5 signs that your fundraising might be in trouble (it was hard to do only 5): 1. You mail all your donors in every impact. Direct mail is highly efficient and can have astounding ROIs but only if you “get” the concept of targeting by giving patterns, gift sizes and seasonality. 2. You aren’t connecting […]
5 signs your fundraising is in trouble Read More »
It’s been educational to watch reactions to Invisible Children’s viral video campaign, Kony2012. I’m sure that unless you’re just back from a 3-week dog-sledding expedition across Antarctica, you’re up-to-speed on the Kony2012 video. But just to be sure, here’s a link to the video that started it all. (As I write, the video has 78,176,891
your viral strategy worked . . . good news or bad news? Read More »
I stopped reading “leadership” books last year because I realized that I didn’t need to learn anything new. I needed to actually do more of what I’d already learned. I’ll go back to books on leadership eventually, but for now I’m enjoying the freedom not to read more on leadership. Understand, it’s not that I
you know enough about fundraising Read More »
I saw this poster recently. Notice the tagline down at the bottom . . . “emotions make you move.” (It’s for a casino of all things). It got me to thinking about how often ministries and nonprofits forget that truth: emotions move people. Don’t be afraid of making emotional appeals to donors. In fact, your
emotion raises money Read More »
The one missing ingredient in most fundraising messaging is the bad news. Hopefully, when you communicate with your donors (and prospective donors) you help them understand the problem your ministry solves. I’m sure you tell them how you go about dealing with the problem. Maybe you even tell them how they will be different and
don’t forget the bad news Read More »
Your big fundraising event is over. Whew. You’ve done a great job with everything…including a dash of social media to keep things interesting. Now what? Of course, lots and lots of gift acknowledgments…anything else? How about a nifty follow up email with photos, a video and more good stuff to connect your donors with your
follow up on events to maximize your impact Read More »
It’s the time of year for your annual breakfast or banquet or gala or fashion show or dogwash. It’s not even October and we’ve already been to several and there are several more on our calendar. It is the season for events if you’re a nonprofit or ministry. And I suspect that if you’re like
don’t forget to add this to your next donor event Read More »
We just finished a delightful time teaching and sharing with a razor-sharp group of pros at the CLA’s Leadership Academy. We loved the experience: great people, great conference, great organization. We made lots of new friends. Something that was central to our message was the strategy of engaging constituents on Social Media not simply using
post wisely on facebook or lose your friends Read More »
You’ve seen ‘em, they look like the unattractive love-child of a bar code and a bit-mapped maze—QR Codes. The QR is “quick response” as in a something you use your smart phone to do quickly (I don’t know, doesn’t really make sense to me either, I didn’t come up with the name). Hoots and I
nonprofits and QR codes Read More »
We have a wonderful library here on the island. It’s part of a larger library syndicate system or something. I’m sorta vague on how that all works, but I know it’s a great library and because of the various economic/governmental/tax whatevers their funding has been cut. Now our branch is open fewer hours yet that
One of my favorite presentations to give is “Aunt Ruby’s Rules on Nonprofit Branding.” I won’t try to describe it in detail, but it deals with what I consider the current realities and opportunities for nonprofit leaders all in the context of how my very proper Aunt Ruby would say it. The material is the
most major donors don’t leave mad Read More »
Hoots will tell you that I’m not always a consistent rule-follower. Nothing serious, but I don’t always follow every rule–I’m less a letter-of-the-law kind of guy and more intentions-and-convenience kind of guy. She has a pretty funny riff that describes our different wiring, but let’s just say, a “keep off the grass” sign isn’t always
snakes are the reason Read More »
Oneicity was born from our desire and passion to serve small- and medium-sized ministries and non-profits with affordable fundraising and marketing. We are a professional services firm that is unlike any you have ever worked with.
