Online Fundraising

There are 142 days left in 2016. That sounds like a lot, and it is if you start thinking about year-end direct response fundraising now. But if you wait, there’s a good chance you will leave money on the table because of missed opportunities and no time to give it your best effort. For those of you who want to enjoy the holidays knowing that you’ve done all you can to maximize the income your nonprofit will receive, here are some things to work into your planning...

When the topic is email fundraising, testing subject lines inevitably comes up. Of course, subject lines are critical. Think of the famous one from Barack Obama's organization: "Hey." It was a big winner. But the "from" line can also make a big difference in open rates. After all, one of the reasons "Hey" worked was…

For the past three years,  I have had the honor of serving as the facilitator for the Knight Foundation Peer Learning Exchange for the Giving Day Initiative. Today, the foundation has released a new report: “Beyond the Dollars: The Long-Term Value of Giving Days for Community Foundations,” written by Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies. The…

Are you thinking about participating in a giving day? Good news! There are so many organizations that have given it a try, and you can learn from them (the good and the bad). Look at their websites, donation landing pages, countdown clocks, emails, social media accounts, images and hashtags. Do a Google News search to…

Yesterday, Facebook announced a major overhaul of its News Feed, updating the algorithm to reduce the ranking and reach of articles with so-called "clickbait" headlines. The social media behemoth attempted this before, in 2014, but those measures apparently weren't strong enough. Its users, the site said, want even fewer clickbait posts in their News Feeds. Here's what it means for nonprofits...

The annual fund campaign is a cornerstone of most nonprofit fundraising strategies. Annual fund campaigns refer to a set of strategies that nonprofits implement to raise the funds needed to cover their operational expenses. Generally, they’re made up of three main components: outreach, fundraising events and direct asks. The unifying thread of these components is…

The internet has made a lot of things either obsolete or virtually obsolete in recent years, including bookstores, record stores, video stores and print journalism. In the early days of the web, however, very few would have predicted that online charity would have a sizable impact on the world at large. Yet the internet is…

Beth Helmstetter is an event planner and designer. She specializes in destination weddings. She has an MBA in nonprofit administration and worked in the nonprofit industry for years before turning to the $50 billion wedding industry. Now, she wants to combine the two worlds. And she says there’s great appetite for it. Weddings are an…

With more than 1 billion websites across the digital landscape, we know there are some elements that are mandatory for effective web experiences...

Out of nowhere, a huge fad sweeps the country. It dominates social media and leads to a blizzard of think pieces, which are followed almost immediately by a backlash, as critics warn of the fad’s baleful consequences. Eventually, people get bored and move on to something new. That could well be the story of "Pokemon…