Posts Tagged ‘Communications’

Find out why you shouldn’t like your donor message

The donor relationship equity built over the lifetime of an organization should not be taken lightly free manager videos. Author Jeff Brooks encourages you to apply his proven strategies for raising more money and avoid jarring tactics that jeopardize donor relationships flugzeug simulator kostenlos herunterladen.

One of the passages we liked best in Brooks’ latest book, A Fundraiser’s Guide to Irresistible Communications, was titled “Self-centric fundraising.”

Simply put, if you like your message, your donor won’t psn store vorbestellung herunterladen. Read on to find out why:

Self-centric fundraising

If you like your fundraising message, asserts Brooks, it will not appeal to your donors. Even if your donors say they like it, it will not compel them to give in real life. “Everyone’s conscious opinions about fundraising are automatically wrong. … Everyone hates the stuff that works best.” This happens because when you practice self-centric fundraising, or what appeals to you as the fundraiser, you lose the emotion because your initial emotional connection to the cause has become more sophisticated and educated as you have worked for the nonprofit.

For example, you may want to talk about global hunger as “food insecurity” after working in the field. A donor would not understand this term at all. In addition, you don’t focus on the donors because you are proud of your organization’s work and want to detail its merits.

Donors, however, want to be part of the equation. Finally, “your copy reads like inter-office memos.” Formal, professional, cold communication does not motivate donors to act. In this kind of copy, you focus on facts: “Please consider supporting the 124 children in our hospital,” instead of a compelling, emotional story about a 6-year-old girl talking about her good-luck bear in her fight against cancer.

In order to avoid these self-centric messages, turn off your personal likes and dislikes in favor of what has worked with donors before, either in your organization or others. Ask if it is emotional, clear and simple, rather than if you like it or not.

In our interview with Brooks, we asked more about what donors want to hear:

CausePlanet: What do you think is the best training fundraisers can receive? They need to be fluent, smooth writers but also need simplicity and an intuition about what donors want to hear.

Brooks: The best possible training is an experienced mentor–someone who knows fundraising inside and out and will go over your work in detail and show you what needs to be done. Read quality books about fundraising. There are a lot of them, and the folks at CausePlanet can help you find the right ones. Also, read a few of the blogs.  There are a lot of them, many of them superb sources of information. Find a blog you like, then add a few more from that blog’s blogroll. Finally, get to know other professionals and talk about stuff. Get involved in your local AFP, and/or go to one of the national conventions. Knowing and talking with other professionals really makes a positive difference.

CausePlanet: What in your research makes fundraisers lose money more than anything?

Brooks: Failing to engage with donors. Asking donors to “stand with us” rather than give them specific actions they can take. Writing in the language and about things that organizational insiders care about, rather than what motivates the donors. Using images that make insiders feel good instead of those that reach donors. Using abstractions and wordplay instead of clear, plain, powerful emotional messaging. Bragging about the organization and its programs instead of making it about the donors.

Read more about this book in our Page to Practice summary and other related titles:

The Fundraiser’s Guide to Irresistible Communications: Real-World Field-Tested Strategies for Raising More Money

The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand: Motivating Donors to Give, Give Happily, and Keep on Giving

Seeing Through A Donor’s Eyes

How to Write Fundraising Materials That Raise More Money

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Leverage the “power of three” for effective communications

The nonprofit market has become increasingly tight, making it more important than ever to shine when communicating with donors and prospects. Your mailings or website are very often the first impression an individual or corporation receives of your organization. By applying the “power of three” in your marketing design, you can improve your chances that prospective donors will read your message herunterladen.

The “power of three” is a design theory that, simply stated, says that when people are presented with items in groups of three, they are more attracted to that group than with groups with more or less items in it. For example, three colors in a brochure are more effective than two or four because they are easier and more pleasant for our brains to process.

As marketers who develop a wide variety of advertising and marketing campaigns for all types of industries and clients, we found that when the power of three is applied to a communication message, that message resonates better with an audience herunterladen. With this theory in mind, we designed three messaging components that we incorporate into everything we do: emotional, intellectual and functional.

