Creative

The sad fact is that the direct-mail highway is littered with packages that failed to live up to their initial test results.

Whether you love, hate or have never seen "Breaking Bad," there’s a lot to learn from its emotionally intense, can’t-stop-watching storytelling. Pay special attention to these to-dos for your nonprofit storytelling: Remain flexible, i.e., stay relevant. Show and tell. Distribution is everything.  Here’s how to break out of bad nonprofit stories …

An effective year-end fundraising campaign plan requires a lot of thoughtful planning. One question to throw into the mix is — who’s asking? Take some time to think not just about what you are saying to donors, but who is delivering the message. This includes whose signature is at the end of your direct-mail letter, what name is in the “from” field in your e-mails and who (if anyone) is calling up past donors to remind them to give.

Taking a break from television to dip in to a little high-quality fiction will make you a better writer. It might even make you a better person.

Kivi Leroux Miller talks with FundRaising Success about her book, "Content Marketing for Nonprofits," and what the concept of content marketing means for fundraisers.

This Lighthouse Counsel podcast features an interview with Del Martin of DEL-ux Consulting Group.

Content marketing is the future of marketing. Indeed, marketers are rushing in droves to create content, while abandoning traditional marketing outlets like PR, radio, print and TV, and even Web search. But many are running into unexpected problems. If you’re involved in content marketing, you probably face difficulties yourself. Here are the five big problems content marketers face and how to overcome them.

In fundraising copywriting, find the words that stir your readers' senses. They are the first step toward touching their hearts.

In "Content Marketing for Nonprofits," Kivi Leroux Miller mentions a language study by Jen Shang, a psychologist who studies philanthropic behavior and uncovered nine agitators Americans use to define a good person: kind, caring, compassionate, helpful, friendly, fair, hard-working, generous and honest.

Your community acts when emotions are triggered. Using the words listed above will increase the likelihood that they’ll do something, whether it’s donating, volunteering or simply sharing your campaign with their friends.

It takes a real self-abnegation to do fundraising right. It takes discipline and focus to put aside your own preferences instead of donors'. Fundraising from yourself is the easy, feel-good path. But it won't feel so good when the zombies of failure start gnawing on your revenue.