I interviewed Kivi Leroux Miller today about her new book “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide.”  There were several nuggets of wisdom that popped out of our conversation, and I thought I’d share them with you.

Tell stories.  Learn how to tell a story about a person your organization has helped.  A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  The story should be about the person, not about your organization.

Lose the jargon.  Keep all your communications simple and easy to understand.  Your donors don’t know your industry slang and acronyms.

There’s no such thing as the general public when it comes to marketing.  The general public includes everyone.  But you don’t need to reach everyone.  You only need to reach those people who are likely to support you. You must identify the specific groups of supporters who are out there, and craft your message to them.

Be clear about your message.  Don’t try to cram too much into it.  And include a call to action.

When deciding how best to reach your audience, first consider their preferences.  If most of them are hanging out online, then you might be able to completely ditch your print newsletter.  If not, then don’t try to force them online, because it won’t work.

I encourage you to get a copy of “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide.”  It’s easy to read (my copy is already marked up, tagged, and dog-eared!) and is full of practical ideas you can implement right away.  Get yours at Amazon.

My friend Nancy Schwartz is hosting her annual Tagline Awards.  Here’s the scoop:

Your nonprofit or foundation could be one of this year’s Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award (a.k.a. The Taggies) winners!  And this year, for the first time, you can submit your organization’s program, fundraising campaign and special event taglines, in addition to your organizational tagline. So enter here now.

A strong tagline does double-duty—working to extend your organization’s name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base. It’s one of your most basic, and effective, marketing tools, but a recent GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations don’t have a tagline or rate theirs as performing poorly.  This program is designed to help close that gap.

All entrants will receive a free copy of the fully-updated 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Report in late 2010. It’s the only complete guide to building your organizational, program, fundraising or special event brand in 8 words or less—filled with how-tos, don’t-dos and models.

Please take 3 minutes now to enter your nonprofit’s taglines today while it’s on your mind. The deadline for entering is July 28.

I heard a wonderful presentation recently about storytelling.  It’s entirely possible to tell a very compelling story without using pictures.  Instead, you paint a picture with the words you use.

To see what I mean, check out The Girl Effect.  www.girleffect.org.

Then think about what you see in your mind’s eye as you watched the video.

Cool, huh?

What stories can you tell about the work your nonprofit does that will paint such a vivid picture in your reader’s mind’s eye?

If you want to be a successful Fundraiser, you must pay attention to details.  No way around it.

Spelling a donor’s name incorrectly can instantly tear down any trust that donor had for your organization.  There’s often a perception that if you can’t handle the small things, you can’t handle the big things.

Here are a couple of details you may not have thought about, but need to be handled.

I received an invitation to an open house recently.  I was unfamiliar with the location, so I plugged the address into my GPS to get directions.  No such location.  The name of the street was misspelled on the invitation.  Luckily, I was able to guess at what the correct spelling was and get the directions.  Lots of people use GPS these days.  It’s a good idea to make sure you give a correct address on any materials.

I happened to be away from a computer when I received this invitation.  I had accessed my email with my phone and saw the invite, but couldn’t open it because it was included as an attachment.  My phone doesn’t open attachments.  If I had needed this information immediately, I would have been up the creek.  Lesson learned – include the information in the text of the email for people on the go.

I’m sure there are dozens of other places where we need to pay close attention to the details.  Please share your lessons learned with the rest of us.  Click on the comment link and tell us what you’ve learned.

I’ve received a couple of email solicitations this week from nonprofits who are trying to urge me to make a last-minute gift.  And they’re very good.  Here’s what I like about them:

• They’re short and to the point. 
• They don’t drone on about how much the organization needs my help.
• They tell a story about someone they serve.
• They include a photo.
• There’s a link to the website where I can make my gift.

Kudos to Knox Area Rescue Ministries for the best one I’ve seen this season! (Good job Angie!)

Hmmm. Seems my great blog post yesterday on communicating clearly wasn’t clear. The video didn’t make it through for most of you. So, I’m re-posting it today, because it’s that good! See if you agree

Communication is key in relationships, and expecially in relationships with your donors.

You may think you’re doing a good job of keeping them informed, but are you really?

Watch this quick video and see if you can tell how unclear communication can literally sink a ship.

Communication is key in relationships, and expecially in relationships with your donors.

You may think you’re doing a good job of keeping them informed, but are you really?

Watch this quick video and see if you can tell how unclear communication can literally sink a ship.

Communicating with donors and prospects is critical to fundraising.  Too often, we as fundraisers write without taking our donor’s point of view into consideration.  We simply spew what we think they need to know.  And it’s not necessarily interesting to them.

Remember that your donor doesn’t understand all the acronyms and jargon of your organization.  So translate for them.  Spell things out or better, use simple terms in the first place. Make your statistics and facts meaningful to the average person.  Be sure to tell your stories in a conversational tone that is easy to read.  Write what’s interesting to your donor.

The bottom line is this:  if you want your written word to be effectively communicated, put yourself in the donor’s shoes before you write the first word and try to think about what your donor cares about.  This simple exercise will have a tremendous impact on your written communications and likely be much more compelling for your donors to read.

Here’s a bit of info to help you get the word out about your organization from my fellow blogger Jason Dick from A Small Change.

Getting the message about your nonprofit out is one of the most important things you can do for your organization.  Here are a few things you can do to enhance what your nonprofit is doing.

Getting Started- Approach a local chamber of commerce and ask if you can present to them about your nonprofit.  Get to know the businesses in your community by co-hosting a networking event with the chamber at your building.  If you are a faith-based organization (or even if you’re not) talk to the pastor at a couple of local churches and ask if you can present to their congregation.

Growing the Relationship- Use the relationships you’ve built and keep track of them.  Ask new donors to come for a tour or a special event you are having.  Your volunteers are one of the best groups to advocate for your mission.  Ask your volunteers & board members to invite their friends to connect to your organization.

The Technological Advantage- There are countless ways to spread the message about your good work using the Internet.  Don’t try and do everything just do one or two things well.  Start a Facebook page or use the Causes application.  Go to Razoo.org and start a fundraising page.  Start a blog, this is a great way to regularly communicate and interact with those that want to remain close to your organization.

There are a lot of great causes.  Don’t be afraid to get creative be a little competitive. 

This is a reprint of a post I wrote last year.  The information is timely and still applicable.

How well does your newsletter perform for you?  If it’s not so hot, then maybe you need to make a few changes.  Here are 3 secrets to a successful newsletter.

The first secret to a successful newsletter is to be clear about the result you want.  What is your newsletter’s purpose?  Is it educational?  Is it supposed to be a fundraising tool?  Both?  This will help guide you in selecting content.

The second secret to a successful newsletter is to make it donor-focused.  Write the kinds of things that a donor wants to read, not what you want to include.  Donors want to read stories about clients and how they’ve been helped.  Donors aren’t usually interested in articles about new staff members, new Board members or lengthy “letters from the President.”

The third secret to a successful newsletter is to use good design.  Use lots of white space and keep it skimmable.  Donors read your newsletter like they read the newspaper.  They skim.  They read the headlines and if it looks interesting, they’ll read the article.  They look at photos and read the pull quotes.

If you want your newsletter to raise money, then you need to include an Ask somewhere.  The most common and usually most effective thing to do is to include a reply envelope inside its pages.

Grab a copy of your last newsletter and see how it compares.  Use these 3 secrets on your next issue and see how you can improve your results.