Functional Component

This component communicates the functional benefits, attributes and features of your program or service. The functional component provides information about what business or service you are in, such as children’s health services, arts education or providing shelters for the homeless, in addition to where you are located or how many offices you have herunterladen. This is the easiest component for many marketers to communicate, but it rarely gets the reader to act. Simply providing this factual information will cause most prospects to just file the information away and do nothing. Unless your organization is the only one in the city, country or world that offers this service and, therefore, is in high-demand, your communications need more information to be effective herunterladen.

Intellectual Component

This component provides the opportunity to differentiate and separate your organization from the competition. This includes elements such as perceived quality and perceived value. The trick here for all marketers is to provide information that is relevant and important for their audience herunterladen. It can help to hire people with a major in marketing, even having just a few of these educated people in your team can improve the team’s overall knowledge. This is only true if you hiring givers and not pure takers. How does your audience perceive quality and value in relation to your program or service herunterladen? Do you have any significant intellectual properties for quality and value comparison that are of importance to your audience? If so, be sure they are included early on in your communications piece. Don’t hide these messages–they are important and can move a reader to consider action.

Emotional Component

This is the most powerful aspect of any communication piece and often the one that gets the least amount of attention from organization leaders who, ultimately, have to approve communications and their budgets herunterladen.
Most organizations tend to associate good marketing with communications that focus on the factual and intellectual aspects of their companies. This makes sense since, after all, they are responsible for running an organization and need to focus on non-emotional business aspects to be successful. But, when it comes to being successful in communications messages, particularly those aimed at prospects, emotional components pack the action punch organizations are looking for arbeitsplan excel downloaden kostenlos.

Emotional components include features such as compelling photography and effective, beautifully written copy (in headlines and body copy). The reason emotional aspects work so hard in communications is that they connect the message on a personal level which, in turn, makes it more interesting and important to listen to.

The communication becomes less about your organization fighting to get the reader’s attention to teach something to the reader wanting to learn more about your organization to become part of it, experience it or obtain what you are providing apps herunterladen und installieren. When your communications can affect someone to do something, you get results—and that is when your marketing funds are well spent.

Using the functional and intellectual components of your message helps to inform and educate your readers, giving them reasons to believe your organization is important for them to know about. But, be sure to pack a punch with an emotional hook to get them to believe in your organization as an important part of their lives that deserves their donations, purchase or other action of support images from the internet.

See also:

Brandraising

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

Content Marketing for Nonprofits

Image credits: infairhaven.com, thethrivingsmallbusiness.com, foodnavigator.asia.com, utexas.edu

 

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Are assumptions driving your content strategy?

A teen employee at one of Goodwill’s Florida outlets was charged recently with theft and jailed for giving discounts to the store’s poorest patrons herunterladen. Andrew Anderson explained Goodwill “is a giving and helping company” so he wanted to extend that philosophy to customers with the greatest need. Four days later, after determining Anderson’s actions were not for personal gain, Goodwill dropped its charges sky go app movies.

Life is full of decisions made without all the facts. On the surface, Goodwill saw an employee taking money from the store google earth auf deutsch herunterladen. After talking with Anderson and learning more, they realized his methods, although unusual, were done with a good motive and ultimately consistent with Goodwill’s mission wie kann man word herunterladen.

While not as dramatic as this Goodwill story, the same can be said of our decisions about communicating with donors and friends fehlermeldung herunterladen momentan nicht möglich. We don’t always consider all the pertinent facts. Too often, nonprofits base their communications efforts on dated assumptions about the market, preferred channels, donor preferences and content relevancy wie kann man apps herunterladen. This can turn away donors and supporters central to your cause.

Kivi Leroux Miller addresses this issue in her new book, Content Marketing for Nonprofits: A Communications Map for Engaging Your Community, Becoming a Favorite Cause, and Raising More Money brawl stars kostenlos downloaden.

