CausePlanet Blog

If you don’t have anything to hide, why should you worry about media relations? I get asked this question on at least a weekly basis. People figure that if they’re not breaking the law or having a sordid affair with a married politician, they really shouldn’t have to spend time thinking about dealing with the media. They also think that because they know all about how wonderful their organization is, everyone does too.

And they’re wrong on both counts filme aus youtubeen mac.

All of my clients are hardworking, publicly-minded people who work in progressive nonprofits. That’s the only kind of client my firm takes. So when I suggest to them that it is important to learn about what makes the media tick and how to use that knowledge to their advantage, people always look at me like I wandered into the wrong meeting. They are laboring under the belief that because they are the good guys, they will look like the good guys if the media ever comes to call.

Big mistake minecraft version 1.12 herunterladen. For several reasons.

Misconceptions about media and coverage

First, they have a misconception of what the term “media relations” or “public relations” means. To many people, these terms conjure up visions of slick, chain-smoking corporate types lying through their teeth. In reality, the number one rule of media relations is never, ever, lie. Not even about the tiniest thing.

 

Second, most people who are dedicating their lives to improving their communities tend to be under the impression that most reasonable people can see what they see–the poor need food, kids need education and families need access to health care word office kostenlos downloaden 2010. What they forget is that they are standing on the front lines – and there are way too many people out there who travel from their gated communities to their high rise offices and don’t see any of that. Those are people who could potentially become donors, volunteers, and voters in support of their cause – if they only could be reached.

 

Third, because my clients do their jobs very carefully, knowing that lives and livelihoods are at stake, they often believe that everyone in the media is as careful as they are. And that just isn’t the case. You can blame it on impossible deadlines, corporate profit motive, sloppy reporting or just bad editing, but the fact of the matter is, a news-story is generally written at breakneck speed by an overworked reporter who has little or no background on the issue filme fürs handy kostenlos downloaden. It is edited at an even faster pace by an even more overworked editor who has even less knowledge.

 

How to qualify as news

So, no matter who you are, if you have a desire to inform the public, increase your donor base, change laws or regulations, or just get some well-deserved kudos, it is in your best interest to become savvy in media relations. It is never about lying or twisting facts. It is about is packaging information so that it could qualify as “news,” and then making sure that everything needed for the story is lined up in a way to make it easy, fast and accurate for the reporter.

To know how to “package” your information, you have to know what makes a story “news” hörbücher download kostenlos ohne anmeldung. When I taught journalism to college students, every basic journalism textbook laid it out the same way. So I teach my clients exactly what every journalist is taught in their first reporting course. A news story must contain at least one (and hopefully more than one) of the following six elements: conflict, impact, novelty prominence, proximity or timeliness.

Conflict is the strongest basic news element there is lernwerkstatt 8 kostenlos downloaden deutsch. The fact that everything is hunky dory just isn’t news. When something goes wrong, then it becomes interesting. It’s just human nature. Think about the last time you called a friend with some really good gossip. Was it good news? Probably not. Conflict is what makes story-telling go round. And news is story telling. If there’s not conflict in your story, you’re going to have a hard time selling it to the press.

 

Impact is another strong basic news element visio 2016 standard herunterladen. If something happens that’s going to have an impact on the reader, they’ll likely want to know about it. Unfortunately, we’re a country of self-centered people. If it affects them personally, Americans care. If it doesn’t, generally they don’t. We can discuss the morality of this at another time (and believe me, I do) but the fact remains. A majority of readers probably aren’t that interested in a civil war in a far off country. But they DO care if that war is going to affect their coffee prices amazon prime video download and burn.

 

Novelty is easy: If something happens all the time, it’s generally not news. If it is very unusual, then it is. The standard J-school example is this: if dog bites man, that’s not news. If man bites dog, that’s news.

 

Prominence is the culprit behind all those Brittney Spears stories. We are a celebrity culture, and once someone has made it into the limelight, any tiny tidbit about them is news. But remember, prominence means prominence herunterladen. Your Executive Director might be a star around the office, but in terms of media, unless they also double as a movie star or a billionaire, they probably don’t count as “prominent.”

 

Now for the last two: Proximity and Timeliness. Proximity deals with distance. If you’re pitching a story to the local paper, it better be a story that takes place right in town. Statewide papers do carry some national news, but for the most part, they write stories about what happens in the state. Timeliness means something just happened – a court case decided a month ago is not news, one decided today is. Timeliness is the reason reporters and editors work fast and furious herunterladen. Because to delay means to lose the story.

