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Get your messaging booty in shape!

January 4, 2011 by Erica Barnhart

To get your nonprofit’s messaging booty in shape in short order, we are launching a 9-week DIY Nonprofit Messaging Bootcamp. To join in the fun, Messaging Roadmap, sign up for our free Tune-up Tuesday videos, and complete messaging to-do’s outlined for each week on our blog.

Week #1

Point A: Your Belief Proposition

Watch the first episode of Tune-Up Tuesdays to learn why having a clearly articulated ‘Belief Proposition’ is so important to connecting with people who care about your cause. Also, review this previous post about how the United Negro College Fund articulated their Belief Proposition.

This Week’s Messaging To-Do’s

Write down answers to the following questions:

What would be different in your community if your organization didn’t exist?
Why does your organization exist?

Next week

Learn about Mental File Folders.

Need Some In-Person Help?

How Social Media Can Help You Do 5 Things You’re Already Doing

November 11, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

John Janstch of Duct Tape Marketing constantly offers great advice that is as relevant to nonprofits as it is to the small businesses he works with every day. A few months ago, the Claxon crew got to see him in person in Seattle. Fantastic!

This post is modified from a recent post of his called “5 Ways to Use Social Media for Things You Are Already Doing.” What person working in a nonprofit doesn’t like the sound of that?!

Thinking that sounded pretty great, I took his key points and made them specific to nonprofits. (My changes are in [brackets].) The terminology may be different, but the advice is the same. And it’s good!

1) Follow up with [prospective donors]

I love using social media tools as a way to follow-up with [prospective donors] you might meet out there in the real world. So you go to an [AFP or NDOA] event and meet someone that has asked you to follow-up. Traditionally, you might send an email a week later or call them up and leave a voice mail. What if instead you found them on LinkedIn, asked to be connected and then shared an information rich article that contained tips about the very thing you chatted about at the [AFP/NDOA] mixer. Do you think that next meeting might get started a little quicker towards your [mission]? I sure do.

2) Stay top of mind with [donors]

Once someone becomes a [donor], it’s easy to ignore them, assuming they will [donate] next time they [want to] or, worse yet, assuming they understand the full depth and breadth of your offerings and will chime in when they have other needs. Staying in front of your [donors] and continuing to educate and [move them up the ladder] is a key ingredient to building marketing momentum and few [nonprofits] do it well. [Because it’s really hard to do everything well with so few resources!]

This is an area where a host of social media tools can excel. A blog is a great place to put out a steady stream of useful information and success stories. Encouraging your [donors] to subscribe and comment can lead to further engagement. Recording video stories from [donors] and uploading them to YouTube to embed on your site can create great marketing content and remind your [donors] why they [donate to] you. Facebook Fan pages can be used as a way to implement a [supporter] community and offer education and networking opportunities online. [For a great example of this, check out The Pride Foundation.]

3) Keep up on your industry

Keeping up with what’s happening in any industry is a task that is essential these days. With unparalleled access to information many [donors] can learn as much or more about the products and solutions offered by a [nonprofit] as those charged with suggesting those products and solutions. You better keep up or you risk becoming irrelevant. Of course I could extend this to keeping up with what your [supporters], competitors, and key industry journalists are doing as well.

Here again, new monitoring services and tools steeped in social media and real time reporting make this an easier task. Subscribing to blogs written by industry leaders, competitors and journalists and viewing new content by way of a tool such as Google Reader allows you to scan the day’s content in one place. Setting up Google Alerts and custom Twitter Searches or checking out paid monitoring services such as Radian6 or Trackur allows you to receive daily email reports on the important mentions of industry terms and people so you are up to the minute in the know. (Of course, once you do this you can teach your [donors] how to [learn more about the mission you both care about] and make yourself even more valuable to them – no matter what [your mission may be].)

4) Provide a better [donor] experience

It’s probably impossible to [do too much donor recognition], too [provide too] much of a great experience, but you can go nuts trying.

Using the new breed of online tools you can plug some of the gaps you might have in [cultivating donors] and, combined with your offline touches, create an experience that no [other organization] can match.

While some might not lump this tool into social media, I certainly think any tool that allows you to collaborate with and serve your [donors] qualifies. Using an online project management tool such as Central Desktop allows you to create an entire [donor] education, orientation, and handbook kind of training experience one time and then roll it out to each new [donor] in a high tech [donor] portal kind of way. This approach can easily set you apart from anyone else in your industry and provide the kind of experience that gets [donors engaged].

