News Feed

Nearly 400 people voted on the topic for our next Nonprofit Marketing Guide free webinar, and 61% of you picked “Content Creation Strategies: Making the Most of Your Writing, Photos, and More.” So that’s what we are offering on July 23 at 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT).

Register now - 249 people already have! It’s free, but you must pre-register.

Even if you can’t join us live, go ahead and register and you’ll get the links to the recordings 48 hours after the live event.

Here’s what we will cover:

• Why an editorial calendar is the lithium for your content creation mania (you’ll get sample templates for several different kinds of editorial calendars)
• Where to get ideas for new content (you’ll be surprised how much you have once you know where to look)
• Setting realistic goals for yourself and prioritizing which content to create first
• Using technology to speed up your content creation and distribution (and watching for tech pitfalls that can slow you down)
• How to recycle what you create into different formats - and for different audiences
• Ways to organize everything so you can find it and reuse it later
• How to recruit other people to generate content for you (and how to be a kind but decisive editor when they do)

Register now to reserve your space (at the pace we are going, I’ll have to close registration before the 23rd).

Get All of Our Webinars & E-Courses for $97. With the All-Access Pass, you can attend all of our live webinars, watch recordings, and take on-demand courses whenever you want for 12 weeks. Get the details.

Despite all of the delayed campaigns, lower donations, budget-cuts, and general angst caused by the economy, major gift fundraising is still happening. Of course it is only happening for organizations that are staying engaged in the major gift process. The old maxim “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” is more true than ever as donors stop their impulse giving and move towards a more thoughtful approach that focuses their diminished capacity where they can receive the maximum return on their philanthropic investment.

In this difficult giving environment the web is positioned to play a more significant role in raising gifts in the mid to high range of your program. Studies like “The Wired Wealthy” helped to prove that larger donations can be effectively raised online and universities who have always led the way with major gift fundraising are now asking, and receiving, high-five and low six figure online gifts. It is understandable that the preferred measurement of success is money because it is tangible and undeniably important. Yet to fully understand the web’s full impact on major gift fundraising you must look at its intangible effects. First among these is the influence your web story has on a major gift donor’s decision to support you or not.

In the chart, “Usefulness of Charity Web Sites in Deciding to Give,” The Wired Wealthy study, produced by Convio, Sea Change Strategies, and Edge Research, segmented the wired wealthy into three clusters:

1. Relationship Seekers, those most likely to respond to opportunities to connect emotionally with your organization online;

2. All Business, those donors who visit charity web sites to donate, period; and Casual Connectors, those who occupy the middle ground between

3. All Business and Relationship Seekers. The chart below reflects those respondents who stated that a charity’s web site is very useful in making their giving decisions.

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

How to Get Great Photos for Your Blog Posts

I like to use to use images to help illustrate the theme or point of a blog post. It’s a proven “best practice” in blogging and I highly recommend that every blogger do it.

One trick for easily finding and properly using images in your blog posts is to search the creative commons licensed photos on the photo sharing site Flickr.

So, what’s Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that has created a standardized set of tools for granting various levels of permission for people to use creative works freely. The author or in this case photographer of the works designates a type of license and then Flickr allows you to sort through and find only photos that are free to be used for blog posts. I choose to use photos that carry the attribution/share alike license. This means that I may use the image here as long as I attribute the image to the Flickr user’s account where I found it. Here’s Flickr’s description of CC licenses.

So, here’s how to find and grab great images.

1. Surf to the Flickr Creative Commons Search Page - all images you search for here are free to use with proper attribution
2. Search for a specific phrase or concept and choose the image that fits
3. Click on “all sizes” and choose the size you wish to post on your blog - I use the “small” as 240 px wide fits my blog design
4. Right click the image and choose “copy image location” - use this path to paste into your blog post where you want the image to appear
5. Copy the link to the original image and link the photo in your blog post to it (this is a nice touch for the creator of the photo)
6. Somewhere in your post add the words - Image credit and the link to the Flickr account where you found the image (see at the bottom of the post)

To be a good Flickr photo user make sure you:

• Link back to the original photo
• Credit the source of the photo
• Thank the person who made it available by leaving a thank you note in the comments section of the photo on Flickr
• Add your own images and make the available through the proper CC license - you can make this a default account setting

Image credit: likefunyouare22

Chances are high that if you are not a coach, this post is going to ruffle your feathers. In fact, if you have been reading my blog and think I am nuts, do not bother with this one. That said, this is not a personal assault on your ego, it is an opinion, albeit a tested one.

