December, 2008

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Reddit to Rally Volunteers for Needy Nonprofits

Wild Apricot

Last year, social bookmarking site Reddit partnered up to raise over $3,000 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org), a non-profit selected by the website’s users to benefit from the fund-raising drive. This year, they’re trying something different — raising volunteers instead of cash. It's partly an acknowledgement that many people have few funds to spare, and partly a nod to the wealth of high-tech talent found among Reddit users.

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Four Books that Made a Difference in 2008

Guilt by Association

Too many good books, too little time. Many of the books I read are eventually forgettable, but some endure. Here are four business books I read this year that have remained with me. Groundswell. By Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. These two folks from Forrester Research (Charlene has since moved on to a solo life) wrote the defining social technology strategy book for the year.

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Going from a Print Newsletter to Email: What to Leave Behind

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

Going from a Print Newsletter to an Email Newsletter - Webinar This Thursday - Get the Details. It seems like every nonprofit I’ve talked to in the last few months is either dropping their print newsletter entirely or carefully considering ways to cut back on the expense of publishing it (e.g. publishing fewer pages or printing fewer copies). If you are considering moving from print to email, I recommend starting from scratch with your editorial calendar, because much of what you considere

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The economy

Associations Live

The economy is not in a good way. We all know that. So how to move forward? It's all about getting creative, adding value, generating new ideas, and harnessing the power of your members to help your organization grow and move into the future. Have you asked you members lately what they need and want? Scrap those projects that are struggling or don't provide any benefit.

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Improve Email Strategy with Proven Email Marketing Tips

Struggling to get members to open or engage with your emails? You're not alone. Our free Best Practices for Email Marketing guide offers practical tips to strengthen your email strategy and improve engagement. Inside, you'll learn how to: Write subject lines that increase open rates Build scannable, mobile-friendly designs Choose send times that fit your audience Personalize content with Smart Newsletter Use Message Report data to refine strategy This guide helps associations and chambers create

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Social Media Presentation from Me in January

High Context

I am giving a webinar presentation for the Association Societies Alliance at 12 Noon Eastern on January 9, 2009. This is one of my more popular presentations in the past year: Social Media and Member Value: How to Create One with the Other. Join David Gammel as he delves into creating value online for your members by examining one of the hottest trends on the Web: Social Media.

More Trending

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First Steps in Social Networking for Nonprofits

Wild Apricot

Nonprofits looking to start using social media as a marketing tool with find a wealth of sound advice online, but putting the pieces together into a solid strategy? That's the real challenge. No one simple strategy will work for every nonprofit group. (In fact, trying to give step-by-step "one size fits all" directions for using social media is a lot like trying to teach a shy first-time party guest how to mingle with strangers.

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Marcus Buckingham Is Wrong

Guilt by Association

Marcus Buckingham is one of the most powerful brands in business consulting, boosted even more by his recent alliance with Oprah. I’m sure you’ve seen or read his books, including First, Break All the Rules , and Now, Discover Your Strengths. But after listening to a long podcast interview with Marcus last week, I am convinced that he is wrong. Or at least, half wrong.

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Best of the Blog 2008 & Your Suggestions for 2009?

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

I did a quick review of my traffic stats for this blog and here are the top ten most visited posts, ending with the most popular: If Social Networking Isn’t Marketing, Why Bother? Moving Your Print Newsletter to Email - 7 Tips. Where to Put Keywords on Your Web Page. Bunches o’ Studies and Stats on Nonprofit Marketing. Notes from “Building Your Online Presence on a Tight Budget&#.

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Holidays

Associations Live

Amid the hustle and bustle of this holiday season, let's really take the time to see who needs our help. We have our jobs. We have the ability to pay our mortgages, and buy our groceries. What about our friends or colleagues that haven't been so lucky in this economic downturn? Perhaps the best gift we can give is our time, a helping hand, an introduction, an informational interview, an encouraging word, a word to let them know we care, and are willing to help.

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Stop Budget Burnout: A Better Way to Grow Your Nonprofit in 2026

Speaker: Sean Yoder

Nonprofits are under more pressure than ever to demonstrate financial accountability while continuing to expand their impact. Traditional budgeting models often fall short, reinforcing silos, limiting flexibility, and stalling growth. Enter collaborative budgeting: a dynamic, team-driven process that enables smarter resource allocation and builds financial resilience at scale.

