A nonprofit needs visibility to acquire community support in the form of participants and donors. Resources for developing and implementing a good Communications & Public Relations program will be found in this section.
feature articles:
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Would you like a picture that attracts the eye and helps your readers to see at a glance what your newsletter, blog or website is about don’t have the time or opportunity to go take a photograph? Your site can look as slick as you like with free pictures you can access, legally. Click here to find good sources for free or public domain images. Click here to find three free online image editing tools. And if you’re looking for an easier, more organized way to help your team work together on a better website, have a look at Notable. Using social media and online networking sites as a nonprofit’s larger communication or marketing strategies raises a number of potential legal risks and associated liability exposure. With advance planning, these risks can be managed effectively. Here is a non-exhaustive list of legal tips and issues to consider in connection with using social networking sites or social media either to create/manage content or to send or sponsor content.
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- Here are two quick-and-dirty ways to make your organization’s blog or website a little more “phone-friendly” in almost no time, without any cost at all.
- YouTube’s got a special program for nonprofits but it’s not the only video-sharing game in town. Wider video distribution can mean greater exposure for your organization in return for a relatively small investment of time and effort. Here you’ll find seven additional free video sharing sites.
- How's your tagline compare? A nonprofit organization’s tagline is, next to its name, the marketing message most frequently heard, and the easiest and most effective way to convey its brand. A strong tagline complements an organization’s name to convey its unique value or impact with personality, passion and commitment. Nonprofits that fail to make the most of their taglines are basically throwing that opportunity away. This mega-tagline report is a tool for getting you to say more using the fewest words.
- Building relationships with the media can turn into good coverage for your cause. You have to realize that your local reporters are just as bored writing or producing the same old holiday stories as we are of reading and watching them! Now is the time to start thinking about a creative spin that you can put on the upcoming stories your local media outlets will be producing. Here are eight ideas to help you think creatively about your holiday season media outreach.
- Watch this video that will tell you how to make the best of the space, under your signature line, on your email. Everyone on your staff should be taking advantage of this free PR opportunity.
- What’s your favorite T.V. show? Would you like to see them weave your agency into their plot? Here's what you have to do.
- Gear Up for Giving is a month-long series of social media tutorials, to help nonprofits and their supporters understand how to use key tools and techniques to create awareness, catalyze civic action and cultivate new supporters and donors for their causes. Click here to learn more about it and to access the dates of their tutorials.
- If your non-profit is not taking advantage of some of these easy marketing tools, then you're missing out on some great marketing opportunities. Check out the 10 tools and strategies to market your nonprofit on the web, connect with your members and reach new supporters. They are ranked from easy to moderate to time consuming and many of them are free.
- Your website is a critical asset. Do you need to redesign and/or improve your website? If so, then download this Website Redesign Kit to learn how to keep an internet marketing strategy in mind while doing so. The Kit contains a how-to video and instructional e-Book.
- atch this humorous video to find out how video/u-tube volunteers are helping charities create videos to raise money. After you watch the video to see how it works, scroll down to the bottom of the page where it asks "Are you a non-profit who needs help creating great videos for your cause?" Then follow the instructions to list your agency.
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Some of the benefits to having your CEO Twitter include: using it as another source of news, brand building, focus group/research, networking, monitoring, driving traffic to web site and humanizing your communications. This article also lets you know which non-profit CEO's are currently taking advantage of this social media.
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When you download this guide, you will find seven important steps to a more successful email fundraising and communications effort. Included with the guide is an e-newsletter template and it's FREE.
This is a great article that clarifies the differences between Facebook Pages, Groups and Profiles. It gives you tips for managing them and is written in plain English without all the new lingo that normally would throw you for a loop.
A recent study found that 90% of all NPO websites received less than 5% of their funds online, but that 10% received more than 50% of their donated funds online. Here's an article that tells you what the 10% did and how you can do it.
A study shows that people prefer simple vs. complex communications. This seems like a no-brainer, but often those who are experts in their field do not know how to write so that it’s understandable. This article suggests that the financial crisis could have been avoided if those who should be doing the “checks and balances” could understand what the heck they were reading. The lesson for us = communicate using words that are easily understandable.
- This is such a valuable series of marketing tools – things you MUST do, things you COULD do, things to get you in the social network world (if you’re not). Remember that if you need help getting onto Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., go to this site and learn how to do it in less than two minutes!
- Save on Annual Report production costs
Great $$ saving sample for your annual report. Here’s a great example that you could “borrow.” No more printers. No more post office. No more large envelopes. See this excellent example of how you could save, show that you’re environmentally conscious and look great, too
- Here are some great ideas on how to put out a newsletter that gets read.