METRICS FOR THE SAKE OF METRICS DO NOT MAKE FOR MORE SALES!

The classic approach to placing follow-up calls comes with some    challenges. The usual image of a follow-up call is to pick up the phone and ask your prospects, "Are you ready to hire me?" When you're calling potential referral sources, the question may become, "Got any referrals for me? For most independent professionals, this process isn't much fun. In fact, it's disagreeable enough that we may avoid it entirely.

read more

One our All-Access Pass holders, Lane Phalen, a board member and PR committee chair for a local humane society called TAILS, recently submitted this question about what you say in an annual report when you are running a deficit:

“TAILS was founded ten years ago and we haven’t done an annual report at all yet. Because we were in the red last year, I had a huge argument with other board members when I said I wanted to do an annual report. They said to do an annual report now would make us look like a sinking ship and people wouldn’t donate.  I felt by letting people know that we needed money, it would raise contributions.  We have had incredible accomplishments during the past ten years, which is what I wanted to highlight.  Can I do an annual report without putting finances in it or down-play them? ”

Here’s what I told Lane:

You have to be honest, but just because you are in the red doesn’t mean you are a sinking ship. There are PLENTY of ways to put a positive spin on it and highlight all of your good work to motivate more donations. It’s all about the attitude in your messaging. Explain why you were in the red (helped more animals than you really could afford to given that donations are down because of the recession, but need is up for the same reasons — or whatever the case may be). Then explain what you are doing to rectify the situation (What changes in decisionmaking have you made? What concrete plans have you made to raise more money or reduce costs?). If you remain upbeat and focused on the results of the organization, and deal honestly with any problems, including red ink, your supporters will respect that and understand.

In my opinion, you are much more likely to be viewed as a sinking ship if you DON’T communicate with your supporters about your work. Hmmm . . . what are those people hiding?

Writing an annual report for the first time? Check out our How to Write a Nonprofit Annual Report on-demand course. It includes our e-book and workbook that will help you write a full-length report, as well as a recording of the one-hour webinar where I explain how to create a great annual report in just four pages. Get the details.

Affordable Nonprofit Marketing Training for Your Staff, Volunteers, and Board. The Nonprofit Marketing Guide Webinar Series gives you the real-world, practical tips you need at a price you can afford. Review the Upcoming Schedule Now.

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

What Really Generates Referrals

So much of the literature on the subject of referrals focuses on the proper ways to network, ask for referrals, and create incentive programs for referral sources. While some of these more tactical things do indeed produce referrals for the organizations and salespeople that employ them, they are often little more than window dressing when it comes to the big picture.

Building a foundation that automatically generates referral momentum is not done through external actions – like some many things in life, you do it from the inside out. Plain and simple the most widely referred business are purely more referable.

I’ve studied a lot of businesses that easily generate referrals and they share some common internal tendencies as part of their brand and culture.

Make people look good

Looking at all business relationships with an eye on making prospects, customers, vendors, mentors, and staff look and feel good is a tremendously attractive internal quality. I read this quote recently and I think it works well here - “To a large degree, our success and happiness in life depends on how much people like themselves when they’re with us.” Joe Caruso

Ready to refer

We all know that giving referrals is one of the best ways to get referrals, but the difference lies in the systematic preparation. There is a big difference between understanding this philosophically and practicing proactively. Building your back pocket with a group of “best of class” providers takes work. You’ve got to discover, recruit, train and build the trust necessary to develop a proven network of providers who can help you add value to your client relationships, but once you do, the rest is pretty easy.

Keeps promises

The word trust is easy to use and even easier to lose. But, as Stephen M.R. Covey so correctly points out in his book, The Speed of Trust – trust is a hard currency and asset. Trust impacts how fast things are done and how much they cost. It is so much easier and less expensive to refer a business that keeps its promises.

