Writing your case for support Crafting direct mail and other donor correspondence Developing popular donor newsletters Down-to-earth training in best practices Auditing donor communications programs for effectiveness
Feel free to reprint, with attribution, articles from this website and Ahern's Love Thy Reader e-newsletter. Many already do: from Texas to South Africa. ALSO let your readers know that they can sign up free for my how-to e-newsletter.
New product: Talking points for funding emergencies
Credit freeze got you down? It is killing this symphony.
My phone rings. It's a favorite client calling: an outstanding symphony orchestra located in a warm climate. And here's their emergency: If they don't raise $1 million in the next four months, they'll have to close their doors for the first time in 80 years. It's that simple.
What a lousy time for a city's chief musical pleasure (and, face it, welcome distraction) to go away -- in the midst of the deepest period of financial insecurity since the Great Depression. The symphony survived that crisis. But will it survive this one? With prompt donor support, absolutely!
Prep your solicitors to wage a successful campaign. Give them fire in the belly talking points. Who writes those? We do. We write FORCEFUL talking points, the kind that move both heart and mind. Email your sad story.Let's see if there's a way to turn that frown upside down.
12/07/08
If you're a worried, frustrated fundraiser...
Read "In Defense of Raising Money: A Manifesto"
Read this. Feel better. Much better. Amazingly much better.
Sasha Dichter's passionate few paragraphs begin, "I'm sick of apologizing for being in charge of raising money." He works at a great nonprofit. It's changing the way the world fights poverty. So why do people think he's stuck in a bad job? Read his answer.
11/05/08
November 2008 newsletter
Would you buy a mattress from this charity?
Nonprofits love to write about what they do. Isn't that missing the point?
In advertising, the saying goes: "Features tell. Benefits sell." In fundraising, a comparable saying goes something like this: "Activities tell. Accomplishments sell."
Donors aren't buying your activities. They're buying your accomplishments. And that's where many nonprofit communications go wrong. Nonprofits talk way too much about their activities, and way too little about their accomplishments.
Learn how to "translate" activities into accomplishments in the latest edition of our helpful e-newsletter. Click here.
11/03/08
New case for ongoing support
Pawtucket, RI's amazing International Charter School shares its case
They need money every year. Here's what they're telling potential donors.
To view the final (but still a bit in-progress) ICS case for support, click. To learn about the best Mexican restaurant in Rhode Island (and that's saying something), email me.