5) Network with potential partners

Building a strong network of strategic marketing partners (i.e. another organization that cares about the same cause as you and offers complementary services) is probably the best defense against any kind of economic downturn. One of the surest ways to attract potential partners is to build relationships through networking. Of course you know that, but you might not be viewing this kind of networking as a social media function.

If you identify a potential strategic partner, find out if they have a blog and start reading and commenting. Few things will get you noticed faster than smart, genuine blog comments. Once you establish this relationship it might make sense to offer a guest blog post. If your use a CRM tool (and you should) you’ve probably noticed that most are moving to add social media information to contact records, add your potential partners’ social media information and you will learn what’s important to them pretty quickly.

If you know how to set up a blog already, offer to create a blog of network partners so each of you can write about your area of expertise and create some great local SEO for the group.

Maybe you’re not doing all of these things, but you’re probably doing at least a one or two.

Take John’s advice and you’ll definitely engage your donors more effectively. And who doesn’t want that?!

6 Steps to Going Social Without Going Crazy

November 1, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

Integrating social media into your marketing mix can be daunting. So many options, so little time! In an effort to save you time and keep you sane, we’ve created the following six step process and actionable item checklists for the most popular tools.

Claxon’s 6 Step Process to Going Social Without Going Crazy

Use IdealWare’s fantastically helpful workbook in their Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide to figure out which tools make sense given your goals. (If you don’t know what your goals are, first do the 1, 2, 3 Marketing Tree.)
Pick 1 or 2 tools. Most organizations don’t have the capacity to do more than two well enough to make it worth it.
Find the accompanying checklist(s) below and decide which items you’ll tackle. Remember: it’s better to do a few things really well, than a bunch of things only so-so.
Identify who will be in charge of each tool and have them block out the time needed each week to do it. (Even though the tools are free, it requires time to make them pay off!)
Review your progress monthly.
Assess strategy vis-a-vis goals annually.

Checklists by Tool

Facebook

Expect to spend 2-4 hours per week, ideally with at least one post per day.

Create a Facebook Fan page and get a customized url for your fan page. John Haydon provides a great video with detailed instructions.
“Like” the nonprofits you partner with that also have Facebook pages. Engage with those organizations by commenting on their posts and engaging with their supporters.
Be consistent and commit to what you will post on Facebook. It will help you to think about who you are trying to reach and what action you want them to take.
Use Ads to direct people to useful information on your Facebook Page or website. (Don’t try to sell or fundraise with Facebook Ads.)
Repurpose content – post images, video, slides, etc. and drive people to take action such as signing up for your e-newsletter or visit your website.
Promote your Fan Page in your email signatures and on your other online outposts.
Create a “Facebook Fans Only” offer, do it to see who engages and make your Facebook fans feel special at the same time.

Twitter

Expect to spend 1.5-2 hours per week, ideally with at least one or two posts per day.

Use Twitter Search to find people to follow who are talking about your organization or topics related to your mission and aggregate into lists using free tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.
Follow a number of people in your topic area and community and re-tweet their posts.
Create a list on Twitter of everyone that re-tweets your posts. Then, promote your list to your other followers.
Repurpose your content such as your blog posts and Facebook posts.
Add link to your blog or website and customize with your logo.
Promote your Twitter account in your email signatures and through your other online mechanisms.
After you hold an event, help spread the word by creating a specific hashtag for your attendees to use. For example, if you are hosting a speaker, put up a sign near the speaker that says, “If you are tweeting about this event, use #xyz.” (For an example of how we did this at a recent event, search for #NPlab.)

Blog

Expect to spend 4-8 hours per week, ideally with at least one post per week (the time per week includes not only the writing time, but time spent following other related blogs, generating comments and responding to comments)

Create a list of 5 influencers who are passionately blogging about your industry – regularly read and make thoughtful comments. (Tip: Setup Google Reader as a listening station.)
Be consistent by having a clear strategy for what you’ll write about. Start with 5 or 6 relevant categories and rotate through them.
Drive traffic to your blog by linking your blog to your website.
Search engines love blogs so figure out what people are searching for related to your organization’s mission and write about that. Read this post to learn more about improving your nonprofit website’s search results.
Ask for comments and install share buttons such as a Facebook ‘Like’ button or a ‘Share This‘ to engage your readers.
Post customer case studies, educational pieces, and invite guest bloggers to write. This helps bring personality to your blog and can increase traffic to your site or store. Here’s an example of a guest blogger on the Getting Attention! Blog.
Give your biggest fans another way to keep up with your blog or podcast feed by placing an email subscription form on your site with a service like Feedburner or Feedblitz.