Creates an experience

We will travel to the ends of the earth to be entertained or at least not bored to tears. The businesses we love to refer aren’t boring. They realize that it’s not just about the product and service they sell, it’s equally about the total experience – the marketing, the message, the people, the processes, the delivery are all carefully considered as props integral to a successful customer experience.

Educates, instead of selling

Nobody likes to refer a friend to a sales pitch, right? But, exposing a friend to information that might help them get more of what they want out of life, now that’s a different story. Even better when that information is packaged and presented in multiple locations, formats, and venues.

Adds value beyond price

In Bob Burg’s book the Go-Giver the main character, Joe, encounters the 5 laws of stratospheric success. The first law, the Law of Value states that your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. This is a tough one for so many people because we often have no great baseline for the value we bring. The key here is to work tirelessly to understand, quantify and enhance the value our customer receives and the rest will take care of itself.

Does something talkable

My spell check isn’t balking at the word talkable, but I think it properly expresses this one. You’ve certainly encountered the concept of word of mouth constantly of late, but I think that concept tends to lean heavily on tactics and stunts, like viral videos, that might create a flurry of word of mouth. To do something talkable to me is to have something at the core of your business, a higher purpose, an inspirational story, a product or service that is simply brilliant, or a habit that makes people smile. Authenticity and consistency are what make something talkable.

Exceeds expectations

This one seems pretty easy, but why isn’t it. When someone buys a product, toss other stuff in the box, right? Maybe, but the only way to actually exceed expectations is to know what they are. And that’s where people fall down. In business and in life, it’s extremely difficult to exceed an expectation you have not participated in setting. Widely referred business work very hard to set the proper expectations and then it’s pretty simple matter to exceed them. So, you see exceeding expectations might also include understanding and attracting the right customers, laying exactly how you work to get results on the line, teaching customers what’s expected of them, and even saying no once and while.

Focus on even one of the internal mindsets and practices above and watch how much more referable you become.

I also created a public mindmap of this article and would love it if you would contribute your thoughts on the tactical elements of each of these principles listed above. You do have to sign-up for a free Mindmeister account to add your thoughts, but it’s a pretty cool tool anyway so you might like to play around with it. You can find the map here - http://www.mindmeister.com/23949165

• The Ultimate Measure of Marketing Success (ducttapemarketing.com)
• Ivan Misner, Bob Burg and Bill Cates on Making Referrals (ducttapemarketing.com)

tweetmeme_url = 'http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2009/07/4th-of-july-marketing-ideas.html'; This weekend is the celebration of the American Independence Day on July 4th and if you have ever lived or travelled to America on this date, you know that the day is typically celebrated with BBQs and fireworks. Across the nation, people get ready for traditions that have remained largely unchanged. As the big day dawns, though, there are several ways that social media and particularly social media tools on mobile devices could transform the day for the digitally connected - and offer a great promotional idea for the right brand in the process.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Fireworks Finder Mobile App - A simple map based application that would allow you to search for local destinations that have fireworks to decide where to go. In addition to the location, it would offer useful information like what else is happening, and how long the fireworks in that area are estimated to go for. After all, who doesn't want to see the longest fireworks display? Who This Idea Works For?: Fast Food Restaurant (could show nearby restaurants), Fireworks seller (link to nearby retail spots), Local city governments (to increase tourism and locals who stay close to home)
2. Fireworks Countdown Timer - One of the biggest questions on the 4th of July as people pack into large cities and gathering areas to watch fireworks is when exactly they will start. Though they are scheduled, often the real start time is different and due to weather or when it actually gets dark enough. This timer could be a mobile app that would be updated in real time with the true start time of the fireworks. It could also count down as the fireworks are running until then end so you know how much time is left. Who This Idea Works For?: Baby/Kids Product Makers (as a useful service for parents to answer impatient kids), Watch/Timekeeping Brand (relates to keeping time), Cell Provider (exclusive download to certain cell networks for subscribers)
3. Fireworks Photo Tips PDF - During the fireworks, people often can't help taking their point and click cameras and trying to get a shot of the fireworks. Usually, there are some simple things, like zooming in, turning autofocus off and turning the flash off that can make a big difference in the quality of pictures. Giving people a download ahead of time with how to get the best photos from the day could be a great useful printout that people actually offer their email in exchange to download and print to take with them. Who This Idea Works For?: Photographic Equipment Manufacturer (include info on best cameras with night modes), Photo printing services (offer a coupon for discount on uploading and printing your photos afterwards).