- An image says a thousand words! It can help you spread and attract attention. Use infographics to make complex information clear, memorable and indicative of who and what your agency is.
- Get Noticed
There are a kazillion non-profit organizations in the United States (or 1.6 million or 2 million, depending who you believe) but the point is that there are probably hundreds or thousands of non-profit organizations in your community. With numbers like that, how can your non-profit stand out from the rest when you may not even have a budget for PR? Here are two FREE ideas. The first one is easy and the second one may take some time but it will be totally worth it.
- Your Annual Report
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation went from a 56 page annual report to a 12 page, online, interactive version! In addition to the usual PDF (although a very accessible 12 pages), they added a presentation, a feedback form, and a variety of other features designed to make it more suited to online perusal and online interaction. The times are certainly changing. Is it possible that non-profits will save a lot of money by doing the same? Read the article about their transformation.How Do You Get the Attention That Your Non-Profit deserves?
- Mashups? Say what?
It sounds like something you’d order with your steak, but “mashups” is the connection of facts to other existing sources of information. As Marnie Webb explains in her article from NonProfitTimes, the basic recipe of a mashup goes like this: Combine your specific data with one or more public sources of baseline data, and present it in a format that translates your message into a compelling presentation. What makes the presentation compelling? Often it’s the power of visualization -- showing, rather than telling, your story with a map, a graph, or a timeline can have far more oomph than posting thousands of words on your Web site. Of course there are sites that can help you do this, or you can create it yourself if you have the techno-experts around to make it happen. This article will tell you the who, what, where, when and how.
- Blog, baby, blog.
The folks at one non-profit say it’s “like being on the six o’clock news everyday.” The attraction of blogging, for some, is the ability for self-publication, without the hassles, or cost of printing a newspaper or newsletter. - The Art of Chunking
I know, you think this must be another slang word for “throwing-up,” “upchucking” or “hurling.” Not so! The point is made that when people read a hard copy, they read from start to finish, but when people read online, they may start at wherever Google sent them and skip around from page to page, so it is important to write CHUNKS of information that you don’t want them to miss, on every page. Click here to learn the art of chunking.
- Buzz Words
While she was in the hospital, trying to heal her body from cancer, Wendy Bay Lewis, came up with a dictionary of “the essential words and concepts you need to communicate and work with colleagues at nonprofit organizations, foundations,
national service programs, and community-based groups. Beyond simple definitions, you will learn how words and concepts connect us to each other as well as to service and change.” Look in her table of contents under philanthropy, for example, and pick up a number of terms that will keep you in the know. - The Non-Profit’s theme song should be -“Protect yourself. If you don’t protect yourself, ain’t nobody gonna give a big kahoot.” (Thank you Aretha). From the NonProfit Risk Management Center’s June 18, 2008 e-news: A cancer survivor and his mother, whose stories were featured in a nonprofit’s promotional literature, have sued the nonprofit AND the founder/trustee personally, for invasion of privacy, defamation, and “false-endorsement,” among other claims. The bottom line: get authorization and a release before using words attributed to or images of donors/supporters on web sites, annual reports or other marketing materials. For a sample release form and other good ideas on obtaining the best testimonials, see: http://www.museummarketingtips.com/articles/recruit2.html. For a photo release form, see the article below on this site.
- Photo Release Form
CYA by having the people you serve and volunteers sign this Photo Release, incase you decide to use their pictures in a brochure, on your website, in the newspaper or on a holiday card. - How to Make a Gift
You need donors - long term, short term, any which way you can get 'em. How to Make A Gift is a list of ways that people can choose to contribute to your agency. You can use this in a brochure, or on your website. - Desperately Seeking Visibility.
You should be seeking visibility for your agency because visibility is your link to donors. Whether or not you choose to start a blog is up to you. You need a volunteer or staff person who writes well and can keep it up to date. Find out if you should be doing this by reading the 10 Reasons Why Every Nonprofit Must Have A Blog. - Have you thought of blogging for your nonprofit? - read more here and here.
- Press Release Template.
- Public Relations/Marketing Assessment.
- Tons of NPO Blogs (see right side bar).
- Preparing for a crisis.
- Working with your local media.
- Managing the media.
- The future of your organization lies in the effective use of the internet.
- The basics of media relations.
- If you write it with emotion, they will give.
- Five tech tips to punch up communications.
- How to write a press release and where to send it.
- Ten steps to stronger NP communications.
- How to market your planned giving program.
- 10 mistakes to avoid with email newsletters.
- Photos help nonprofits tell their stories
- Advanced planning is the key to crisis communication
- You can't tell your story unless you know who you are! Helpful article how to find out and tell the story.