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The Special "Purple Cow"-inspired Edition of Tips!
No, your monitor isn't playing tricks on you: This issue of Tips is purple. We're pleased to welcome our guest Tips-provider Seth Godin (blogger, speaker and author of bestsellers like Purple Cow and Meatball Sundae). Register for Seth's Nonprofit 911 call scheduled for September 16 at 1 p.m. EDT!
(In addition to Seth's words of wisdom, we want to help you communicate better, simpler. So, we snuck in some information about next week's Nonprofit 911, too!)
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The One Thing Every Nonprofit Needs to Know
Yes, you do good work.
Great work, in fact.
Yes, you are working hard.
Too hard, probably.
No, we don't care.
If you want to grow your donor base, get more grants, engage more
volunteers or have greater impact, you need to somehow convert
strangers into friends (and then turn those friends into fans and
donors).
And the obvious methods don't work. If they did, you wouldn't need to
read this.
The common mistake is simple. You're not telling a story.
A compelling, human story. A simple story. A repeatable story. A story
that matches my view of the world and a story that makes me restless.
Restless to help or to donate or to evangelize.
If your story is complicated, it's not a story, it's invisible.
If your story is told in your terms, not mine, it's invisible as well.
For a long time, the United Way had a story. It's probably not the
story you would have guessed, though. Their story was, "Take charity
out of your paycheck. Every good person at your company does."
No mention of the nursing home or the Boy Scouts. The story was about
me (I'm a good person) and my parents (it would make them proud... and
I'd be ashamed of myself if I didn't contribute, at least a little).
Roomtoread.org has a story as well. "$20,000 builds a school in Nepal. Villages with schools don't raise little terrorists. And smart
philanthropists (like you) embrace the idea of highly-leveraged, low-
overhead giving that turns your dollars into an actual benefit, right
now."
The thing is, once you tell a story, you must live the story. When the United Way hit some scandal bumps and when more people started working for little companies, the story wasn't so true any more. If Roomtoread started adding many options and high overhead and big plans, their story wouldn't be true anymore either.
I'm not talking about a slogan or an elevator pitch. I'm talking about
the very fabric of the way you weave your organization, whom you hire,
what you do, how you talk about it.
Do you have a story? When people who admire your organization talk
about you, what do they say? What do you say to a prospective hire?
Have you gone off story in your actions? What happens when you do?
The coolest thing is that this doesn't cost money. And you can do it
today.
Actually, the coolest thing is that it works.
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Looking for Better Megaphones
Every year, Squidoo.com gives more than $100,000 to non profits like
yours. We've built schools, funded diabetes research and sheltered
animals.
But that's not why you should have Squidoo on your radar.
The reason we started Squidoo was to give you a megaphone. An easy way
to make you louder.
The internet is jammed with more than a billion pages, and you're not
getting your share of attention. In fact, if you don't do something
right now, you'll find your share is going to go down daily.
There are megaphones throughout the Internet. They range from email
(like Yahoo! mail) to social networks (like Facebook). They are there
just waiting, usually free, always underused.
Think about the real world for a minute: The postal service and AT&T
are both megaphones. They're powerful communication tools you can use
to raise millions of dollars, organize volunteers... But you already
realize that. You're already using both platforms. But they're fading,
and fast. The people you need to reach are still listening, but they're
listening online, not at their mailbox.
On the Web, they often have silly names and they can take a day or so
to figure out. On the other hand, they're faster, bigger and more
easily mastered than the real world... and they're free.
What if every single one of your ardent fans, your loyal volunteers
and your grateful beneficiaries went to Squidoo and built a web page?
A page about your charity, perhaps, or just a page about something
that captures their passion... Those pages would all point back to
your organization, and every single one of them would earn royalties
and donations for you. Every day.
The ASPCA went to 100,000 of its members, and about 1,000 built pages
on Squidoo. No effort, no investment, ongoing goodness.
You have fans out there. Are you connecting them? Building a tribe?
What happens when you organize your fans on Facebook? Or turn your
mailing list from a one way email spam parade into an interactive
connection tool that hooks interested people up to one another?
Here's what smart nonprofits are doing:
- They're platform agnostic. If users like a platform, they do too.
- They're persistent and consistent. They drip drip drip their way to
success. Direct mail didn't work for you overnight, why will this?
- They eat their own dog food! These platforms aren't for 'other
people.' If you don't use them, if you have your admin do it or your
intern, you will fail.
- They start, and start often. They do it. Test and measure, repeat.
- They embrace failure. Perfect is the enemy of good and you need good.
- They don't overstudy. There's not that much to study!
I'm biased... I think Squidoo is a great (loud) megaphone for your nonprofit. But frankly, I don't care if you use it. I just want you to
get started, to use whatever online platforms you can find, to get
good at it. Make something happen. It's free and the only thing
holding you back is... well, I'm not sure exactly.
Find out more about Squidoo here: http://www.squidoo.com/theanswerdeck/hq.
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Nonprofit 911 Call
Special Guest Seth Godin presents: The Purple Nonprofit and What is Squidoo?
September 16, 1 p.m. EDT
Network for Good is extremely privileged to welcome marketing guru, author and world-renowned blogger and presenter Seth Godin to lead our upcoming Nonprofit 911 call. His 10 books have been featured on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com and BusinessWeek bestseller lists—not to mention his wildly popular e-books including “Unleashing the Ideavirus,” which more than 1,000,000 people have downloaded. Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry's leading interactive direct marketing company, which Yahoo! acquired in late 1998. He holds an MBA from Stanford and was called "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by BusinessWeek.
Register now for this eye-opening training opportunity:
- Learn the tricks and common pitfalls of nonprofit marketing
- Get practical tips for creating messages that compel action
- Meet Squidoo, and learn how and why to use it as part of your nonprofit organization’s marketing and fundraising plans
Take a moment to learn more about Seth’s experience and work here, and register now!
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Last Chance to Register!
Nonprofit 911 Call
Communicate: Think Big and Build Simple for Big Dollars
Quick Tips to Simplify Your Message and Achieve Online Fundraising Results
September 9, 1 p.m. EDT
Join Tom Suddes (founder of The Suddes Group | For Impact.org), who has raised $1 billion for nonprofit causes, as he focuses on simple nuggets that you can integrate into your communications and messaging immediately:
- How to raise the level of the conversation to maximize funding dollars, volunteer engagement and team morale.
- How to use six messaging gems that inspire the head and the heart.
- How to answer the three big questions that turn a charitable transaction into a philanthropic relationship.
Participants will be energized with a fresh perspective to help rise above the grind, engage volunteers and transform funding.
Learn more about Tom Suddes and his For Impact message at www.forimpact.org.
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