Linkedin

Expect to spend 1-2 hours per week, ideally joining in at least one conversation per week.

Read this post explaining effective uses for nonprofits using Linkedin.
Look for groups or other organizations who are discussing your cause. Sign-up for email updates and join the conversation. As an alternative, you could also add relevant Linkedin Questions-Answers to your RSS Reader.
Post updates on your individual account to share relevant information with your supporters who are connected to you. Note that Linkedin works with Twitter and vise versa.
Refer and make recommendations for past employees, volunteers, and board members.
Start a Linkedin Group, and encourage your organization’s key employees and board members to have their own profiles and join the group so that each member becomes an ambassador for your organization.
Use for prospect research and finding out who knows who. If you start a Linkedin Group, you will be able to see all the Linkedin contacts for each of your group members, making it easy see if there is anyone to whom you’d like an introduction.
Add your blog RSS feeds to your Linkedin Profile. Here’s one way to do it: How to Add a Blog to your LinkedIn Profile with BlogLink.

Flickr (or other photo sharing website)

Depending on your goals, time and frequency spent on photo sharing sites will vary. For example, you may spend more time after an event or while trying to build a particular group of followers.

Tag your photos to let people easily find or submit photos. If, for instance, you have an event, tell all your event attendees to upload their pictures on Flickr and tag with your selected tag. Example: O’Reilly Emerging Technologies conference in 2006.
Embed your Flickr account photos on your website and include a link to your website on your Flickr profile.
Use your photos to drive people to your website in your next e-newsletter. For example, you could include a link to pictures from a recent event.
Look for cause-related groups and comment on existing photos to discover new partners and supporters. For example if you are a organization focused on microfinance, try doing a search for other organizations posting on Flickr by searching for groups with “microfinance” in the description.
Search for keywords that include your organization name to see what people are saying about you.

Youtube (or other video sharing website)

Again, depending on your goals, time and frequency spent on photo sharing sites will vary. However, it is a good idea to check-in at least a couple of times per week to read and respond to any comments.

Watch Youtube’s Basic Tips
Ask your supporters to share videos with their family and friends to spread your message.
Share, embed and link your Youtube videos on your other online portals.
Encourage your supporters to send in their own videos to build a repository about your cause.
Use your videos to tell stories and drive people to your website in your next e-newsletter.
Look for cause-related groups and comment on existing videos. For example, if you are an education focused nonprofit in Seattle, try doing a Youtube search for “education+seattle+nonprofit” to discover new partners and supporters.
If you are a larger organization like The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, search for keywords that include your organization name to see what people are saying about you.

Are we missing any key action items that have helped you maximize your use of the tools above? Let us know!

Fashionistas Flocking to Goodwill?

October 12, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

With the economy down, what’s a money-minded fashionista to do? Head to Goodwill, of course!

There was a time when ‘Goodwill’ and ‘fashionista’ never would have been uttered in the same breath. But the times they are a-changing. And Goodwill, to its great credit, is changing right along with them.

And it’s paying off. Even though times are tough, Goodwill is thriving and the DC Goodwill is no exception.

It used to be that you were either a donor or a shopper, but rarely both. A few years ago, the Goodwill of Greater Washington noticed the people donating clothes were also buying clothes. And that the shoppers weren’t just looking for any old bargain–they were looking for stylish bargains and had a particular penchant for vintage. These shoppers were young, hip, and fashionable.

And what did the savvy marketing team at DC Goodwill do with this newfound knowledge? They went where their hipsta shoppers already were: online.

In 2007, they hosted The Fashion of Goodwill, an online fashion show & auction. The event was covered by CNN, as well as the local ABC and NBC affiliates. The 2008 show ended up on the cover of the Washigton Post’s business section. Clearly, they were onto something.

Emboldened by the success of their online forays, they launched what has become a gem of a blog: DC Goodwill Fashionista. Written by people who are Goodwill fashionistas themselves, the blog dishes up fashion tips, reveals current trends and connects readers with what they love: fashion. It is a huge success.

