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News Grow 27% This Year Tips Section Marketing...
5 major strengths of philanthropies Donors...
Zen and the art of fundraising Online …
The web is just one fundraising channel Grow 27% This Year
By Todd Baker Your legacy doesn’t guarantee you a place in the future. Your best year, how long ago was it? The new “up” is not flat. Up is and will always be up -- growing the organization. Don’t accept less. If you have surrounded yourself with small thinkers, run for your life. You want more revenue? Think Big. Testing blue envelopes against red ones is not big thinking. Eliminating homelessness in five years is thinking big. Stopping diabetes, curing cancer, saving disaster victims, empowering a village through training and education -- all of these endeavors are big visions that people are inspired to join. Stop trying to think of the next gimmick that will fetch the most money. Stop tricking your donors into reading your information. Your donors are smarter than you. They know why they give you money and you lack full understanding of their motivation. You over communicate hoping to strike an accord. Instead, try listening intently. Click Here to Read Complete Article... TIPS Section
Marketing …
5 major strengths of philanthropies Those who work in the nonprofit sector know that they are working for something good. They know it so well that sometimes they have trouble explaining it to people who just don’t get it. In his book We First, Simon Mainwaring takes time to articulate the strengths of philanthropies. So, the next time you have to spell it out for a politician, journalist, Hollywood celebrity or spouse, you can tell them that philanthropies offer the following: • Credibility and neutrality. They are viewed as neutral organizations whose goals are to serve the public good without hidden political agendas. In some parts of the world they have more credibility than the government.
• Motivated employees and staff. If they were doing it for the money, most of them wouldn’t be doing it.
• Field expertise. Often nonprofits can provide specialists and experts that governments cannot provide and can accomplish change at a faster pace than governments.
• Ability to attract big contributions. More and more of the world’s affluent are using their wealth to effect social change, and they often view NGOs as the best way by which to do that.
• Limited infrastructure and staffing. Despite what the demagogues say, nonprofits usually operate with limited overhead, cutting costs to the bone in an effort to operate efficiently. Donors …
Zen and the art of fundraising Fundraising is the basic, and yet often least enjoyable aspects of nonprofit operations. In his book The Zen of Fundraising, Ken Burnett wrote that fundraisers should embrace what they do, putting a real vigor and enthusiasm into the entire project.
In fact, he offers six vital characteristics of the effective relationship fundraiser that he says should be practiced daily.
They are: • Be proud to be a fundraiser. The work of fundraisers enables good works to happen, provides the resources that fuel philanthropy. Fundraisers should be proud of what they do, but they should also be their own fiercest critics, to ensure they constantly strive to refine and improve what they do.
• Believe passionately in the cause. A fundraiser must believe passionately if the person is to have any chance of communicating that passion and commitment to others.
• Be honest, open and truthful. Donors expect fundraisers to be consistently and scrupulously honest, and they have a right to that.
• Be faithful. Always stick to promises. Keep promises, stand by the organization’s mission and don’t compromise what it stands for.
• Be prepared to take a (calculated) risk. The cautious, heads-down culture in nonprofits today doesn’t engender runaway success.
• Be respectful of donors, and show that respect even when they are not present. Maintain this respect at all times in all aspects of operations. 
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Online …
The web is just one fundraising channel This definitely is not your parents’ fundraising universe. Speaking during the DMA Nonprofit Federation New York Nonprofit Conference, Allison Porter of Avalon Consulting Group and Dan Doyle and Mwosi Swenson, president/CEO and vice president, respectively, of Mal Warwick Associates, discussed the benefits of online fundraising, while also taking a look at multi-channel marketing. For example, Porter said that Avalon's analysis shows that donor don't always stick to the channel they joined with but instead migrate to different channels. One study showed that people who joined organizations online gave more through mail and phone on subsequent gifts. Further, every donor defines involvement differently and might choose a different path. Therefore options are important. Member advocates are the most valuable constituents because of their high levels of engagement and financial support.
That is not to say that online solicitation is not working. According to Doyle and Swenson, the following strategies are working:
* Growing and maintaining a large, engaged and active file of email constituents.
* Donation page optimization.
* Search engine marketing, especially to drive people directly to the donation page.
* Prominent asks on the home page and high-traffic pages.
* Disaster fundraising (if it applies to an organization's mission).
* Cross-channel marketing to increase donor value and find new prospects using tried and true direct response techniques. | 
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