Today as nonprofit leaders and communicators, we have four divergent generations to connect and contend with appropriately herunterladen. We’ve experienced dramatic marketing shifts in the way our constituents consume information. Our inboxes, social media networks, screens and mailboxes are exploding with marketing messages so that it’s become necessary to do what we should have done to begin with: share relevant and valuable information so we attract versus target people who care about our causes macos catalina installeren.

Without the benefit of a multichannel communications plan like Leroux Miller’s, your organization becomes one of those causes that pushes out mass-messaging in a variety of unplanned channels and hopes that a few calls to action land in receptive hands filme auf amazon prime herunterladen.

We can no longer afford to repel our audiences with a one-size-fits-all messaging. Leroux Miller defines superior content marketing as:

“Creating and sharing relevant and valuable content that attracts, motivates, engages, and inspires your participants, supporters, and influencers to help you achieve your mission.”

We found Kivi’s last section in her book particularly helpful: “What You Need to Know About the Channels You Choose.” Leroux Miller provides you with an incredible service in this part by analyzing each communication channel: how it’s different from others, how to use it well and how to avoid pitfalls.

Her recommendations are so specific that only reading them can do them justice. However, some overarching themes emerge. Some of the do’s include:

using enticing subject lines/hooks

making your content skimmable

researching the right amount for your audience and the channel

testing/experimenting with each channel

We asked Kivi to introduce her book to you so you can learn more about how it can help your cause:

CausePlanet: Hi, Kivi. Many thanks for the much-anticipated book about content management. What would you most like readers to know about how your book uniquely adds to the body of work on this topic?

Leroux Miller: Nonprofits are trying to change the world–and that’s hard! That’s why I believe content marketing in the nonprofit world is much harder than in the for-profit world but also potentially more powerful, too. It’s all about making strong connections with participants, supporters and influencers and showing how relevant your organization is to their lives so they’ll help you change the world. This book is for and about nonprofits and how they use content; it’s not just slapping business advice on to the nonprofit world.

See also:

The Nonprofit Marketing Guide

Seeing Through A Donor’s Eyes

Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding

 

 

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The message is trust: how to build loyalty with your donors

This post first appeared in Tom Ahern’s newsletter, Ahern Communications Ink free mouse pointer.

Donors have no idea what you do with their money. And frankly? They suspect the worst!!! How loyal is the average donor? Not very, it seems teamspeak 3 32 bit for free. “In many large national programs fueled by direct mail,” Mal Warwick observed in 2005, “no more than 25-35% of newly acquired donors ever give so much as a second gift.” And that was then videos youtube as mp3. These numbers never go up; they always get worse. A 2012 report from the Direct Marketing Association found that response rates to direct mail had dropped “nearly 25%”over the past nine years herunterladen. It’s relatively easy to get a first gift. It’s consistently hard to get a second gift, especially during a worldwide economic downturn that leaves everyone feeling poorer firefox klar für android herunterladen.

There’s more bad news.

“Public confidence in charitable organizations … continues to stagnate and shows no signs of recovering [from a 2001 decline], according to the Brookings Institution,” the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported in September 2004 wordpad spell checkfor free. Only 11% of Americans thought charities did a “very good” job of spending money, said Brookings. The other 89% had their doubts. In fact, more than one-quarter of Americans in 2004 believed charities were inept at managing money, according to the report microsoft teams desktop app herunterladen. And that was before the Great Recession made everyone grumpy. As I said, these numbers never get better.

Be aware: charities are guilty until proven innocent minecraft herunterladenen. Part of the problem is the name, I suppose. We call ourselves “nonprofits.” And what does that label say subliminally to the lay person? That we really don’t care about money kostenlose bildbearbeitung herunterladen.

UK researchers once asked donors to guess, “What percentage of your gift does your favorite charity spend on its fundraising activities, rather than on programs?” Prepare yourself herunterladen. Donors–yes, donors–believed that most of their gift–fully 65%–never went into the field. It was instead plowed back into fundraising and related overhead, leaving only a small share–a mere 35%–for changing the world. And yet they still gave. Imagine how much more they might have given had they only known the truth.