Anyone seen any of these ideas being used already? While every retail brand is doing the typical "4th of July sale" - the may be opportunities are out there and waiting for your brand to engage people through social media and stand out from your competitors in the process.

I was presenting The Cold Call is Dead Part 2 webinar yesterday and I noticed an interesting question flash by on the audience questions box. Well, it wasn’t actually a question it was a comment. A conclusion actually. Roughly it said “marketing generates all the leads and sales closes them”.

Cool!

Rebecca Leaman (aka Curious Apricot) at the Wild Apricot Blog has posted the latest edition of the Nonprofit Blog Carnival, with a nonprofit technology theme. Here it is. You’ll find not only some good how-to’s on social media, but also some posts that challenge you to really think about how you use technology within your nonprofit to collaborate and communicate with others (e.g. what’s the right mix of online and offline communication?).

The Nonprofit Blog Carnival is supposed to a monthly roundup of some of the best blogging on a particular topic of interest to nonprofits, and Rebecca has created a stellar example!

Next month the Carnival will be hosted by Heather Carpenter at Nonprofit Leadership 601, where the theme will be Nonprofit Leadership and Professional Development.  Watch Heather’s blog for her take on what she’s looking for this month, and I’ll post the link for you once she’s published her edition.

Are you reading this in your email box? Switch to an RSS feed reader like Google Reader and you can subscribe to this blog and others, without clogging your inbox.

Fundraising veteran Tom Suddes offers his golden (but free!) advice on how to shape your language to strengthen your organization, which Tom swears (and I think he's right) will change the way you think about your org.

Listen now to change your org's life, and your own perspective. Can't ask for more in 45 minutes.

Three key insights:

• Don't define yourself negatively, as a NOT-for-profit. Define yourself positively, focusing on your impact. You're a for-impact organization.
• Your impact drives your income, not the other way around.
• Just ask!

Here's my favorite takeway -- reframing key nonprofit communications language. Examples include:

• Old: charity --> New: cause or philanthropy
• Old: mission statement --> New: message (clear, consistent, succinct)
• Old: survival (of your org) --> New: transformation
• Old: sustainability --> New: solutions
• Old: inform --> New: involve
• Old: overhead/administrative costs --> New: priorities (people, programs and places).

Listen up now. It'll change your perspective today and increase your impact tomorrow, promise.

Tip of the hat to Gayle Thornsen.

P. S. Don't miss out on in-depth articles, case studies and guides to nonprofit marketing success -- all featured in the twice-monthly Getting Attention e-update.  Subscribe today.

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Yahoo Pipes a Smokin Radar Tool

Yahoo Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web. Frankly, it has been around for a couple of years now and while it’s advanced a bit, I don’t think it has ever really caught on in a big way. The interface is a little funky and takes some getting use to, but once you do, it’s a pretty cool tool.

Pipes can do some very complex things, but what I think it does better than most other options is allow you to aggregate, sort and filter many RSS feeds into one. So, you might be asking at this moment, why would I want to do that.

I can think of number of reasons pretty quickly:

• Monitor mentions of your brand across multiple sources
• Monitor mentions of your competitors
• Monitor specific topics of discussion across the web
• Aggregate the columns of key journalists you want to influence
• String the blogs of your strategic partners into one feed

The image above is an example of output from a Yahoo Pipe for Duct Tape Marketing

I put together a quick sample pipe that includes mentions of Duct Tape Marketing and John Jantsch with duplicate content filtered from RSS feeds including:

• Yahoo News
• Google News
• Techorati
• Bloglines
• Google Blog Search
• Twitter
• Backtype
• Boardtracker

The image above is the source code of modules used in this pipe example

In the social media world we live in monitoring across platforms that track social media sites, bulletin boards, blogs, blog comments, PR newswires and web sites has become important and more complex. A simple monitoring mashup from Yahoo Pipes may provide a good DIY fix.