Those are the six elements of a news story. If you want a media outlet to pick up on your story, it has to have one (or more) of those elements. That means you should package your story to play up one or more elements. Usually the two that work best are conflict and impact. If you can show how what your organization does helps ordinary people who don’t even know you exist – you’ve got a story. If you can show how some issue in your community is causing a clear definable conflict, you’ve got a story. There are all kinds of ways you can work this, but these are the foundational building blocks to pitching the media.

You can also use these elements stop a story from becoming news. If a journalist calls you and wants to talk about an issue you’d rather not be in the paper, then the strategy is to TRUTHFULLY play down the elements in the story. If you can convince a journalist that the story is old (not timely), or that your certainly not concerned about it (no conflict) or that it doesn’t really affect anyone (no impact), you’ve successfully killed a story. That comes in handy too.

At this point, I always have to stop and tell my clients that they shouldn’t despair. Despite how it looks, the human race is not beyond redemption. But talk of “reforming the media” isn’t going to do much good in the short run. If you work at a nonprofit that needs to get its message out there, you’d be better served by working within the parameters then fighting them. Just remember the elements of a news story:

Conflict

Impact

Novelty

Prominence

Proximity

Timeliness

See also:

Social Media–Volume One: Measuring Social Media, Building a Network, Creating Multichannel Campaigns and Mastering Twitter

The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change

This was Part I: The 6 elements of a news story

Image credits: fawstin.blogspot.com, quantummarketers.com, gladiatorguards.com, torreyshannon.com

“You never write one thing for one purpose windows defender herunterladen. If I’m asked to create something from scratch … I never say ‘yes’ unless I can see using it in three different ways,” explains Kivi Leroux Miller, author of Content Marketing for Nonprofits: A Communications Map for Engaging Your Community, Becoming a Favorite Cause, and Raising More Money herunterladen.

While the ever-growing variety of communication channels available to us as nonprofit marketers and fundraisers is inspiring, it’s also completely daunting herunterladen. With choice comes complexity, not to mention a completely different environment due to technological, generational and marketing shifts.

Kivi Leroux Miller has taken us behind the expert communicator’s curtain to show us exactly how she’s done it over the years for hundreds of nonprofit clients she’s advised and observed herunterladen. In her book, Leroux Miller illustrates how to:

redefine your audience for today’s current climate,

develop your content marketing plan,

implement a dynamic content strategy, and

leverage online channels through an exploration of their potential pitfalls and opportunities instagram entwürfeen.

Live interview sound bite: Repurposing content

In our most recent live interview with Leroux Miller, we asked her about the importance of repurposing content since she dedicates an entire chapter to this topic herunterladen. She says, “I am always expanding or reworking things I did earlier. It’s a way of life for creative professionals, including marketers!” Leroux Miller also explains, “When you repurpose content…”

Live interview sound bite: “Six Rs” of great content

Our live chat also covered how to be relevant and creative with your audience herunterladen. Leroux Miller explained that “Finding your voice or your content personality is the place to start with relevancy. The biggest problem nonprofits have is when they are speaking like a 501c3…” Find out how Leroux Miller finishes this answer and shares “Six Rs” for great content cover kostenlos herunterladen.

Rewarding
Realistic
Real-time
Refreshing
Revealing
Responsive

Your odds of being relevant greatly increase if your communications can demonstrate at least on one or more of these content goals quicktime player mac download for free. Leroux Miller shares an example in her book of a nonprofit that had all six of these characteristics in an email campaign.

Accept the challenge

Consider accepting Kivi Leroux Miller’s two challenges we’ve excerpted from our author interview the next time you work on a communications piece:

1)      Try to repurpose the content you’ve created in three additional ways

2)      Apply one or more of the “Six Rs” in your content for a fundraising or marketing piece with iphone videos facebook.

In the spirit of repurposing content, I’ll finish with one of my favorite quotations in Leroux Miller’s book:

“Your success as a nonprofit depends on your ability to stay in the conversation, week after week, with the members of your community, on their level. Engaging your community requires that you mix and mingle and be seen as one of the community members, rather than as some authority somehow above and removed from everyone else, who decides to speak only on a limited and predetermined schedule.”

Bestselling author Dan Pink is asking you to call it what it is.