Prime messaging opportunity

Of course you’re protesting: “That’s so unfair! We pour almost everything we’re given directly into programs. We spend as little as possible on fundraising.” You know that. I know that. But your donors don’t know that. You have to remind them of your organization’s dedication to transparency, accountability, and financial health frequently on your website, in your direct mail, in your face-to-face solicitations and in every issue of your newsletter.

Go ahead, check right now. I’ll wait.

Bruce Campbell, a pioneering researcher into donor attitudes and behavior, found that “information regarding how finances are used” was among donors’ top concerns. They wonder: “Did you spend my money on paper clips and business lunches? Or did you really use my gift to change the world?” Don’t leave your donors guessing on this point. They will guess wrong…and not in your favor. One real reason renewal rates, retention rates and long-term loyalty stubbornly remain so abysmally low is because donor skepticism has been left to fester.

What an opportunity….

How you can win

I teach that “the charities with the best ‘thank-you’s’ win.” But it’s the same with trust: the charities that establish amongst their donors a strong sense of trustworthiness will win in the long run.

See also:

Seeing Through A Donor’s Eyes

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Are your donors the solution or on the sidelines?

According to author, consultant and nonprofit leader, Jerold Panas, the case for support “is the mother ship of all other material.” It is the basis for annual giving, planned giving, corporate giving and foundation gifts hof bergmann ls19en. If you are fundraising at all, your organization must have a case for support.

In his book, Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes, Ahern says, “A case consolidates your messages for common reference by staff and board, putting every potential voice, writer and advocate on the same page.”

Who is responsible youtube filmsen op ipad? Sometimes the internal process of creating a source document from which your organization bases all of their fundraising strategies can derail how external-centric or donor-centric your case is gratis downloaden app store. Ahern challenges you to answer the question, “Have you put your donor in the position of responsibility?” Donors want this role.

Is your donor the solution? Ahern dedicates a chapter to donor-centricity and treating your donor as the solution. When telling your story, it’s important to shift responsibility and the credit for achieving your vision. You’re taking that vision off your shoulders and placing it onto the donors’ where it belongs. Do not treat donors as if they are merely kind, generous bystanders, says Ahern. Make it abundantly clear that you cannot achieve your mission without a tremendous amount of donor support.

Invite your donors to a fight. Before you can treat the donor as a solution, you need to demonstrate a problem. Ahern calls this, “inviting your donors to a fight.” He also cites a New York Times article in 2008 by Yale economics professor, Dean Karlan, who discussed why small donors contribute money to political campaigns. He explained that while big donors buy access and influence with their large gifts, a smaller donor has other motivations. For example, a $25 gift to the Barack Obama presidential campaign was about participating in a fight.
Ahern agrees wholeheartedly with Karlan’s argument and adds that donors have a desire to “mix it up, to get into a fight that we think matters, and to win.”

Ask the author for yourself. Join a lively CausePlanet interview with Tom Ahern and find out:

• What three essential questions you must answer in your case
• Why you need to “get stupid,” and
• How to write for “browsers” when creating your appeals

When? Friday, March 16 at 10:30 a.m. CST

How do I register? CausePlanet subscribers can visit the home page and log-in here for the registration link on the Subscribers’ ‘Announcements’ page.

See also:

Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes by Tom Ahern at Emerson & Church Publishers
Page to Practice™ summary
of Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes by Tom Ahern
More Page to Practice book summaries about communications at CausePlanet

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Don’t let your nonprofit suffer from “non-essential-itis”

“What if we disappeared tonight?” is a great question for all nonprofits to ask themselves fotos aus dropbox herunterladen iphone. The answers to this question help organizations who may suffer from “non-essential-it is,” says author Tom Ahern. He adds this is not a make-work exercise; this is a core exercise to discover your organization’s true importance and impact herunterladen.
Tom Ahern’s latest book, “Seeing Through A Donor’s Eyes” will have you answering important questions about your case for support so you don’t find yourself fumbling for words with donors in the ask or having brain cramp when writing appeals herunterladen.