Brendan Hurley, Senior Vice-President for the Goodwill of Greater Washington, is the first to say that, although it hasn’t always been easy, it’s been worth it.

“We knew we needed to change perceptions and engage these new shoppers,” Hurley explains. “We’ve always used a multi-channel approach. We needed to make sure the message that we have good merchandise at a great price reached them. That meant experimenting online.”

One of their key goals was to “match the customer experience with the brand promise.” This meant making the in-store experience consistent with the on-line experience they had come to know (and love!) via the DC Fashionista. They upgraded their stores, changed lighting and rearranged merchandise all with fasionistas in mind.

And it’s working. “We feel like we’ve caught lightening in a bottle with our social media,” says Hurley.

Here are Hurley’s key lessons for nonprofits looking to integrate social media into their marketing:

Go into it with a long-term view. Social media is about relationships and we all know that relationships need to be cultivated and maintained over time. Don’t expect overnight success or you’ll be disappointed.
Experiment and expect some experiments to fail. DC Goodwill had a clunker when they tried to start a LinkedIn discussion group. They shut it down after two weeks. Failure isn’t fun but it’s par for the course when you’re trying out something new.
Start small. No one batted an eye when Hurley pulled the plug on the ill-fated LinkedIn attempt. Why? Because the marketing team had a series of small wins (and some really big ones!) that all together made for a successful track-record. Small may not be flashy, but it works.

Hurley remains humble about their success. “The more we grow, the more we realize how little we know.” With plans to bring on a staffer dedicated solely to social media staff person in the near future, it’ll be exciting to see what Goodwill of Greater Washington does next.

Follow DC Goodwill Fashionista on FB and Twitter to have all the best in fashion and shopping…at your fingertips!

Suggested Resource: For a great primer on integrating social media into your marketing efforts, check out Care2’s recent webinar. Hot or Not: What’s Sizzling in Online Fundraising?

Dancing the Marketing-Fundraising Tango

October 4, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression: It takes two to tango. What you might not have realized is that, if you do nonprofit marketing and/or fundraising, you’re part of a tango-ing twosome.

That’s right. As a nonprofiteer you are as passionate about your mission as Argentinian tango masters are about their lifts, twirls and sultry gazes. Unfortunately, the Marketing-Fundraising Tango often involves two dancers swirling around the dance floor on their own, rather than as a dynamic duo.

We all know that when marketing and fundraising coordinate their steps, it’s a sight to behold. Donors get a print newsletter with a hand-written note from their fav development officer. Volunteers are highlighted in a blog post that then gets forwarded to fans and friends. Donor profiles are so compelling they end up in Facebook posts all over the world wide web. And messaging is clear, consistent and compelling regardless of who wrote it, says it, or tweets it.

You might be rolling your eyes and thinking, “We dance more like Elaine from Seinfeld than [Argentinian tango legend] Mariana Mazzola!” Don’t worry–anyone can learn to tango. Really.

To get you started, here are three simple things you can do to dramatically improve your Marketing-Fundraising Tango:

Write short n’ sweet job descriptions for your marketing and fundraising teams. If you write a job description, it becomes clear who is in charge of what. No two organizations are alike. In some organizations, the fundraising team handles the newsletter. In others, that’s up to the marketing team. Same with the website, annual report, blogs, events, etc. The point is to get clarity for your organization so you can dance in concert. The job descriptions shouldn’t be long or take long. Try to keep them to 2-3 sentences. Then share them with both teams and discuss at your next All Team Meeting (see #3 below).
Once you’re clear on which team is in charge of what, have each team set their top 3 goals for the year. Then make sure everyone knows what they are. It sounds so obvious, but it’s shocking how little info-sharing happens between teams. It’s handy if you know where your partner is headed on the dance floor! [Note: Even if you are a team of 1, do #1 and #2. It’ll bring clarity and focus to your work, which is especially important if you’re a super small shop!]
Dancers get good because they practice. They learn to read the other person’s body language and adjust accordingly. So hold weekly All Team Meetings where everyone from marketing and fundraising gets to know what’s going on across both teams. Since most of us need an extra meeting as much as we need two left feet, think about merging existing team meetings or at least shortening them so you’re making the most of the time you’re already investing in meetings. By knowing what your partner is doing and thinking as a marketing-fundraising duo, you will naturally begin to think about how fundraising and marketing efforts can augment each other. For example: if your marketing department posts a great article, the development director could send the link to a donor to make sure they saw it. Or the development department could post a story highlighting a top donor once a month on the blog and the marketing department could then use the profiles in the quarterly newsletter. Over time, you will be able to anticipate each other’s steps and take full advantage of your partner’s fancy footwork.

