Baggage-Free Fundraising – 4 Questions to Reveal and Dispel Your Negative Beliefs about Money How to Prevent Your Personal Feelings about Money and Wealth from Crippling Your Fundraising Imagine a person who loves organic food, but dislikes farmers. Seems kind of silly, right? But when it comes to money and fundraising, a lot of fundraisers […]
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Tag: understanding donors
How to Strengthen Donor Relationships: Applying Lessons from the Magnetic Marketing Growth Summit
How to Strengthen Donor Relationships: Applying Lessons from the Magnetic Marketing Growth Summit ProActive Content Founder Dan Magill Reports on Why and How Nonprofits Need to Prioritize Donor Relationships I recently attended the Magnetic Marketing Growth Summit in Denver, and though their emphasis is on marketing for businesses, so many of the principles I learned […]
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 […]
Fundraising Tip: Aim for the Heart, Not the Head
Fundraising Tip: Aim for the Heart, Not the Head Behavior Research Confirms: Donors Don’t Care About Your Facts and Figures A more fun headline for this article might be this: Research confirms that donors don’t care about research. An article in The Guardian examines several research studies of donor behavior and concludes that donors respond […]
5 Tips for Increasing Planned Giving Commitments to Your Nonprofit
5 Tips for Increasing Planned Giving Commitments to Your Nonprofit How to Motivate More Donors to Put Your Organization in Their Will In 2017, donors gave a total of $410 billion to charity. Of that, $35.7 billion came in the form of planned giving bequests. That means about 9% of charitable gifts are given in […]
Complete Guide to Donor Survey Best Practices and Question Ideas
Complete Guide to Donor Survey Best Practices and Question Ideas How to Acquire Survey Data that Strengthens Your Fundraising and Communications At the 2019 AFP Forum for Strategic Fundraising in Bellevue, Washington, Ariel Glassman from The Ostara Group led an outstanding presentation about donor survey best practices. She, along with the executive director from Kirkland Performance […]
How to Create the Perfect Donate Button
How to Create the Perfect Donate Button A Quick Analysis of Color, Size, Placement, and Text for Nonprofit Call to Action Buttons, Plus a Free Button Evaluation The smallest parts of your website can produce the biggest change. Namely, the donate button. One of the missions of ProActive Content is to find ways to boost […]
7 Steps to Reduce Your Donation Form Abandonment
7 Steps to Reduce Your Donation Form Abandonment Up to 83% of Your Potential Online Donors Are Giving Up. Here’s What to Do About It There’s a lot more crossover between businesses and nonprofits that some would like to admit. That means we can learn from each other. One such item is what businesses call […]
Donors Who Don’t Get It & That You Can Afford to Lose
Donors Who Don’t Get It & That You Can Afford to Lose Don’t Let the Fear of Losing a Few Donors Cause You to Lose Many There’s a lot of fear in fundraising. If we send out too many emails, people will unsubscribe. If we ask for money too often, people will get angry. If […]
How to Write ‘Can’t Look Away’ Headlines for Nonprofits
How to Write ‘Can’t Look Away’ Headlines for Nonprofits 6-Step Guide Reveals How to Engage and Inspire Your Readers to Action In this media-saturated age, getting anyone to read your nonprofit’s content and fundraising appeals presents an unending challenge. Each new piece of content you send out requires a fresh motivation to be read by […]
Make Them Hear You: Why Fundraising is Harder Than You Think
Why Fundraising is Harder Than You Think Lazy Marketing Projections and ‘Out-of-Thin-Air’ Goals Often Have No Relationship to Reality It’s a mistake made across all sectors of business in addition to nonprofits. We believe it’s easier to get people to do what we want than it really is. Read that again to make sure you […]
Why You Can’t Find Social Media Fundraising Expertise
Why You Can’t Find Social Media Fundraising Expertise The ‘Great Deception’ and Millennial Myth Debunked: They Aren’t Good At Social Media Either (This is a copyrighted excerpt from The Ultimate Fundraising Case Study. Purchase here or on Amazon. You do NOT have permission to copy this post, but you DO have permission to quote from […]
Donation Page Giving Options – Testing Data Uncovers Huge Revenue Loss from One Simple Change
Donation Page Giving Options – Testing Data Uncovers Huge Revenue Loss from One Simple Change On your donation page, how should you present your giving options? Your three main giving options are: Only an open-ended field with no suggested giving amounts One or more suggested amounts Both suggested amounts and an open field for other […]
The Worst Mistake Nonprofits Make on Their Thank You Pages
The Worst Mistake Nonprofits Make on Their Thank You Pages 5 Thank You Page Essentials to Unite Donors with Your Charity Thank you. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Thanking people who do things they didn’t have to do that benefit you and your cause is really important. Possibly the single most important thing […]
Ripped from Hollywood: The Anatomy of Fundraising Storytelling – How to Insert Donors into Your Narrative
Ripped from Hollywood: The Anatomy of Fundraising Storytelling – How to Insert Donors into Your Narrative 6 Components Every Well-Told Fundraising Story Must Have The power of story in fundraising is well-known. What’s less well-known is how to tell a story well, such that it motivates donors to want to take action. Besides fundraising copywriting, […]
Customer Service Power Plays with Direct Mail, Email, and Phone, for Nonprofits AND Businesses
Customer Service Power Plays with Direct Mail, Email, and Phone for Nonprofits AND Businesses How to Get Attention, Produce Loyalty, and Generate Effortless Referrals (with real examples from my real estate lender) Do businesses need to stand out with eye-popping customer service that blasts far beyond the expectations of their customers? Yes, but only if they […]
How to Build Your Nonprofit’s Email List (and Spend $0 on Advertising)
How to Build Your Nonprofit’s Email List (and Spend $0 on Advertising) Walk Through This Tried and True 5-Step Email List Building Funnel Email list building should be one of your nonprofit’s top priorities. If it’s not, talk to your board and show them what I’m about to tell you. Why? Because email remains the […]
4 Reasons Why Long Fundraising Letters Beat Short Ones 90% of the Time
4 Reasons Why Long Fundraising Letters Beat Short Ones 90% of the Time Are You Ready to Let Facts Confront Your Beliefs About Donors? Yes, long fundraising letters work better. It’s true for nonprofits. It’s true for direct mail in many for-profit industries. It’s generally true in email too (though not as often). But don’t […]
Giving Tuesday Donors Exposed! Truth Revealed Inside New Report
Report Reveals Truth about Giving Tuesday: It’s a ‘New Donor’ Gold Mine Don’t Wait Until November. Plan Your #GivingTuesday Campaign NOW Remember, remember, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving which is usually in – November. Okay, not quite as poetic as the original. But that Tuesday has become very special to the nonprofit community. Giving Tuesday has […]
Music-Loving Donor Leaves $10 Million Planned Gift to Radio Station
Music-Loving Donor Leaves $10 Million Planned Gift to Radio Station How Much Money Is Your Nonprofit Missing by Not Having a Planned Giving Strategy? 5 Tips to Help Develop Your Plan A story reported by the Seattle Times in April 2018 has much to teach nonprofits about planned giving. The message is loud and clear, just […]
