Every few months I’m invited to attend a board meeting to discuss how social media could be used better. And I’m always surprised how much time is spent focusing on quick ways to get cash, rather than keeping the donors they have. In fact, at one meeting, people spent most of their time writing out […]
Nonprofit Strategies: Surviving versus Farming Read More »
Michael Volkin’s military career began just few days after September 11, 2001 when he joined the Army. After basic training he landed in Iraq as a chemical operations sergeant. He had another job in Iraq. He served as his company’s fitness trainer. With no equipment in Iraq, Mike and his trainees quickly became experts in
Soldier Finds Strength in Iraqi War, Mother's Illness Read More »
Mark Horvath of InvisblePeople.tv has more experience with homelessness than one man deserves. As the founder of his nonprofit, he works daily with the homeless and was himself homeless. The plight of homeless children is particularly troubling for Mark. The problem is large and serious. Nearly two million youths experience homelessness each year. 100,000 youths
An Unacceptable Problem: Homeless Children Read More »
Recently, Philanthropy.com published a survey of millennials who were asked to respond to different nonprofit websites. The headline of the results, published on July 18, 2013, caught my eye. It reads, “75% of Young Donors Turned Off By Out-of-Date Web Sites.” The survey involved 2,600 people born between the years 1979-1994. More than simply reporting
Is Your Website Turning Away Donors? Read More »
You want people to join your email list, donate to your organization, or take some other kind of specific action to support your nonprofit. But no matter how much you explain the logic and reasons for doing so, they just won’t take action. If this sounds like you, your problem is that you’re trying to appeal
Why Reason Alone Doesn’t Work in Fundraising Read More »
Nonprofits want cash from businesses. But what they usually get is product. That’s one of the conclusions you can draw from the donations of 105 companies that were tallied by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Of the $12.1 billion donated by these businesses, only about one-third was cash. All this points to the likelihood that your
The Second Best Thing: Product Donations Read More »
I read an interesting article from Harvard Business Review last week. The article was titled, “Please Stop Complaining About How Busy You Are.” The article makes a few interesting points. It suggests that saying, “I’m busy” has become the new cry of the braggart. If you say you are busy, you are saying that business
Are You Really Busy or Are You Just Saying That? Read More »
Photo by Violetix The weekend before Labor Day, 2011, was a beautiful weekend in Northeast Ohio. Since my birthday was coming up I spent a lot of time with my parents. We hiked around one of our favorite parks, and just had a great time. When I got home, I checked into Twitter as
Help Me Help the ImAlive Suicide Prevention Chat Service Read More »
If you want to create “viral content,” you should watch videos like this one which has almost 20,000 views. 🙂 The truth about this video–and most viral content–is that no one knows why it goes viral, even though the common ingredients of viral content are well documented! The Science Behind Viral Content Scientific research on what
The Science Behind Viral Content Read More »
In January, I wrote about a great California-based nonprofit, Astronomers Without Borders (AWB), that is working to bring the stars to everyone, especially children. This includes children in some of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world. When I last wrote about them, AWB was in the midst of working with the largest
Telescope Maker, Nonprofit Help Kids Reach the Stars Read More »