“The mere act of writing a case helps you—forces you, really—to deeply investigate your organization’s impact on the world, so you can successfully explain that impact to donors and prospects,” says Ahern sky view kostenlos downloaden. A case consolidates your messages for common reference by staff and board, putting every potential voice, writer and advocate on the same page, Ahern adds musik youtube herunterladen gratis.

The best way to engage your reader in your case for support is to tell a good story. Here are a few of Ahern’s good storytelling tips:

Take your prospect on a verbal tour free farming simulator games to download. Tell your prospects how your organization sounds, smells and feels. “Hear the sounds of rushing rubber-soled shoes? Nurses here probably jog ten miles every shift…”
Make sure you’re using a donor-centric lens swisscom assistant. Which sounds better? “Baby Joseph, one of over 15,000 rescued babies,” or, “Baby Joseph, one of over 15,000 babies rescued by your gifts”?
Make your case bigger than you musik herunterladen ohne app. If you can, make your project or campaign more expansive and worthy than the organization itself.
Put the cherry on top skype downloaden voor pc. Ahern says our job as writers is to entertain first and inform second.
Put your case in a nutshell elterngeldantrag downloaden. Show the campaign’s bottom line at a glance. Consider three main points and financial goals that support the overall campaign goal and portray them with a powerful visual.
Don’t forget the call to action! You actually need to ask your donors for support in the case. Be specific about what you need.

For a more comprehensive look at creating a compelling case for your organization, subscribe to download this Page to Practice summary and others in our summary library or visit www.EmersonandChurch.com for Ahern’s essential communications advice so you can enhance your fundraising results.  You can also learn more about Ahern’s award-winning consulting services and subscribe to his newsletter at www.aherncomm.com.

See also:

More Page to Practice summaries that relate to communications

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Prepare to be browsed

I laughed out loud when I read this passage: “Here’s the unvarnished truth: people do not want to read your stuff download the sims for free for handy. Sure, they want to understand your stuff and absorb your stuff. But spend long stretches of time reading it? Not particularly. In our bustling world, if I understand your vision in 15 rather than 30 minutes, that’s a good thing treiber aus windows update herunterladen. If I understand your vision in five minutes rather than 15, that’s even better. And if you could slip me a pill and I’d understand your vision instantly, that would be the best.”

Finally, someone had the courage to say it gta 5 kostenlos downloaden. Tom Ahern, the author of Seeing Through A Donor’s Eyes, is responsible for this passage and is currently featured at CausePlanet alle videos herunterladen. This book is a must read for anyone who raises money, works with someone who raises money or manages someone who raises money. Ahern is a three-time winner of the prestigious International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill awards, given each year to the best communications work worldwide wind music notes for free. Beloved international trainer and highly successful consultant, his firm specializes in capital campaign statements, nonprofit communications audits, direct mail and donor newsletters windows 7 service pack 1 32 bit free.

So how do you get your direct mail, newsletters and proposals read? Having a good “browser level” delivers the pill form of your case, says Ahern german league of legends for free. “A well-written browsing level explains your message as quickly as humanly possible with deep penetrating power,” he adds. Studies show the human eye gravitates toward graphically distinctive elements before anything else—bigger type, bolder type and pictures instagram private videos herunterladen. In other words, focus on headlines, subheads, captions, pull quotes, bullet lists, sidebars, photos, charts and other art. Your section headlines should become your story’s structure herunterladen.

If you engage in any form of fundraising for your organization, you must read this book. According to the author, if you can persuasively answer and close on this essential question, “Why should I give you my money now,” you probably don’t need this book free videos for whatsapp. But if you’re like most of us and you find yourself fumbling for answers, this book will definitely help you. If you haven’t written a general case for support recently, the author argues you really don’t know why you’re raising money. Writing a case forces you to think about your organization’s promise, your organization’s proof and how the donor fits into your world.

