Don’t Start a Nonprofit

We get a lot of calls from well-intentioned individuals wanting to make a difference in the world. That’s great. We need more caring people making a difference. We don’t necessarily need another nonprofit organization to do so.

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FREE WEBINAR: Words Matter

Improve the power of your response with writing that grabs your readers’ attention. Unfortunately, nonprofits are known for writing from an institutional point of view (what we do), rather than a client-centered perspective (how you benefit). Writing that paints a clear picture for the reader, involves them emotionally, and conveys the personality of your organization is often an overlooked opportunity to forge a bond with your donors and increase your response rate.

To help you get the most impact from your writing, I urge you to attend a free  webinar called “Writing it Right – Why the Words and Format Matter in Business” by Alan Siege on Wednesday, August 5, 1 pm – 2 pm, ET.

He will discuss how to write effective e-mails, memos and reports with an emphasis on ensuring that the message you need to give and the action you want the recipient to take, is clear and well presented.  He will analyze each approach and give examples where, when done well, there is little or no ambiguity.  He will also provide examples that the participants can take with them as “take-aways” that provide added value.

Learn more: Writing it Right – Why the Words and Format Matter in Business

WEBSITE: Friends of Karen

Friends of Karen  |  http://friendsofkaren.org

We have updated the branding for this nonprofit organization and developed a new website that helps drive their online donations. The site features the new logo and tagline that we developed and is oriented around the needs of potential donors to drive online fundraising as well as toward families that may need the service. The homepage features a rotating series of images and quotes to convey the invaluable help that Friends of Karen brings to families in need, and the site features a media section with newsletters, news coverage, photo gallery and videos. The site also features an events section and online donation system that works through Acceptiva to accept online donations and handle online registration for events. This nonprofit website is designed in Drupal with a full content management system that allows the organization to update content on their own.

Read the full Nonprofit Branding Case Study.

Reactionary or Pro-active?

Crain’s New York Business reports that New York nonprofits are reporting drops in income ranging from 10% to an astonishing 70%.

WAKE UP CALL: Cutting costs is a reactionary response that will not help nonprofits set themselves up for success. Now is the time to re-assess your mission, strategy, services and business model, identify organizational competitive advantages, seek opportunities for collaboration and ways of creating more impact so that your organization is more, rather than less, valuable to donors and the people it serves.


Fail Fast: How to Inspire Innovation

How do you foster innovation in your organization? Well, most organizations are more worried about making mistakes than the potential upside benefit. So the key in managing your mistakes.
Rita McGrath, Professor, Columbia Business School gives this advice: Recognize that you can’t measure the rate of failure, but you can manage the cost, so manage the cost. You can have a lot of failures if they are cheap. In short: fail cheaply.
And these days you can fail more cheaply than ever before, so it’s a good time to push the boundaries and explore new ground, whether it’s in developing new services, finding new funding methods, launching new fundraising events, exploring partnerships or collaborations or getting your feet wet in social media.
And if your effort doesn’t work out, learn from it and apply it to your next step.
But when you fail in your pursuit of progress, take note of the lessons. Think of it like tuition – You paid the tuition, so benefit from it. Recognize things you have learned that can make you more competitive in your core mission or can be by someone else.
WAKE UP CALL: Are you willing to create a new measurement of success for your organization? One that can take on new challenges, fail fast, cheap and move on, measuring your success by the amount of learning, willingness to grow, progress toward a goal and willingness to stop and move on to something else.
Resource: www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-91LvoyAZo&feature=channel

How do you foster innovation in your organization? Most organizations are more worried about making mistakes than the potential upside benefit. So the key is in taking the initiative, and managing your mistakes.

Rita McGrath, Professor, Columbia Business School gives this advice: Recognize that you can’t measure the rate of failure, but you can manage the cost, so manage the cost of your mistakes and benefit from them. You can have a lot of failures if they are cheap. In short: fail cheaply.Continue reading