Digital Tip of the Month

These tips come from my email newsletter and are geared at providing useful tidbits for nonprofit digital staff. You can sign up to receive tips like these monthly in your inbox.

To boycott, or not to boycott (Facebook)?

I want to talk about Facebook, which has been in the news lately for a couple things relevant to nonprofits: There’s a growing movement for businesses and organizations to boycott Facebook, especially Facebook ads, because of the hostile and hateful environment Facebook has created for Black people. Some are boycotting through the month of July, others (more boldly) for the rest of the year. The coalition driving this effort has guidelines for who should participate and how. Less important, but still noteworthy, Facebook will now give users an opportunity to opt out of seeing political ads—which includes ads from most nonprofits, because Facebook doesn’t distinguish between social issues and political campaigns. As a consultant, I feel like I ought to have a clear recommendation for how to deal with Facebook, but this is murky territory, and I can’t make a clear list of do’s and don’ts. But I do have lot of thoughts on the increasingly fraught quagmire that is the Facebook nonprofit landscape. Facebook is making it harder and harder for nonprofits to reach audiences organically. Facebook is also putting up hurdles to reaching audiences through ads. Facebook is still rife with barely-policed misinformation. And despite all that, Facebook Read More

One week until the new Giving Tuesday. Are you taking part?

This is a time for adaptation. We might be stuck inside, and the days might blur together, but even once we’ve adapted our home and work lives to the new normal, that normal isn’t static. The situation is constantly changing, and as nonprofit communicators and fundraisers, we’re all searching for ways to fit our work into this alarming new world. For example, #GivingTuesdayNow. You probably know that the folks behind Giving Tuesday are organizing a new day of giving on May 5th in response to the COVID-19 crisis. For organizations already grappling with whether and how to fundraise during this time, Giving Tuesday Now adds a layer of urgency: should we participate? If so, how? Will we offend people by fundraising? Will we miss out if we don’t? Here are some thoughts on how to fundraise during COVID-19, and on #GivingTuesdayNow specifically. Should my organization even be fundraising right now? Yes. My feeling, and that of nearly all fundraisers and fellow consultants I’ve talked to, is that this is no time to stop raising money. If your work mattered before the pandemic, it still matters (though perhaps in a different way), and you still need to fundraise to support it. Read More

Organizing in the Time of Coronavirus: Tips and Resources for Nonprofits

It’s astounding how fast everything can change. I was looking forward to NTC and WordCamp this month, and now they’re both, sadly but necessarily, cancelled. (You can donate to NTEN to help counteract the big financial hit they’re taking from cancelling the conference.) The silver lining is that the nonprofit community is wonderful at rallying around challenges, and folks are doing great things to create new training opportunities as well as enable nonprofits to carry on our important work (now more important than ever) with minimal interruptions. I’ve compiled some of my favorite lists of resources below, along with some thoughts on communicating amid the crisis, which I hope is helpful. Coronavirus resources for nonprofits Here are some conferences and training opportunities that you can access remotely: Organizing 2.0 is now online only. The Create Good conference has also moved online. Rad Campaign’s Nonprofit Digital Strategy Virtual Summit is free and has some highly relevant topics. NTC is not moving online, but many of the speakers are finding ways to present their content remotely. One effort growing out of this is Plugged In: Nonprofit Tech and Transformation, which is still coming together but will feature a number of would-be NTC Read More

Tip of the Month: So, How’s That Fundraising Going?

Because this has been such an odd calendar for year-end fundraising, with Giving Tuesday happening in December, you may be finding it tricky to measure your results. If your answer to “how’s the fundraising going?” is a big shrug or panicked stammering, I’ve got some tips to help you benchmark yourself. A late Giving Tuesday has thrown all our fundraising estimates out of whack this year. November results will be low, December results will be extra high, and it’s tricky to compare apples to apples to see how you’re performing vs previous years.  Plus, the crucial window between Giving Tuesday and 12/31 is shorter than ever. Here are a few useful ways to benchmark your results so far: Year-End Season to Date. Calculate your running total in donations since November 1, and compare it to the same date range from 2018. This should give you a good picture of how your overall fundraising is stacking up. Time Since Giving Tuesday. To evaluate individual days or weeks, try measuring them in days before/after Giving Tuesday, and compare it to the same relative period before/after Giving Tuesday last year. Percent to Goal. If your fundraising goal is significantly higher or lower than last year, Read More

Tip of the Month: Gratitude, Genuine And Performed

This Thanksgiving week, you may be reflecting on what you’re grateful for in your own life.  This year, I’m especially grateful that I’m able to work with clients that are doing so much good in the world, and that I’m able to make a living doing something I love. As you reflect on your own gratitude, have you thought about gratitude for your supporters and donors? Because this is also a time of year when it’s easy to treat our donors like walking credit cards. It’s the season of big fundraising goals, flashy matching gifts, and an ever-larger bombardment of email appeals. As we watch the numbers, sometimes we may forget that our supporters are real, living people. In our fundraising zeal, we might mentally dismiss those who can’t or don’t donate, discounting the other ways they show support. It’s common to send an email or two this time of year expressing gratitude to our email lists. I’ve seen (and written) a lot of these over the years, and often it’s a routine item on the communications calendar: this is the week we’re supposed to say thanks. The content is usually short, often almost an afterthought. It’s a performative act Read More