Mark your calendar for Friday, March 16 at 10:30 a.m. CST when we’ll interview Tom Ahern about other brave and true claims about nonprofit communications. Watch for registration details in our regular Content Highlights newsletter. Not registered for our newsletter? Visit the left panel of any page on our site and click on the blue button, “Put us in your inbox.”

See also:

Seeing Through A Donor’s Eyes
How to Write Fundraising Materials That Raise More Money
www.aherncomm.com
to visit Tom Ahern’s site
www.emersonandchurch.com to purchase the book

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Three branding experts agree

What do you get when you mix the expertise of Brandraising author, Sarah Durham, and Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding co-authors, Jocelyne Daw and Carol Cone imap mail herunterladen? You have a wonderful blend of advice that’s caffeinated with a triple shot of branding smarts.

When two books we’ve featured at CausePlanet converge on the same topic, I can’t help but highlight where thought leaders intersect powerpoint voor mac downloaden. It’s like having two consultants in the room agree on how to give your communications a jumpstart (or espresso shot). What a luxury! Here are only a few of the many author intersections I discovered:

Developing a strong brand requires everyone playing caretaker

BRANDRAISING: “Brandraising, like barn raising, involves everyone in your nonprofit’s community—board members and staff leaders, volunteers, program staff, and perhaps donors and funders spotify einzelnes lied herunterladen. Everyone plays a role in the development of effective communications,” says Durham.

BREAKTHROUGH BRANDING: Breakthrough nonprofit brands (BNBs) represent a shift from organizational silos to integration: Traditional organizations ask their marketing teams or individuals to perpetuate the brand finanzmanager 2020 herunterladen. Because a BNB views itself as synonymous with the organization itself, care for the brand belongs to everyone.

Exceptional brands convey your mission, vision, and values as well as your identity or personality

BRANDRAISING: Durham explains that her model starts with the organizational level and makes up the top seven elements of the brandraising pyramid, because they direct all aspects of the organization’s work kniffel zumen. These elements are the vision, mission, values, objectives, audiences, positioning and personality. Your organization’s personality is a reflection of both what your organization is and how you want your organization to be perceived how can I download music.

BREAKTHROUGH BRANDING: Discover the authentic meaning of your brand. Vision, mission and values should rarely change, but operating principles and practices must constantly evolve, says Daw youtube apple. A brand is the bridge between a nonprofit’s unwavering mission and its evolving strategies. It’s the embodiment of the focused, compelling idea at the heart of the organization’s identity books for kindle. Articulating what a brand stands for enables it to connect with constituents’ core values.

View branding as a strategic investment that impacts all aspects of the organization

BRANDRAISING: Just like businesses analyze the return on their investment in marketing, nonprofits can begin to measure how the mission is advanced by brandraising wie kann ich wow classic herunterladen. Durham further emphasizes the importance of strategically branding with the long view and how this position can empower nonprofit leaders to act with planning and agility versus react with costly short view decisions xbox 360 profil neu herunterladen.

BREAKTHROUGH BRANDING: BNBs represent a shift from viewing branding as a cost to a strategic investment: BNBs of all sizes know that branding is one of the most cost-effective, sustainable ways to strengthen and sustain any organization. Smart branding is about strategy, not costly ad campaigns.

If you want to read about more convergences from the Page to Practice™ book summary of Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications, by Sarah Durham, and Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding: Seven Principles to Power Extraordinary Results by Jocelyne Daw and Carol Cone, subscribe to the summary library, visit the summary store or visit www.josseybass.com to order these terrific books.

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Your prospect has four sets of ears: Are you speaking to them?

This month we are featuring Tom Ahern’s recent book, How to Write Fundraising Materials that Raise More Money (Emerson & Church, 2011) keso schliessplan herunterladen.