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Donors Looking for Financial Transparency

High Context

Interesting article on the WSJ site today about the impact of Madoff on future donations. After Madoff, Donors Grow Wary of Giving: That’s changing amid a distressed economy and the disturbing news that many high-profile nonprofits, including the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, Yeshiva University and Steven Spielberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation, were hurt by Mr.

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Holiday Greetings! : Off Stage

Off Stage

Off Stage. Dec. 13, 2008 - Holiday Greetings! 12.00. Normal 0. false false false. EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. 2008 Christmas Poem. What we have here is the Christmas cat, friend of morning sun, which loves her back. She explores, joyfully, the Christmas tree, its glistening lights and ribbons blowing free-. ly in the warm air. She reaches out. to touch it, curious about. how such things can dance and sway. enticingly, how the magic of a sunny day. can be reflected in one green tree.

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Are You Tracking Your Top Blog Posts?

Wild Apricot

Top 10 Blog Post lists are popping up all over the Internet as another year comes to an end, as nonprofits, individuals, and businesses take stock of where they’ve been and plan their communications strategy for the coming year. But how do you know which of your blog posts for the past year are your “top” content? It's more than a simple matter of counting up the page views.

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What We Need to Know

Guilt by Association

I saw this post on the ASAE’s communications listserv last week: “ I would like to hear from other associations on how they are using social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) – Which ones? Benefits? What’s worked?”. Wow … how many days do you have to listen? There’s no bigger question in communications today. I sense stratification in our professional community.

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Interactive Webinar: Recurring Giving Events That Keep on Giving

Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio, Director of Community Engagement

There’s more than one way to end the year with impact—and we’re letting you decide the direction. In this "choose your own adventure" community-led webinar, attendees will vote in real time to pick one of three year-end event strategies to explore in depth: Volunteer Appreciation Events 🧡 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Campaigns 🌈 Mission/Program Celebrations 🎉 Once the path is chosen, we’ll dive into a step-by-step engagement workflow plan tailored to that format, showing how

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Last Chance for 16-Week All Access Pass; Registration Open for Jan. Webinars

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

If you’ve been pondering an All-Access Pass to Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com , you only have 8 days left to get 16 weeks instead of the usual 12. Sign up for the pass now and you can attend live or watch recordings of all of these upcoming webinars in 2009 (a al carte registration for the first four webinars in January is now open too): Email Newsletter Essentials for Nonprofits - From Start to Finish.

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Continued Discussion ? 12/12/08 - by Steven Davis, CAE

on Leadership

on Leadership … by Steven Davis, CAE. Leadership … an Ongoing Discussion. « Leadership … What Is It? Leadership … Continued Disucssion – 12/16/08 » Leadership … Continued Discussion – 12/12/08. Overview: This is an ongoing discussion about leadership, built on quotes that I have assembled through the years.

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Blog House Keeping Note

High Context

I am going to shift my e-mail newsletter archives into my blog this week and will post new issues as they come out here. I am going to date them as of when they were sent out so I’m not sure if they will appear in the feed, for those of you reading the site via a newsreader.

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Executive Connections: Safe, and Inspired

Executive Connections

Executive Connections. « Guest Blogger Gloria Zamora: The Results Are In | Main. | What do you think? » 05 December 2008. Safe, and Inspired. Last week, I was in India, attending the Asian Chapter Conference in New Delhi, when we learned about the terrorist attacks that were happening in Mumbai.  As Linda Broussard, SLA's Chief Community Officer, reported in her blog , to our knowledge, no one attending the conference was affected directly by the Mumbai attacks.  I kn

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How to Make the Case for a New AMS (and Win)

Is your current AMS is creating more problems than it solves? You can lead the change. This eBook shares a customizable letter designed to help you clearly communicate your organization’s challenges, highlight the benefits of a modern system, and make a strong case for exploring a new AMS. Whether it’s outdated reporting, clunky workflows, or member frustration, this resource will help you start the conversation with clarity and position yourself as the advocate your organization needs.

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Wild Apricot - final updates for 2008

Wild Apricot

About Wild Apricot Our blog provides technology advice for small non-profits. Many subscribers are also Wild Apricot software clients, so we do monthly blog posts about our software. Wild Apricot simplifies non-profit management for thousands of professional and business associations, clubs, charitable organizations, churches, activist groups and communities.

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Budgeting for Travel, Part 2 : Off Stage

Off Stage

Off Stage. Dec. 5, 2008 - Budgeting for Travel, Part 2. In this economy, “Travel” has the connotation of perks, parties, and paid personal vacations—at least, that’s how our members often see it. “The Travel Budget” is one of the first items on the slash and cut budget, again because the program has the overtones of fun and frivolity.

