The United States Postal Service has been struggling financially for the last few years. The Bush Administration saddled the service with pre-paying its future retiree benefits for a decade (2006-2016), a demand uniquely imposed on the USPS. Bush’s policy meant the service went from profits in the $1.4 billion range in 2005 to one that […]
#Fundraising: To Bring Donations In, Keep Sending Emails Out
With all the buzz about social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, we can lose track of tried-and-true outreach tools. Though these other platforms might be great ways to advertise events or spread late-breaking news about your organization’s work, they are not proving to be efficient fundraising instruments (yet?). John Haydon at Inbound Zombie […]
#Fundraising: Online/Mobile Donations Still Need The Personal Touch
First and foremost, we must mark the death of Steve Jobs, former CEO at Apple, who died of pancreatic cancer yesterday at the age of 56. He helped build a great computing tool. He reconfigured the way movies are made. He revitalized a music industry about to die on the reef of file-sharing, and he […]
#Interview: Sarah Durham, Nonprofit Communications Strategist & Author of “Brandraising”
This interview series is produced with the generous support of the Nonprofit Marketing and Fundraising Zone. Sarah Durham left the world of corporate communications and marketing in 1994 to launch Big Duck, an agency that works exclusively with nonprofit organizations to help them communicate effectively so they can fulfill their missions. She is the author […]
Communications: A Beginners Guide to the Social Networking Services
Leading Age (formerly the American Association for Homes & Services for the Aging) has published a useful guide on their website: it’s a quick look at what social networking is, why you should use it to connect to others and share resources, what the various services do for organizations/individuals, and why one would prefer one […]
#Communications: Postal Rates Up? No Worries: Direct Mail Still Makes Sense.
We’re firm believers that direct mail is not dead, its merely entering the final stages of a metamorphosis into the perfect solution to support: Social media marketing campaigns QR codes; interactive television promo campaigns; and Website landing-pages. So when our friends at Ecoprint reminded us that postal rates will change on April 17 AND we […]
#Interview: Allison Fine, Author & Analyst — Examines Intersection of Social Media & Social Change
Allison Fine researches and writes about the intersection of social media and social change. She is the co-author (with Beth Kanter) of the bestselling book, The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, as well as the award-winning Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age. She hosts a monthly podcast for The […]
Charities Must Increase SM Outreach As Email Becomes Obsolete
Most of our readers (and certainly this writer) can probably well remember our first forays into email. Mine began on the blue-and-grey screen and terminal command line of my university’s PINE email system. The development of graphical interfaces via AOL, then Yahoo! and the like meant (pretty) free and (fairly) instant communication across the street […]