Great information on all popular nonprofit topics written by experts in the field!

By Julia Campbell In my work with nonprofits, I often hear the same refrain about nonprofit marketing and communications: People are feeling very overwhelmed and stressed out by their never-shrinking to do lists. With so many digital marketing and online fundraising tools out there, how can a small nonprofit choose what to focus on, and how can they manage their time and resources effectively? There are constantly emails to send out, a website to update, a Facebook page and Twitter feed to manage, Instagram and Snapchat to explore, plus phone calls and meetings… how can a small nonprofit get it all done? The answer? You don’t have to do it all! Creating a Strategic Online Nonprofit...

Corporations invest in social responsibility programs and activities to support their triple bottom line: people, profits, and the planet. Companies are smart to be concerned about corporate social responsibility (CSR), both because CSR is a driver among consumer groups and because some labels— think “organic,” “recycled,” “smaller carbon footprint”— are generally more costly for companies to attain, thereby reducing shareholder profitability. A corporation’s long-term success is based on its ability to balance the vision against the interests of key stakeholder groups. As a for-profit company, my company–JustWrite Solutions–considers these questions all the time. We have a formal CSR...

Blog Post by Heather Stombaugh Strategies and tactics in fundraising may change, but print publications continue to be a critical resource in the nonprofit toolbox. According to Kivi Leroux Miller’s 2016 Nonprofit Communication Trends report, print remains one of the top five most important communication channels in the nonprofit sector. Image Credit: Kivi Leroux Miller Every nonprofit should invest in creating compelling fundraising publications. However, in the tumult of other pressing needs, many small nonprofits put off developing their annual reports, cases for support, and other collateral to save money. Let me put this simply: in ANY business, you must spend money to make money....

Step 1 – Strategizing Our case study is about Save The Redwoods and their mission is to protect and restore Redwood forests. To help fulfill this mission, we wanted to reach out to their target audience, i.e. people concerned about the Redwood forests, for support.

By A.J. Steinberg

Have you ever received a rejection letter from a grantmaker and wondered what you could have done differently? Have you ever wondered, as you clicked submit for a significant government grant via online application, how your proposal will be received by reviewers? You aren’t alone! Grant writing is more of an art than a science if you consider how to customize your application and your organization’s story to meet the needs of each unique set of grant reviewers for each grantmaker. The best way to successfully achieve this art? Walk a mile in your grant reviewer’s shoes. Step back and look at your proposal as if YOU were the reviewer. Here are 5 key questions to ask yourself as you try to...

We’re big believers in the power of monthly donors. We have been managing monthly donor programs for decades and have seen the ongoing revenue it provides, especially in times of crisis. In some cases, it’s kept organizations afloat; even if they could not send appeals to ask for money, the monthly donations kept the funds coming in. That’s why we maintain that every organization can (and should) organize a monthly giving program. A few years ago when we first started teaching webinars at CharityHowTo, monthly giving was still in its infancy and was used primarily by larger organizations. But today, monthly giving is becoming more and more popular. With the right tools — which you may very...

I love teaching the Annual Reports webinars for CharityHowTo’s participants (How to Create an Awesome Annual Report and How to Transition Your Annual Report to an Infographic). Professionals who attend and engage have excellent questions, constructive ideas for others, and thoughtful approaches to serving their donors. And fundraising publications are one of my favorite topics in development. Sure, as a professional writer, I’m biased, but every nonprofit needs them and (should) use collateral all the time! While I know the folks who attend these webinars benefit from the conversation, I have also noticed a big problem. I receive A LOT of emails from potential participants who are...

You’ve seen them all over the interwebs. You run into them as you’re scrolling through your feed on Facebook, as you’re checking your Twitter updates, as you’re looking for remodeling ideas on Pinterest. They’re infographics, and they’re everywhere. But more importantly for nonprofits: infographics (and other data visualization tools) are not a passing trend. It’s time you add them to your fundraising toolbox. Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly. Other data visualization tools—like charts, graphs, pictograms, gauges, dashboards, etc.—similarly present data in a pictorial or graphic...

Would you believe me if I told you that the grant budget is often the *first* reviewed portion of a grant application packet by the grant reviewer, grantmaker staff, or grantmaker board?

We recently hosted the webinar “Raising More Money with Event Sponsorship – A New Approach That Works!” by Joe Waters, author of Cause Marketing for Dummies. Here are some great tips Joe gave on how to partner with businesses to raise money for your nonprofit.