Pipes also comes with some tools that allow you to easily create widgets and badges to place on web and blog pages.

If you want to dig a lot deeper into the use of Yahoo Pipes, I suggest checking out Dawn Foster of Fast Wonder Consulting. Her blog is filled with down to earth tutorials on how to use Pipes for many things - here’s a recent tutorial on using CSV files to run keyword searches.
Related articles by Zemanta

• How to use Yahoo Pipes For Creating Unique Content from RSS Feeds (via delicious) (totallyfreeblogtools.com)
• Five ‘S’ Steps to a Professional Web Intelligence (article in progress) (fredericmartin.typepad.com)
• Yahoo Pipes: getting started with custom RSS feeds (arstechnica.com)

As the US continues to struggle with how the healthcare system needs to be reformed, it was interesting to spend a week focused on Sweden in my Global Communications class this week as it presents an interesting opposite. The country has a high degree of nationalized services, which citizens of Sweden pay handsomely for with a tax rate that hovers between 50% and 70% - but for this amount everything from healthcare to long maternity leaves are covered. Coupled with a relatively isolated location in relation to Europe, beautiful geography and a national obsession with the environment, it is no surprise that the country routinely ranks at the top of the list for global quality of life surveys.

Online, the country has made big news recently for being the unauthorized home of illegal file downloads through a site called Pirate Bay. The site has been in legal trouble of late, being found guilty in Swedish courts of copyright infringement. The debate continues in the country, regardless, where there is even a political party dedicated to furthering the ideology of the site in terms of open copyright free access to content.

From our class blog this week and discussions in class, the team shared several more interesting learnings and topics about Sweden. Here are some highlights:

1. Social media is not about ego. It is easy to get the sense by looking at the rise of social media in the US and many other countries that it is all about ego. People publishing content in order to get their moments of "internet fame" and focused on getting others to link to their content or retweet their best sayings. In Sweden, most reports point to the central emotion in the culture being more reserved and less about promoting the self. This manifests itself through social media in subtle ways, from limiting the active use of review and ratings sites to reducing the number of individual Swedes who create a large profile and personal brand for themselves through social media.
2. Language is not much of a barrier. The language of choice for many Swedish resources was English, and in those cases where there were Swedish language sites, the translations were usually one click away and quite strong. The other implication of this is that unlike some other cultures, global sites such as Facebook also have a strong and growing local appeal here.
3. The country of Sweden is well branded online. The first thing you are likely to find when researching Sweden online is the extremely useful official government portal site - www.sweden.se. The site features everything you would ever want to know about the country, includes frequently updated content from blogs and social media, has a easy to use interface and presents what may be one of the strongest country branded official portals any nation has put online.
4. Environmental friendliness is a way of life. Everywhere you turn, you can see evidence of Sweden's progressive attitudes toward the environment. Their Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released 16 ambitious objectives that are meant to guide the country toward a sustainable environment within one generation.
5. Fashion is a hot topic in social media. There are several blogs devoted to covering fashion in Sweden, driven by a few big events such as Fashion Week in Stockholm in late January and early February. 
6. Children are protected from marketers. Sweden has a reputation as one of the most aggressive countries when it comes to banning advertising to children under the age of 12. TV ads during prime time are banned to this age group and the country has been active in encouraging other European countries to follow their example. This first gained attention in 2001 when Sweden had ascended to the European Union Presidency for their 6 month rotating term. They are due to begin their next term on July 1st of this year, just a few days from now ... so this may come up again as a core issue.
7. Texting is for amateurs. The sophistication of how many Swedes are using their mobile phones is vastly beyond what many in the US may consider active mobile phone usage. Texting is only one small element of what you can do with a mobile phone in Sweden. More interesting is that you can pay for your groceries, submit your taxes and stream broadband content effortlessly - without losing a signal.
8. Research, innovation, technology and creativity drive the economy. The country has a long history of research and innovation, including a status as the #1 biotech industry in Europe per capita and a focus on mobile technology and design innovation. This combination recently propelled the country onto the Entrepreneur magazine list of top 5 "Global Tech Hot Spots" along with Singapore, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Switzerland. Anyone else spot a pattern?