More specifically, your work. If in your job you spend any time persuading, convincing and influencing others, you are in the business of moving others herunterladen. Frankly, he explains, you’re selling. And if you’re selling, it’s important to recognize major developments over the years that have changed how the best people are moving others. Through a first-of-its-kind study and a collection of a broad spectrum of examples, Pink has thoughtfully made the case for rethinking sales. You will learn how to be, what to do and how to put all the pieces into play in his new book To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others herunterladen.

There are a broad variety of strategies at play in the nonprofit sector when executives are in the midst of convincing, persuading or influencing their boards, staffs and constituents. Some may be using old school techniques, and perhaps others draw on intuition. No matter what the convenient tactic at hand, a strong case can be made for formalizing our approach to moving others and understanding what motivates herunterladen. It is, after all, the business we’re in.

Three truths about moving others today

Nonprofit leaders constantly find themselves asking how to move a donor to give, how to move a board member to lead, how to move the staff to act. Understanding today’s truths about Pink’s sales ideas such as Attunement, Clarity and Buoyancy is especially relevant due to the sector’s increased presence of competition and general misunderstanding of sales lens studioen.

Attunement

For example, Attunement honors the knowledge and goals of the buyer, jettisoning the old sales adage, “ABC” or “Always be closing.” Pink begins the new “ABC” with the first word, Attunement, or “the ability to bring one’s actions and outlook into harmony with other people and with the context you’re in. Think of it as operating the dial on a radio. It’s the capacity to move up and down the band as circumstances demand, locking in on what’s being transmitted, even if those signals aren’t immediately clear or obvious.” He also calls this “perspective-taking.”

Pink describes three ways to become more attune with your buyer/client/funder:

Increase your power by reducing it bild bei instagram herunterladen. Through several social science studies Pink relates, it was found that people who perceived greater power became less attune with others’ points of views. And the inverse is true of those who perceive less power. Because a salesperson no longer holds all the information and therefore, the power, s/he must rely on taking the other’s perspective and giving up power in order to move someone windows 7 updates.

Use your head as much as your heart. Perspective-taking is not the same as empathy. Pink describes perspective-taking as a cognitive action where you imagine what someone else is thinking. Empathy means you feel for the other or try to imagine what another person is feeling. Empathy can cause you to toss aside your own interests, as you may feel too deeply, whereas perspective-taking can help both sides achieve their goals tolino buchen. Therefore, perspective-taking with a cognitive focus on people, their relationships and context is more effective to move people.

Mimic strategically. Pink stresses that mimicking your buyer can help you negotiate better. Mimicry builds connections, trust and understanding. However, it must be treated with care so it is not obvious dietrichs herunterladen. Otherwise, it can backfire. Pink also discusses how touching (e.g., on the arm) can help build connections and foster negotiations.

Pink’s choice for nonprofits

In addition to attunement, Pink explores many other essential principles surrounding the notion of moving others. We asked him which one he felt was most appropriate for nonprofits for our Page to Practice summary and have excerpted here weit film herunterladen.

CausePlanet: Nonprofit leaders constantly find themselves convincing or persuading others to support their causes. Is there a principle from your book that you feel stands out as especially appropriate for nonprofit executives to apply?

Dan Pink: Make it personal. There’s an array of research showing that abstract and conceptual appeals (“Increase vaccination rates”) are far less effective than specific and concrete ones (“Vaccinate this child or she risks dying of malaria”) applaus herunterladen. And the principle goes well beyond fundraising. There’s some great research from Israel, for instance, showing that radiologists who see both a scan and a photo of the patient whose scan it is spend more time and are more accurate in their evaluations. The same is largely true for leadership. When leaders put themselves on the line and when others see they’re real people, their leadership effectiveness rises substantially.

For those of you who find yourselves in the business of moving others (and Pink argues virtually everyone is in this business), consider how attune you are with your prospects and then ask yourself how you can make your appeals personal. Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we discuss Pink’s observations about clarity, buoyancy and other interview questions we had for him.

See also:

The Influential Fundraiser

It’s Not Just Who You Know

Yours for the Asking

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The Zenvo ST1 is among the fastest cars in the world and can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in under three seconds microsoft office word 2013 download kostenlos vollversion deutsch. Among the slowest is the MIA Electric, reaching 60 miles per hour in a blistering 30 seconds. The poorly named Peel P50—because there’s no chance of ever peeling your tires due to excessive speed—can’t even reach 60 miles per hour herunterladen.