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New Look, Same Stuff

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

If you are reading this on the blog itself, you’ll see that Nonprofit Communications has a look new. It’s not too far off from the old one, but this new template gives me some additional functionality I was missing before. I’m still playing around with it, so I apologize if the design tumbles around on you a bit. Get All of Our Webinars & E-Courses for $97.

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Leadership ? What Is It? ? on Leadership ? by Steven Davis, CAE

on Leadership

on Leadership … by Steven Davis, CAE. Leadership … an Ongoing Discussion. Leadership … Continued Discussion – 12/12/08 » Leadership … What Is It? We have all seen leadership at one time or another and we always seem to know it when we see it, but it doesn’t always look or feel the same. And that reality has always fascinated me.

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A Data Revolution: Why Your AMS/CRM Needs a Native Data Warehouse

Unlock the Power of Historical Data A Data Revolution: Why Your AMS/CRM Needs a Native Data Warehouse Today’s association leaders need more than real-time snapshots—they need the full story. MemberSuite: A Data Revolution reveals how a native data warehouse transforms your AMS into a strategic decision-making engine. In this free eBook, you’ll discover: The difference between a database and a data warehouse—and why it matters How to gain historical visibility into membership, engagement, events,

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Two New Articles on the Site

High Context

I’ve added two articles to this site that appeared in ASAE publications. Measuring Social Media: Identifying and Measuring Valuable Outcomes for Your Association. Supercharging Your Web Teams through Constant Development. Enjoy! There are 16 additional articles in that section of my site as well on a variety of topics.

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Crisis Communication Planning Now Includes Social Technologies

Guilt by Association

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month were Twitter’s coming out party, according to the New York Times. Eyewitnesses used Twitter and their personal blogs to describe what was happening, both to the outside world and to their fellow citizens locally. It was citizen journalism in its purest form. A few days later, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester sounded my wake-up call : Now that social technologies are becoming mainstream, do your crisis communications plans account for them?

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Connect Your Nonprofit's Offline and Online Activities

Wild Apricot

Your nonprofit’s website gets tens of thousands of hits every month. Thousands support your Cause on Facebook, and you’ve mapped out a killer Twitter strategy to attract a hundred new followers weekly. So what?

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Toward a Stronger Board of Directors : Off Stage

Off Stage

Off Stage. Last Page • Next Page ->. A behind the scenes look at organized real estate--what works in an association, what doesnt, and what a long time AE sees as challenges facing the industry from the viewpoint of its professional organization. Recent Posts. • Finding the Right Board Chair. • Lawsuit. • The NEW Internet Landscape: A Primer for Realtors and MLSs. • Learning from Amazon. • Leadership Thoughts: Crafting the Job Description.

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A New Look At Running Grants & Programs: Why Use A System When You Have Excel?

Speaker: Gareth Webb & Phil Selley, Founding Partners at Intouch Business

For many nonprofit organizations and NGOs, managing grants and monitoring projects with spreadsheets and manual processes feels familiar—but is it holding your organization back? As funding requirements become more complex and stakeholder expectations for transparency grow, relying on outdated methods can lead to inefficiencies, missed opportunities, and compliance risks.

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Social Media for Nonprofits @ the Carnival

Nonprofit Marketing Guide

The latest edition of the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants is now available at The Feed by The Hatcher Group. You’ll find posts related to how nonprofits are using all the major social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter) and more. The next edition of the Carnival will be hosted by Joanne’s Nonprofits Blog at About.com and will cover “New Year’s Resolutions for Nonprofits.&# Have some you’d like share?

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Finally, Recession

Associations Live

Finally, it's called a recession. Most of us common folk knew that all along. Strange that it takes the government a year to figure it out. Makes one wonder doesn't it? It also makes me think, so what? Now that it has a name, what difference does it make? I attended a session this week to hear an economist from the Federal Reserve. His predictions for the upcoming year: increasing unemployment, decreasing housing starts, decreasing output of goods and services.

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Ralph Lauren Flipping Online Advertising Strategy on Its Head

High Context

According to this post by Dylan Stableford , Ralph Lauren is building such a powerful media presence online that he questions their future need for traditional print advertising: His presentation, though, should give publishers pause, too. If an advertiser is so ahead of the game online, and as print fades, why should they care about your Web site? Very good question.