Public Relations

Yes, we need to keep developing networks of peers and supporting each other. We need to keep patting ourselves on the back and giving out awards for excellence and "badges of awesomeness." However, I think the time has come for us to do more. We must start 
to change the negative public perception of this 
profession.

An innovative capcity-building grant from Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento helps small nonprofits learn to become self-sustaining organizations built for the long haul.

Here are six more online fundraising communications takeaways gleaned from the 2010 elections.

Here are three of the main ways marketing was turned on its head in 2010, and what that means for fundraisers.

It's 2010, and it's getting easier to tell the story about the people you serve. All you need is a cheap Flip Video camera, a social-media platform and a few solid questions to ask. The story is just waiting to be told. Unfortunately, it's much harder to tell a story your donors will identify with.

At the 2010 Bridge Conference in National Harbor, Md., last Wednesday, Tony Elischer, managing director of Think Consulting Solutions, said fundraisers should focus on the third “R” — rewriting, as in rewriting how you think and how you fundraise. To do that, he proposed looking at fundraising as four babies — brave baby, baby and the bathwater, looking to the future baby, and fully managed baby — in his keynote presentation, “Futurology 2010: Focus, Determination & Transformation."

Miriam Isserow
development consultant/
former development director
Women Empowered Against Violence

Truth be told, it was this nomination from Lauren Hines, development director at the Council for Court Excellence and a colleague of Miriam Isserow's, that prompted us to go with the "superhero" theme for this year's awards.

Christina Johns
senior manager of DRTV and social networking
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

Christina Johns came onto FS' radar last year when she pitched an idea to write about social networking in regard to nonprofit organizations. We were impressed with how 
comfortable she was with a subject that was so new to the sector and one that was causing all kinds of angst among even the most 
daring fundraising pros. She has an impressive and easy grasp of (and genuine passion for) the social-
networking milieu — its possibilities, its limitations and the strategies needed to make it work.