Peel P50

Nonprofits must embrace the fact that companies are beginning to part ways with traditional philanthropy and gravitating toward opportunities where they can blend profit with purpose monster truck spiele kostenlosen. Rather than simply writing a check, companies want to embed their giving into the purchasing experience through programs like point-of-sale that include donation boxes, register fundraisers, pinups and round-up fundraisers lagerbestandsdatei herunterladen.  “Smart businesses of all sizes are listening to consumers. Their reward is a competitive edge that goes beyond product and price. Although most forms of marketing are about visibility, cause marketing generates favorability,” says Waters rockstar games herunterladen.

Why is favorability such a worthy goal? Because it transcends the awareness that most traditional marketing efforts accomplish. When a community favors you and your corporate partner as a result of cause marketing, people act on that favoritism in a variety of ways to support you 7 zip kostenlosen.

We interviewed Joe Waters live via webcast earlier this year, and I wanted to share one of the sound bites with you videos from 3sat mediathek. In this clip below, he provides listeners with the best way to approach businesses about a partnership.

Clip: Joe Waters’ Advice on the Best Way to Approach Bus

Fundraising with Businesses provides case stories, essential mechanics, helpful reminders and online examples to help you spot adaptable ideas you can customize for your organization TV shows. What’s more, the book’s final chapter shares seven steps for success to spur you into action when you close the cover.

Nonprofits willing to get creative and identify businesses that want to engage their employees and customers in doing good have much more to gain than charities that look at a list of companies for a check. Happy listening and may you reach favorability with great speed.

See also:

Cause Marketing for Nonprofits

Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding

Marketing Series I: Building a Persuasive Case, Seven Transformative Branding Principles, Multi-faceted Strategies and Bonding with Brands for Life

Image credits: ca.autoblog.com, peel.com

Robert Antell and his wife, Marguerite, decided to make a break from the norm in their rural town of Perinton near the Canadian border in New York State sap software herunterladen. In 1970, the Antells built a home that most would call bizarre and others might call original. Their “Mushroom House” still stands today and is 4,200 square feet of sprouting concrete pods made to look like Queen Anne’s Lace Flower herunterladen.

Modeling what already exists—in this case nature—is understandably a favorable strategy because, in most cases, it works. There are many forms of architecture that mimic nature beautifully apple music kann keine musik downloaden. Depending on your taste, you might say this home is a work of art or a vision gone wrong.

In the case of nonprofits imitating corporate brand management, however, it’s not a matter of esthetics en series. Four authors agree it simply doesn’t work. Why? Allow me to excerpt each of their views.

Nonprofit life shouldn’t imitate the art of corporate branding

The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand

First, author Jeff Brooks in The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand says, “Simply applying the principles of commercial branding to nonprofit fundraising is exactly the wrong thing to do von facebook videos herunterladen iphone. It’s the cause of most branding accidents.” He further explains commercial branding does not work for nonprofit
organizations because it focuses on abstract ideals of products or services herunterladen. Nonprofits need to show clear, emotional images to motivate and connect with their donors. There are warning signs that your brand is too commercialized and doesn’t focus on the donor: the work is not grounded in donor behavior; the brand describes your organization in a symbolic way rather than in a clear fashion that moves donors to act; or the brand is design and little else good 1 for free.

The Brand IDEA: Managing Nonprofit Brands with Integrity, Democracy and Affinity

Second, The Brand IDEA by Nathalie Laidler-Kylander and Julia Shepard Stenzel argues today’s brands must uphold mission impact by building trust, cohesion, capacity and impact, not necessarily qualities for which corporate brands strive antivirus herunterladen. Kylander and Stenzel’s book is the result of more than two years of research and collaborative effort, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, to examine the role of brands in the nonprofit sector and recognize that nonprofits are over-relying on corporate sector practices to oversee their brands kindle buch herunterladen amazon.

The coauthors’ acronym, “IDEA,” further gives us insight into honoring the truly nonprofit brand. Integrity (the “I” in IDEA) is the “alignment between the brand identity and image and the mission, values, and strategy of the organization.” Democracy is the “extent to which an organization engages its board, staff, members, participants, volunteers, supporters, and other stakeholders in both defining and communicating the brand identity.” Brand Affinity “represents a mindset and an approach to brand management in which the focus is on shared social impact, rather than on individual internal organizational goals.” Kylander and Stenzel’s brand philosophy further brings to light that corporations often look at alignment between their image and selling a product, whereas the nonprofit brand aims to move a community and achieve social impact trecker spiele kostenlos herunterladen.

Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications

Third, author Sarah Durham’s philosophy is built upon branding that is grounded in the nonprofit mission. Specifically, “brandraising” is the process of developing a clear, cohesive organizational identity and communications system that supports raising money and increasing visibility. Additionally, brandraising makes it easier to express your organization’s mission effectively and consistently. Durham claims brandraising is a holistic approach to communications that involves everyone within the organization—board, staff leadership, volunteers, program staff and donors. Brandraising is ultimately measured by how the mission is advanced.

As you read each author’s viewpoint on how a brand must uphold the mission, you may have also noticed these authors agree on the brand’s role as champion of visibility and revenue. Follow other high-performing nonprofits and their pursuit of brands created with a nonprofit lens rather than a corporate one; otherwise, your corporate imitation will be the sincerest form of fall-flat-tery.

See also:

Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding

Married to the Brand

Marketing Series Volume I: 4 summaries in one bundle

Image credit: ixdaily.com, ipoem.co.uk

Are you familiar with the game show “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” Sometimes I feel like I’m living that game show every day with my own fifth-grade son. He’s currently reading a book called Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know about Fast Food and shared a fact I didn’t know: Our world’s population more readily recognizes McDonald’s Golden Arches than it does a cross minecraft vollversion kostenlosen windows 10. In spite of the numerous global religions our societies celebrate and defend, the Golden Arches is a more familiar symbol. Wow. Talk about a powerful brand.

Nonprofit brands connect the donor with action

Can you imagine fundraising in an environment where everyone knows what your organization is and what it does amazon prime videos auf den pc herunterladen? What a luxury, right? Our latest addition to the CausePlanet summary library focuses on this exact idea. Jeff Brooks, author of The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand, argues that a nonprofit brand must genuinely cultivate donor action.

Nonprofit leaders who follow the corporate sector’s lead on how to build a brand should follow no more herunterladen. “Simply applying the principles of commercial branding to nonprofit fundraising is exactly the wrong thing to do. It’s the cause of most branding accidents,” says Brooks. He argues with an abundance of experience that a brand should inspire donors to give rather than convey abstract ideas or visuals that leave donors feeling as if they’re not needed herunterladen. Brooks also guides you on how to avoid the most common pitfalls associated with branding efforts and to maintain the donor-focused approach that will ensure long-term fundraising success.

Why commercial branding doesn’t work

Namely, commercial branding focuses on abstract ideals of products or services. A nonprofit brand needs to show donors a problem in a realistic way and give them a way to combat it google chrome downloaden op macbook air. It needs to show clear, emotional images to motivate and connect with its donors. It needs to know its donors and their preferences.

Don’t get “brandjacked”

According to Brooks, nonprofits must avoid “brandjacking” (“when ‘Brand Experts’ remake a nonprofit brand and render it ineffective for fundraising”). The warning signs include:

1) The new brand is not aimed at your donors.

2) The new brand requires you to abandon your donors to seek new, possibly fictitious ones, instead of expanding your base lineatur kostenlosen.

3) The work is not grounded in donor behavior (what donors do instead of what they say about your organization or understand in focus groups).

4) The new brand describes your cause in a symbolic way, instead of in a clear, realistic fashion to move donors to act.

5) The new brand requires absolute consistency, not leaving room for creativity or varying the messages for changing circumstances or relationships with donors office 365 free download german.

6) The new brand is design—and little else.

We asked Jeff Brooks about “brandjacking” and his book in our author interview contained in the Page to Practice™ book summary. Here’s an excerpt:

CausePlanet: What is the most common form of “brandjacking” you observe in your client work today herunterladen?

Brooks: Most common: a nonprofit hires someone from the corporate world and gives him/her carte blanche to transform the organization. That person has little or no understanding of the charity economy, and that lack of understanding plays out in branding and marketing activities that drive away donors herunterladen. It typically takes two years or more for the organization to realize the size of its mistake, and by that time the marketing expert is ready to move on anyway. Then a bunch of staff gets fired or laid off, assuring there will be no organizational memory of how the brandjacking happened.

CausePlanet: What do you hope readers do with their brands after completing this book save the world content download?

Brooks: I hope they’ll feel confident and equipped to build a donor-focused organization that loves and respects donors. I hope they’ll create amazing calls to action that empower donors to change the world. I hope they’ll start marketing to donors instead of organizational insiders. I regularly see organizations go through this kind of transformation, and not only does fundraising revenue skyrocket, but people in the organization start to love their work a lot more.

