7-Step Fundraising Cultivation Plan After a NEW Donor Gives Online Fundraising Data Reveals Major Gaps in Nonprofit Responses to New Donors It’s a big deal when a new donor gives to your nonprofit. This is true no matter how the gift comes in – through your website, through direct mail, at a fundraising event, or […]
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Category: Email Marketing & Copywriting
Which Is Better – Direct Mail or Online Fundraising?
Which Is Better – Direct Mail or Online Fundraising? Plus: 6-Step Multi-Channel Donor Action Plan It’s a common belief that direct mail fundraising is more costly and less effective than digital or online fundraising. People say ‘direct mail is dead.’ The proper response to that assertion is – show me the data. If they looked […]
How to Get More People to Read Your Nonprofit’s Emails
How to Get More People to Read Your Nonprofit’s Emails 7 Email Copywriting Strategies to Engage Readers and Drive Response Getting your nonprofit’s emails opened is one thing. But getting people to read the whole email is quite another. It doesn’t do much good if people open your emails but then just read the first […]
10 Secrets to Blowing Past Your Matching Grant Fundraising Goals – Especially in the Covid Era
10 Secrets to Blowing Past Your Matching Grant Fundraising Goals – Especially in the Covid Era Tips to Elevate Your Email and Direct Mail Match Campaigns Matching grants are a tried and true fundraising strategy. And for good reason. Whatever you give, the gift is doubled (or tripled, or whatever multiple you have secured). The […]
How Long Should Your Nonprofit Emails Be?
How Long Should Your Nonprofit Emails Be? Plus: 5-Step Quick Guide to Structuring Emails so the Length Doesn’t Matter More often than not, if my business or nonprofit clients have a question about emails I’ve written for them, it’s about the length. They think the emails are too long. My response is always the same. […]
GiveBIG 2020 – Everything You Need to Know for this Washington-Only Spring Fundraising Campaign
GiveBIG 2020 – Everything You Need to Know for this Washington-Only Spring Fundraising Campaign See Below for 7 GiveBIG Fundraising Campaign Ideas If you are a Washington-based nonprofit, you are probably eligible to participate in the 10th annual one-day GiveBIG fundraiser on May 6th, 2020. If you haven’t heard of it, GiveBIG began ten years […]
14 Fundraising Writing Tips – How to Raise More Money without Spending More
14 Fundraising Writing Tips – How to Raise More Money without Spending More If you’re doing your own fundraising writing, you probably wonder sometimes if you’re doing it ‘right.’ Or if there even is a ‘right’ way to do it. Perhaps a better way to think of it is, there are more effective ways to […]
How to Motivate People to Read Your Company’s or Nonprofit’s Emails
How to Motivate Customers and Supporters to Read Your Company’s or Nonprofit’s Emails The Opening Sentence: The Most Important Part of Your Email (TONS of examples included!) Let’s get this out of the way: Yes, the subject line seems like the most important part of an email. After all, if they don’t open it, they […]
Help! Our Nonprofit Is Too Small to Write Emails Consistently
Help! Our Nonprofit Is Too Small to Write Emails Consistently Your Guide to Steady Donor Communication and Fundraising Through Email Email remains the single best media to frequently communicate with your donors and supporters. It costs nothing to send them. You can vary the length, content, purpose, and interactive features with relative ease. You can […]
16 Places You Can (and Should) Be Thanking Donors
16 Places You Can (and Should) Be Thanking Donors 6 Ways Donors Give, and How to Thank Them in Each Situation The data is clear: Thanking your donors early, often, and continuously pays you back many times over. Guidestar reports donor research that found that first-time donors who receive a personal thank you within 2 […]
16-Point Landing Page Checklist for Nonprofits
16-Point Landing Page Checklist for Nonprofits How to Create a High-Converting Call to Action Page that Grows Your Email List, Wins More Donors, or Mobilizes Social Action Too many nonprofits are not fully utilizing the potential of their websites. They often set up their sites from a “come here and look at our site” perspective, […]
Why You Should Rarely Use Jargon in Your Fundraising
Why You Should Rarely Use Jargon in Your Fundraising Don’t Let the Jargonasaur Scare Away Your Donors Maybe it’s my background in education, but I can’t stand jargon. I’ll never forget reading about the school board candidates in my voter’s pamphlet one year. One of their descriptions was so packed with industry jargon, buzzwords, and […]
8 Clever Ways to Increase Your Nonprofit’s Email Open Rates
8 Clever Ways to Increase Your Nonprofit’s Email Open Rates How to Beat Typical (and Declining) Industry Open Rates According to an annual study from M&R Benchmarks, 13% of all online fundraising revenue in 2018 was driven by email. So the importance of keeping your email open rates as high as possible needs no convincing. […]
Where Should Your Email Signup Form Be Located? Online Fundraising Testing Series Part 3
Where Should Your Email Signup Form Be Located? Online Fundraising Testing Series Part 3 In support of using data to make better fundraising decisions, ProActive Content will be reporting on some online fundraising experiments from NextAfter for the next four weeks. See Part 2 – Are Your Emails Over-designed? Today’s question: How Does the Location […]
Are Your Emails Overdesigned? Online Fundraising Testing Series Part 2
Are Your Fundraising Emails Over-Designed? See How Email Design Affects Donations Online Fundraising Testing Series Part 2 In support of using data to make better fundraising decisions, ProActive Content will be reporting on some online fundraising experiments from NextAfter for the next four weeks. See Part 1 – How Much Donation Page Copy Should We […]
ProActive Content’s Dan Magill Delivers Presentation on How to Grow Nonprofit Email Lists Using Google Ad Gran
ProActive Content’s Dan Magill Delivers Presentation on How to Grow Nonprofit Email Lists Using Google Ad Grants Practical and Helpful Guide Unveiled at 2019 AFP Forum for Strategic Fundraising Fundraising copywriter and consultant Dan Magill gave a fast-paced, information-heavy talk in an afternoon session at the Forum for Strategic Fundraising on Thursday, June 6th. After […]
How Nonprofits Can Increase Open Rates in 7 Seconds
How Nonprofits Can Increase Email Open Rates in 7 Seconds Changing Who Your Email is From Can Increase Opens by 18% Want to increase open rates for your nonprofit’s emails? There are three ways to do it that aren’t overly technical: 1) Write better subject lines 2) Add good pre-headers 3) Change your sender […]
The Overlooked Secret to Fundraising Copywriting – Verbs
The Overlooked Secret to Fundraising Copywriting – Verbs Part 2: Fundraising Copywriting Smackdown: Verbs vs Adjectives See Part 1: 4 Copywriting Tips on How to Lasso Your Reader’s Attention with Verbs What language best engages readers and motivates them to give your cause How do you tell fundraising stories well enough to evoke a […]
The Overlooked Secret to Fundraising Copywriting – Verbs
The Overlooked Secret to Fundraising Copywriting – Verbs Part 1: 4 Fundraising Copywriting Tips on How to Use Verbs to Lasso Your Reader’s Attention “The little boy went far from home to look for food.” “The little boy traveled far from home to search for food.” Great fundraising copywriting shouldn’t be complicated. In fact, if […]
ProActive Content Is Speaking at the 2019 AFP NW Forum on Strategic Fundraising
ProActive Content Is Speaking at the 2019 AFP NW Forum on Strategic Fundraising Come Visit My Booth and Supercharge Your Fundraising Skills I’m pleased to announce that Dan Magill from ProActive Content has been chosen as a speaker at the upcoming Association of Fundraising Professionals Northwest’s annual Forum on Strategic Fundraising. The 2-day event happens […]