Despite our lack of Tom Ahern’s vast communications credentials, we find ourselves fully entrenched in writing tasks. No matter how you communicate, whether you are a social media fan or a champion of direct mail, your understanding of effective donor communications will be essential to nonprofit success playstation 4 spieleen.

While it’s widely accepted that no two readers are alike, we continue writing to them as if they are. Your donors are not target markets or segments; they are people with different motivations for giving to your nonprofit lebenslauf download kostenlos open office. No matter how well-intentioned your messages are, the reality is that you are still an intrusion. So we must raise the bar in writing donor-centric messages to inspire action.

Donors have special interests, and here’s a short list of what they care deeply about, according to Ahern: your accomplishments (What did you do with my money?), your vision (If I choose to give you more money, what amazing things could you do with it?), recognition (Are donors like me vital to your work?), and your efficiency (Can I trust you with my money?). Of these four interests, the most important will be your accomplishments. In other words, your donors want to back a winner. One caveat: leave room for improvement and link the accomplishments with need.

Donor-OPTIONAL language is: “We did this. We did that. We were amazing. Oh, by the way, thanks.” Donor-CENTRIC language is: “With your help, all these amazing things happened. And without your help, they wouldn’t have.” Further donor-centric language means you are appealing to all four sets of the prospect’s ears.

  1. One set is the AMIABLE side that responds to people and seeks community, sharing emotions and responding to one another. Ahern encourages you to “glow with humanity and heart and attract the amiable side of your audience.”
  2. Another set is the EXPRESSIVE side that responds to anything new and says, “Tell me something I don’t know!” They burn for the new. They crave the new. They are addicted to the new, the urgent, the different, the unique and the only. “Radiate news value and urgency,” says the author.
  3. The third set is the SKEPTICAL side and is wary from the start or cautious by nature. The courts say, “innocent until proven guilty,” but the skeptical ear says the opposite. Ahern tells us to “anticipate and answer the predictable objections … and allay the doubts that eat at the skeptical side of your audience.”
  4. Your final set of ears only wants to know what to do next. These BOTTOM-LINERS want us to make it obvious, make it convenient, and go, go, go. “Never forget to tell people exactly what you wish they’d do next … so the bottom-liner side of your audience can easily respond to your appeals,” says Tom.

A portion of this blog post was excerpted from a Page to Practice book summary at CausePlanet.org. For more information about Tom Ahern’s book and more expert advice, visit www.aherncomm.com.

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Brandraising keeps an eye on the future

For all of our readers interested in smart communications, our featured book for May does a great job of keeping an eye on the future discord pc. Sarah Durham, author of Brandraising, includes some important statistics nonprofits should consider when leveraging their budgets for maximum results antivirenprogramm herunterladen.

When it comes to resources for marketing, some nonprofits find themselves whispering in a world that’s been screaming marketing messages for decades, and it’s only getting louder and arguably more challenging as channels expand into the Internet herunterladen.

And with smaller budgets, nonprofits cannot afford expensive mistakes; they must make their conservative budgets generate messages that are consistent and well researched. The important development efforts of a nonprofit organization are largely dependent on the success of the communications plan. That’s why it’s more important than ever for nonprofits to put some muscle into the planning process and make each message count.

Consider these factors Durham points out to readers:

A 2008 study found that 23 percent of all mobile users in the United States (58 million users) had been exposed to an advertising message in the past 30 days.

The average American home has the television on for seven hours a day—actual viewing is estimated at four and a half hours.

When radio, print and other traditional media are factored in with TV, the average American is estimated to spend 6.43 hours per day paying attention to media.

A 2006 survey found that 71 percent of all Americans are Internet users. (Even older adults—26 percent of 70 to 75 year olds are online.)

By January 2009, Facebook had over 68 million unique visitors visiting more than 1 billion times each month.

For more information about Brandraising, visit Sarah Durham’s site at www.bigducknyc.com or learn more about Page to Practice book summaries and summary store.

Image of Sarah Durham: nptalk.com

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