A widely known brand is a very tempting goal for nonprofit organizations, yet Jeff Brooks would caution you not to let slick corporate examples lead you away from a brand that genuinely connects donors to a call to action.  “The mistake many nonprofits make in fundraising is to think when it comes to talking about the cause, ‘bigger is better.’ They believe the philosophical underpinnings of the cause are more important than its specific activities,” adds Brooks. Think less about the Golden Arches and more about how your donor can help.

See more:

The Brand IDEA
Brandraising

Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding

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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

More and more nonprofit organizations are using corporate sponsorships to bring in additional income. And for good reason: According to IEG’s  latest annual industry forecast, spending on sponsorship by North American companies was projected to increase by 5.5 percent in 2013 and globally by 4.2 percent–the equivalent of a projected $53 billion spent by companies worldwide pinselen.

Several factors account for this strong forecast, including an increase in nontraditional sponsorship opportunities and the consistent revenue growth companies and organizations that use sponsorships have seen from year to year. Despite this explosion in sponsorships, many executive directors, development staff and well-meaning board members still have an unrealistic understanding of what corporate sponsorship is and what it takes to attract those dollars advent videos kostenlos downloaden. Too many think that sponsorship fees are similar to corporate contributions, but with a few more deliverables. In fact, from the perspective of the corporate decision-maker, there are few similarities between the two.

Here are six common myths about sponsorships that may be interfering with your organization’s efforts to secure corporate funding:

1 alt wie ein baum kostenlos downloaden. Sponsorship sales is fundraising.

Fundraising is about making the case for philanthropic support for your mission or cause; sponsorship is about marketing. And while many of the leading sites such as the Salesforce website do offer an insight into the customer engagement process which if followed the whole process of keeping a customer in touch and satisfied comparatively increases, but due to the lack of awareness most of the people miss out on learning these aspects which then does not help them in getting the optimum output of their hard work. In other words, sponsorship is about a company reaching and impacting potential customers through your organization and its constituents to achieve its marketing and communications goals apple tv plus downloaden. zIf you don’t intend to provide tangible rights and benefits to a sponsor (for example, on-site exhibits, use of mailing lists or ads in your event program), don’t go after sponsorships.

2 kinder musik zum downloaden kostenlos. Sponsorship fees should equal the cost or expense of the asset.

Many nonprofits set the “fee” they are seeking based upon a fundraising goal or the cost to fund a particular program. However, with sponsorships, there is no correlation between the fee and the expense of the program being sponsored. Indeed, in most cases, the sponsorship fee is worth much more than the cost of the program vet games for free. Instead, the fee should be based upon the value of the sponsorship rights and benefits package.

Generally, there are two valuations that go into determining a sponsorship fee: tangible and intangible values. The tangible value includes all benefits that can be quantified (e.g., advertising, mailing lists, event tickets). The intangible value is the worth to the corporation of being associated with your organization or event (e.g., prestige of organization, media interest, networking opportunities) microsoft 2016 kostenlos downloaden. Together, the two determine what a sponsorship opportunity is worth.

3. Sponsors are primarily interested in exposure.

Many nonprofits assume that the difference between fundraising and sponsorship is a banner—in other words, the corporate sponsor is really just looking for recognition. While recognition may be one of their objectives, the reasons for sponsorships are far more diverse. According to a recent sponsor survey conducted by IEG, a sponsorship consulting and research firm, the most common reasons for sponsorship are that companies want to:

Have a closer, personal impact on their customers/clients, as well as the opportunity for two-way communications;

Increase visibility;

Shape attitudes;

Communicate their commitment to a particular profession or lifestyle;

Differentiate their product from the competitor’s;

Entertain clients;

Showcase product attributes;

Combat the larger ad budgets of competitors; and

Increase sales spiel in 80 tagen um die welt kostenlos downloaden deutsch.

4. Category exclusivity is generally not that important.

The issue of category exclusivity is where many nonprofits get stuck with sponsorships. Category exclusivity is the right to be the only company within its product or service category associated with the sponsored organization. Simply stated, if Coke is a sponsor, Pepsi is not allowed to be involved I can't download whatsapp.

Sponsors demand category exclusivity because they want a marketplace free from “competitor noise.” Having more than one company from the same sponsorship category will greatly diminish the value of sponsorship and decrease the attractiveness of your event to a potential corporate sponsor.

5. Gold, silver and bronze are popular sponsor levels with corporations.

Contrary to popular belief, using sponsorship levels like gold, silver and bronze do not attract big sponsorships download the image from website. As soon as a corporate sponsor sees a proposal with a precious metal designation, it assumes the request is just another fundraising appeal. Instead, the terms used for true sponsorship designations are “Title,” “Presenting,” “Associate” or “Official Supplier.”