Reading List Of Sources:

• The Official Gateway To Sweden (useful government sponsored site) - http://www.sweden.se
• Ruling against file sharing's impact on Swedish Internet usage - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/04/sweden-pirate-bay-filesharing-internet  
• Interesting list of Swedish facts from an American perspective - http://cva.stanford.edu/people/davidbbs/swedish_facts.html
• Good blog about all things Swedish - http://www.thelocal.se/blog/ 
• On Swedish Business Blog - http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/onswedishbusiness/
• Web pioneer to be

  Sweden

  's next

  US

  Ambassador - http://www.thelocal.se/20176/20090620/
• Swedish Pirate Party - http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25602990-5014239,00.html
• Article on

  Sweden

  's Culture of Creativity - http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/79254314.html

• Sweden

  Sustainability Blog - http://sweden.se/eng/Home/Work-live/Sustainability/blog-about-sustainability/
• Why

  Sweden

  Is One of the Top 5 Tech Countries - http://www.entrepreneur.com/technology/newsandtrends/article180678.html
• Perceptions of political marketing in

  Sweden

  - http://eprints.otago.ac.nz/263/
• Interesting stats on kids and internet usage in

  Sweden

  - http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work-live/Facts/CHILDREN-IN-SWEDEN-Growing-up-in-Sweden/

• Sweden

  's 16 environmental objectives - http://www.naturvardsverket.se/sv/Nedre-meny/Webbokhandeln/ISBN/1200/978-91-620-1266-3
• SymbioCity: Environmentally friendly development in

  Sweden

  - http://symbiocity.se/?pageId=1
• Swedish Delegation for Sustainable Cities - http://www.hallbarastader.gov.se/Bazment/hallbarastader/sv/in-english.aspx

I recently overheard this comment about a savvy CEO of a company with a software offering: “He runs his sales organization like a machine. He knows exactly how many calls each sales rep needs to make each day to hit their quota. And, he knows every day if they hit that number.”

I recently had lunch with a highly successful VP of Sales of a Pharmaceutical company. He explained that he was frustrated with the members of his sales management team, who he felt were focused only on results. He worried that they were not spending any time developing their salespeople.

read more

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Local as Differentiator

Several years ago, Hilary Brown decided to open a burger joint in Lawrence, KS. She readily admits that folks around town questioned whether the world, or for that matter Lawrence, needed another place to get a hamburger. After all, this is a college and fast food is plentiful.

Brown tells that to her doubters she enthusiastically replied, “what I’m creating is the next generation of burger joints.” Local Burger, as her restaurant is called, takes into consideration where food comes from as well as the environment, unnatural additives, and sustainable agriculture. All of the creative dishes served at Local Burger are prepared from foods grown or raised no more than 200 miles away (some less than 5). In addition, most products are organic and gluten free, including local wine and beer.

The restaurant is billed as The World’s Most Local Burger and the menu even features a chart displaying products purchased from local farmers and suppliers and the distance to each. It also happens to be one of the few places around where you can get elk, buffalo, pork, turkey and tofu burgers.

Using local as a way to differentiate an otherwise commodity type business and then backing it up with every brand element and process is a powerful way to fight chains and the need to compete solely on price. Brown’s strategy and business model have landed her on the pages of Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Outside and on the Sundance Channel. You can follow Local Burger on twitter.

In our current economic environment, local has a nice feel to it as well.

This, dear readers, is my 500th post here on Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog.  I wanted to make it extra special and wise, so I decided I’d better not be the one writing it.  A couple of weeks ago here and on Twitter, I asked you to contribute to this post with the one piece of wisdom that you wish you’d known at the start of your nonprofit marketing and fundraising efforts - or the lesson you keep finding yourself forgetting.  Here are 16 gems from you - each of which I’ve named in honor of the contributor.  If some of these sound like common sense, good.  That’s the funny thing about common sense - it’s rather uncommon in this world.  Thanks for sharing everyone - and for reminding me of some things that are far too easy to forget amidst the daily grind.