With job descriptions, goals and weekly meetings, you’ll be doing the Marketing-Fundraising Tango in no time!

Belief is a terrible thing to waste

September 22, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

On April 25, 1944, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and others incorporated the United Negro College Fund. They believed that it was time to “reject the prejudices of the past and consider the inner person.” Their first fundraising effort garnered $760,000, which would be worth about $8.6 million today. In 1959, Sen. John F. Kennedy donated the proceeds of his book, Profiles in Courage, to the UNCF. In 1972, famed ad man Forest Long came up with what is perhaps the most widely recognized nonprofit tagline ever: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Why has the UNCF garnered such unbridled enthusiasm?

In our humble opinion, UNCF has attracted and retained loyal supporters because they have stayed true to the reason they created the organization in the first place–their belief that “it was time to reject the prejudices of the past and consider the inner person”. They have undoubtedly experimented with new programs, new messaging, and new ways to raise money. But their core belief has remained the same.

The articulation of this core belief is an organization’s Belief Proposition.

The for-profit sector focuses on Value Propositions. But in the nonprofit sector, our currency is beliefs, not value. (Note: Values are of course important to us nonprofiteers. That is different from value, with no ‘s’.) Belief Propositions are the philanthropic sector’s raison d’etre.

Your Belief Proposition answers the question: “Why do we exist?” Most organizations tell you what they do and how they do it. But very few tell you why. This is a huge missed opportunity since people engage with a cause because it speaks to their hearts, not their heads.

Don’t believe me? Think of the organization to which you’ve given the most money, time and energy over time. Did you do that because you were struck by their admin to program ratio? Probably not. You might have seen that ratio and nodded your head in approval, but it wasn’t what inspired you time and again to engage. We engage because we believe in why the organization is doing what they’re doing and we like how they are doing it.

When you lead with why you believe, you build strong relationships with others who share your belief. This has been true for UNCF, as well as thousands of other organizations that, over time, have not just survived but thrived.

What does your organization believe?

Avoiding Messaging Mayhem

September 21, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

Remember the game ‘telephone’ from grade school? The first person would whisper something to the next and it would make its way down the line until it got to the last person who would announce the then mangled sentence. I love that game. But I don’t love it when it happens to nonprofits and it happens a lot.

We talked about this game when I recently spoke at the Washington Food Coalition’s Annual Conference because there was a lot of angst about “losing control of our message” among this great group of folks.

My suggestion was to focus on making it really easy for people passionate about their organizations to spread the word about your organization. That means picking one thing that everyone will focus on. One thing; not your everything.

When it comes to messaging, success isn’t everyone repeating the same one phrase verbatim; success is when your fans can consistently convey the most important and compelling thing about your organization while still making it feel personal.

This is why all organizations benefit from having a simple Messaging Framework. You should see the relief on the faces of staff and volunteers when they know how to talk about the good work you’re doing.

Here is a template that will help you develop a Messaging Framework Template. It’s simple, straight-forward and will make people jump for joy at the opportunity to learn more about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Top Three 2010 Nonprofit Must-Reads

September 17, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

2010 has been a mighty good year for books packed with ideas for people wanting to make the world a better place. Below are three of our favorites. They had us nodding our heads, posting snippets on Facebook, and saying things like “Exactly!” and “Right on!”over and over again.

As you cozy up for some autumn reading, we urge you to add these to your stack. And, if you buy them off Amazon today, you’ll get 34% off the list price. Nice! Buy them. Read them. Take notes. Share them. You won’t regret it.

Three 2010 Nonprofit Must-Reads:

1. The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, Beth Kantor and Allison H. Fine

Our Favorite Quote: “Tools will come and go, but strategy sustains organizations.”

2. The Nonprofit Marketing Guide, Kivi Leroux Miller

Our Favorite Quote: “Focus on the basics first, and do them well.”

3. Uncharitable, Dan Pallotta

Our Favorite Line: “If we have the courage to be true to our most daring ideas, the ideology will have to surrender to their magnificence and our determination to make them real.”

Are we missing any good ones? Please share your suggestions below.