6. Sponsorship sales is a loathsome responsibility.

Few really enjoy soliciting corporate sponsorships. The main reason is because oftentimes nonprofits don’t have a clear understanding of why a company would want to sponsor their program or event, or they simply don’t have the tools to effectively represent their organization.

Sponsorship sales is not rocket science. Know what you have to offer. Identify who you think might have an interest or need in what you have. Approach them about their needs, not yours. Present a clear, concise opportunity that is appropriately valued and priced. And once they say yes, take good care of them.

See also:

Fundraising with Businesses: 40 New and Improved Ideas for Nonprofits

Cause Marketing for Nonprofits: Partner for Purpose, Passion and Profits

Leveraging Good Will

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Too often, marketing is a one-way street, an avenue for organizations to merely “talk at” their members and supporters. Smart marketers, heads of development and executive directors understand that it’s just as important to know what their constituencies are thinking about all the issues that impact their favorite causes. Ignoring constituent feedback, or only sporadically collecting input with no real plan or intent to put that feedback to use, is a risky proposition that can cause you to become disconnected from your most vital audiences and severely impact your organization’s mission word herunterladen kostenfrei.

Online surveys are an effective tool for gathering feedback from the widest range of your constituents, not just the most vocal minority. Spending time with volunteers, talking with members and connecting at events is a great way to stay connected. However, those casual conversations are too often seen as a replacement for understanding the thoughts and concerns of those you serve. An online survey program lets you accurately understand the point of view and opinions of every constituent who spares you the few minutes it takes to complete a survey dance monkey kostenlosen. Additionally, the anonymous component of an online survey is a draw for many members to share feedback that they may not otherwise share.

Determine your focus

The first step in creating a successful survey program is to decide what you would like to learn from your members. A regular series of surveys can be a roadmap for your communications, but only if you know where to turn. Are you looking to expand your membership, get closer to your donors, increase donation or inspire more volunteers? A survey can help determine your direction. Some popular topics for regular surveys include:

Membership satisfaction

Donor loyalty

Membership needs assessment

Fundraising feedback

Post-event attendee satisfaction

Once you’ve identified the main objective for your survey, the next step is to write your questions moorhuhn games free download full version. Use the following list as a guide to help you craft your survey questions, and you’ll be well on your way to creating an effective survey that delivers results you can act on immediately.

1. Write questions that are easy to understand and to the point. The goal is to write a question that your members can easily understand, without having to reread it. Use simple language and phrase the question as if you were talking to a friend herunterladen.

2. Reduce ambiguity. Avoid words and phrases that are left to the survey participant’s interpretation. Words like most, numerous, many, several, etc. mean different things to different people. You want to use words that are more commonly understood, such as almost all, a majority of, almost none and a few, to get better results spiele für xbox 360 herunterladen.

3. Limit the number of ranking options. When you ask your respondents to rank items in order of preference or importance, try not to surpass six items. Asking them to rank a long list can result in an abandoned survey. If your list is longer, think about breaking it into two questions to help ensure completed surveys.

4 windows live movie makeren. Avoid questions that could have two meanings. It’s easy to do this without realizing that you’re actually asking for one answer to more than one question. Here’s an example: “How much would you be willing to donate or spend on an auction item at an event?” This type of question is problematic because it asks the respondent to give one answer for two different questions. In this case, someone might be willing to spend more money on an auction item than a straight donation (or vice versa). By asking two different questions, you will get a much more accurate answer herunterladen.

5. Offer an “out” for questions that don’t apply. Some members can’t or won’t answer certain questions because they don’t have the experience or aren’t really sure how they want to respond. For these situations, you should offer a “Does not apply” or “Don’t know”

option for them to select auto simulator kostenlos herunterladen.

6. Have some fun! Of course, the goal of your survey is to gain valuable information from your membership to better the actions of your organization. But your survey does not have to be all business. Include at least one question that will help you to understand the personalities and other interests of your membership. This, in turn, may help you determine future events or topics for your member communications herunterladen. For example, consider asking what kind of social gathering members prefer – a wine tasting, art gallery reception or outdoor event, for example.

Once you’ve completed the questions in your survey, match them against the list of best practices above and keep in mind your original reason for gathering feedback. Focus on the information you hope to gain from your members, and eliminate questions that don’t lead to answers supporting your main goals. It’s also worth it to have a colleague review your questions for tone and ease of reading, and let this person test the survey before sending it out to make sure it works properly instagramen laptop.