Nancy’s rule: Reflect first.
Think before you act! It’ll save you endless frustration, time and money… and ensure you’re doing the most with the marketing & fundraising resources you have.
Nancy Schwartz

Joel’s rule: But don’t reflect too long.  It’s never going to be perfect anyway.
You can’t get good without practice. If you stay behind your desk, waiting to “get good” before going out to tell your story, you’ll never “get good.” You MUST go out and present people with the chance to get involved with your cause, way before you’re comfortable doing so, and certainly before you’re “good” at it.
Joel Preston

Thomas’s rule: Pay attention to what you do right - and wrong.
My input for your 500th post is my personal philosophy about life in general and fundraising in particular: “Do what works.” If you don’t know what works, research what has worked (and not worked) for others. Once you start trying things, pay attention to what brings positive results and what brings negative results. Hang onto the things that bring positive results and let go the ones that bring negative results. Finally, remember that everything changes, so what worked today may not work tomorrow. You must always keep your eye on the ball.
Thomas Robinson

Tony’s law of targeting
It’s not about being everything to everyone; It’s about crafting a clear, concise, and radically different organization that means much to a select few.
Tony Pantello

Tamsen’s rule of originality
Know what and who you are, and be the best of that you can be.  So many non-profits spend all their time trying to be some other non-profit. But why be a copycat? Copies always lose resolution.
Tamsen McMahon

Laws of the Audience by Amy, Taryn and Zan

My piece of wisdom is that in direct mail fundraising, you, the mailer, are not the audience.
Amy Tripi

Know your audience and adapt your message to them to maximize effect.
Taryn Baranowski

Audience, audience, audience. Always think about what they care about, are dealing with, are motivated by. You (communications pro) might be part of that audience, but you must always be thinking outside of yourself. Start every email, every newsletter article or blog post, with an a specific person in mind that you are trying to reach.
Zan McColloch-Lussier

Jeremy’s rule of relationships
Don’t just market and fundraise to people, connect with their passions and forge relationships—a donation to your cause is nice, but a supporter of your cause is better.
Jeremy Sony

Elizabeth on Storytelling
Tell a good story. I can’t emphasize enough to my nonprofit clients how important it is to tell stories about their work instead of talk about themselves.  Here are some ideas on what makes a good story.
Elizabeth Turnbull

Niels’ Advice: Think like a 14 year old.
I learned this when I was fourteen and then I forgot again. Don’t ask me why.  Go door to door, explain why you are knocking on their door and ask for their help. I you believe in your cause, you will find many other who do too.  What advantage does a fourteen year old have? When you say you believe in something, people tend to believe you. So, what do you need to do to make people believe you? I don’t think it is about the clever packaging, but about the passion of your conviction.
Niels Teunis

Sergio: Be passionate.
Giving is not only talking about money.  Giving is also doing something with your heart.
Sergio Felter

Amy’s Rule of constructive dispassion
A nonprofit organization is still a business.  Don’t ignore those business “tru-isms” because you think they don’t apply to a charity.  One of my professors once said that most nonprofits fail because its run by someone who has great passion for the cause…but little business sense.  If you’ve got passion - that’s the hard part, just bring some business skills into it and you’ve got the major pieces for success!
Amy Shropshire

Clover: Forever young (or dead)
Reach out to young people (for volunteers, board members, staff, etc.) or you will surely die as your supporters do.
Clover Frederick

Karen’s Rule: Don’t try to do it all.
Twitter, Facebook, blogging, newsletters, e-mail blasts, brochures, press releases, internal communication, etc. You can’t do it all. Figure out what you must do and what you can do well that will set you apart, master those, and stay focused.
Karen Washbush

Barb’s Last Word: Take the long view.
It takes time.  I keep forgetting that.
Barb McMahon

Social media! I seriously think it’s "the" buzz word of 2009. According to Omniture, over 200 million searches are conducted every single day and 78% of people trust recommendations by peers. But how should nonprofits track their social media? What tools should they use?

Understand What You Want to Track.

• Do you want to track how many people are clicking and sharing your links or updates?

• Do you want to track how many people are signing your petitions after visiting your site?

• Are you interested in trends relating to specific topics your nonprofit works on such as health care reform or human rights?

Each objective requires different tools to track your nonprofits social media progress and return on investment. However, it’s important to note that none of them are 100% at measuring results. Lets dig in to my top eight social media tracking tools.