Copywriting

Need some new ideas for your newsletter, blog or social media? Consider one of these five summer-inspired themes: 1. Summer Heat. How does hot weather impact your services or your clients? Can you offer advice to your readers about anything related to summer heat? Humane societies can offer tips for keeping pets cool. Agencies that address…

At Turnkey, we explore other fields of study to improve fundraising success. The field we draw the most from is social science. Not only do I use it from my chair as CEO, but our bright young minds in production use it as well. Julian May, our senior content editor and ace account manager, let me in on his social science-bolstered copywriting method...

"Game of Thrones" is back for its sixth season, much to the delight of fans of the show that has garnered the most illegal downloads in television history. For a show that tells the story of a fantasy world where dragons, ice-zombies and baby-spirit-murderers run rampant, it still does a pretty great job of threading…

Storytelling can be an endeavor that takes a lot of time and resources. For nonprofits that are small shops or that are strapped for time or resources, this can be a big barrier to telling their stories. Today, I want to share a few tips to help organizations in this position ensure that their powerful…

There’s an old joke about a minister who preaches the same sermon three weeks in a row. When confronted about it, he replies, "When you start doing what this sermon teaches, I’ll move on to another topic."...

Communication is key to achieving success in any undertaking, business or otherwise. So, it makes sense that the communications team would be a crucial subset of a nonprofit. The "2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends" infographic from Nonprofit Marketing Guide delves into the the who, where, how often and why behind the communications department...

I spoke at a client’s conference this past winter. I was in Little Rock, Ark., with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) at its leadership conference. After my return home, I received a handwritten thank-you note from Nicole Dolan, my client and one of the organizers of the meeting...

Yes, I know how much it costs to send out a newsletter. But I also know that done right, a newsletter is a moneymaker for your organization. It’s a win-win—more net income and more opportunities to build loyal donors. In other words, a newsletter is one of the remedies we can apply to dwindling donor-retention rates. Done well, a newsletter can be a dollop of glue to bind your donors to the organization...

For some time now, I’ve been saying fundraising has changed more in the past five to 10 years than in the previous 50. It’s due to the digital revolution that fundamentally has changed business as usual—for everyone. Change is inevitable, yet change is hard. And nonprofits seem to have a more difficult time embracing change than their for-profit counterparts. Perhaps it’s due to the way social-benefit organizations are structured.

I have a favorite charity that regularly demands I buy from it, but rarely asks that I support it. Since September, I have received 23 emails from this organization. Eight of those emails had the word "buy" or a cash prize for something in the subject line...