Once you begin receiving regular feedback from a broader segment of your constituency, you’ll begin to understand how you can best serve everyone, including those that care and matter but aren’t vocal enough to make their opinions known otherwise. Incorporating the feedback you receive into action will foster a sense of belonging in your members, increasing overall involvement and excitement in your organization.

See also:

Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message

Level Best: How Small and Grassroots Nonprofits Can Tackle Evaluation and Talk Results

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“We believe that although what a brand is may be the same across sectors, what a brand can do for an organization and how best to manage brands differ between for-profit and nonprofit organizations,” explain Laidler-Kylander and Shepard Stenzel, coauthors of The Brand IDEA.

This quotation captures the reason why the authors were compelled to write The Brand IDEA: Managing Nonprofit Brands with Integrity, Democracy and Affinity photoshop elements 13en. “While there is a fair amount of literature related to brand and brand management, almost all of this has focused on for-profit brands. The lack of frameworks or guidelines specifically for nonprofit brands was part of the impetus for our original research, say Laidler-Kylander and Shepard Stenzel.

Specifically, “IDEA” in the title stands for Integrity, Democracy and Affinity amazon music erneut herunterladen. “Our framework is based on what a number of cutting-edge nonprofit organizations are currently doing and it has resonated strongly with many people in the sector. During our interviews, we learned how the terms of Integrity, Democracy and Affinity gave people a new language to talk about brands and provided an “on-ramp” to a new way of managing brands,” add the coauthors herunterladen.

In our CausePlanet interview, we asked the authors about where most nonprofits fail when trying to manage their brands as well as how to navigate board meetings when it comes to branding.

CausePlanet: Where do most nonprofits fail when trying to manage a brand effectively?

Kylander and Stenzel: Many nonprofits fail from the outset because they do not grasp the importance of their brands in driving their missions and they fail to see the value of proactively managing their brands (Integrity) herunterladen. In nonprofits, the brand plays important roles both internally and externally in building cohesion and trust and generating capacity and impact. You have a brand whether you manage it or not. The first step is to view the brand as a strategic asset for implementing your mission. When individuals are stuck in the old paradigm where they see the brand only as a tool for fundraising or are skeptical about the role of the brand in nonprofits, they are not able to be effective in managing the brand to achieve the organization’s desired impact metronom app kostenlosen.

CausePlanet: What rationale might you give a board that questions the resources (time, treasure or talent) necessary to manage a brand effectively?

Kylander and Stenzel: Brand management is less about the use of financial resources and more about embracing a brand mindset throughout the organization spotify songs mp3. If you understand the brand as the embodiment of the mission, a strategic asset that enables you to increase your organization’s impact, then the brand and brand management become part of everyone’s job. Brand Democracy suggests that organizations do have to spend time and effort including all stakeholders in the articulation and communication of the brand, but the result is not only much greater organizational cohesion but also a greater number of brand ambassadors download app kostenlos. Many individuals spoke to us about how their brand acted like a “north star” for the organization or “the lines in the road.” When you have an effective brand, it facilitates decision making and can help clarify what programs, partnerships and people best fit the organization. It also allows nonprofits to reduce the amount of control needed to manage the brand. Organizations that have invested time in building brand Integrity, Democracy and Affinity have been able to subsequently build capacity and increase their impact dss player kostenlos downloaden.

In our live interview via webcast with Kylander and Stenzel, we found that every question our attendees had for the coauthors could be answered within the realm of Integrity, Democracy and Affinity (IDEA). The authors’ three concepts or acronym IDEA surrounding a nonprofit brand became a useful and easy-to-remember guideline for brand management. For example, below are sample questions related to each concept within the IDEA framework:

The IDEA framework:

I – Integrity:

Does your brand align with your mission and core values Open office free download windows 7?

Does your brand identity (internal) align with your image (external)?

DE – Democracy

Do you engage all your stakeholders in defining and communicating your brand identity?

A – Affinity

Does your brand allow you to collaborate and extend your sphere of influence to maximize your impact?

If you feel like you’re managing your brand through the lens of corporate standards, consider looking into The Brand IDEA; you’ll find the book speaks a mission-centered language and provides examples of high-impact nonprofits increasing their impact through customized and nonprofit-friendly IDEAs amerikanische app herunterladen.

See also:

Brandraising

Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding

Blue Ocean Strategy

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