If you haven’t yet seen Dan Pallotta’s 18-minute TED talk, the viral video of the month (April 2013) with more than 1.2 million views, here’s your chance. Pallotta, who founded AIDS Ride and raised $581 million for AIDS and breast cancer research over nine years, argues that philanthropy is being undermined by our beliefs about […]
#DOCUMENTARY: The Brainwashing of My Dad Premiere
Brainwashing comes in many forms…even talk radio and right-wing media. THE BRAINWASHING OF MY DAD is going to have its film festival world premiere at the prestigious Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, CA. If you live in California, we hope you’ll make the trek out to support Jen Senko’s film and see it on […]
#HOWTO: Plan A Film Screening/Festival As A Fundraising Opportunity
As the year’s projects and fundraisers and festivals start rolling onto your computer’s calendar, you might be looking for an opportunity to host a one-off event that can bring much-wanted PR, good karma, and even some financial support. How about sponsoring a film screening? (MKCREATIVEmedia co-produced a film festival for one of our clients earlier […]
#MEETUP: Join Us For The inaugural PechaKucha Night In Baltimore On October 24th
Join us at a unique event organized by Sidas Saulynas, Hillel Glazer, and Marco Kathuria in Baltimore later this month. It’s called, “PechaKucha”. You may have heard of it. It’s the art of concise presentations. If not, you may have heard of “Ignite“? They’re similar, but Ignite has a different goal to that of […]
#FUNDRAISING: Crowdfunding Response To Boston Bombing Raises Hope & Caution
One of the wonderful qualities of Americans is the way we respond with our time and our money when a terrible shock or natural disaster hits our fellow countrypeople. The bombings in Boston on the 15th were certainly ‘terrible shocks’ and as homemade and smartphone videos make clear, volunteers and fellow marathon watchers ran in […]
#FUNDRAISING: Causevox Improves Online Outreach & Fundraising To 2.0
We have often sung the praises of the online charity-site platform Causevox. And we do so again as the good folks at Causevox have released a significant series of upgrades and integrations in version 2.0. It moved out of beta last week, allowing any charity or nonprofit to take advantage of the expanding toolbox. This […]
#FUNDRAISING: Register for Maryland Governor’s Grants Conference
As the calendar year unfolds and the fiscal year 2013-2014 appears over the horizon, so too does registration begin for the Maryland Governor’s Grants Conference. This year’s conference will be held at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus on Thursday, February 21st. The one-day conference − sponsored by such organizations as the National Grant Management […]
#PHILANTHROPY: #Sundance & A3 Foundation Extend Cooperation for Asian-American Artists
Though the Initial Public Offering of Facebook devolved into comic fodder last May, the fact remains that it made many people quite wealthy − especially those who had been working with Zuckerberg’s company from the early days. A number of those who cashed out their stocks and jobs at the social-network giant have since turned toward […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: 4th-Annual Social Media Week Will Educate & Inspire Worldwide
The first Social Media Week went live in 2008, as Twitter was just hitting the mainstream and Lehman Brothers announced it was going bankrupt and would take down the economy with it. For better and worse, much has change. And Social Media Week continues to expand. It started to stress connectivity across continents last year, […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: Politicians & NonProfits Need Agility With Online Outreach
As the Democratic ‘nominee’ Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech last night in Charlotte, NC, a record number of tweets on politics were sent out − some 52,756 tweets-per-minute (tpm) being posted as he wound up. By contrast, Mitt Romney inspired 14,289 tpm, which was about half as many as reactions to Michelle Obama’s presentation two […]
#FUNDRAISING: Presidential Candidates Ramp Up Mobile Giving
With the (delayed) start of the Republican Convention in Tampa earlier this week, the really officially serious campaign season starts. For the next 10-odd weeks, most American start to focus on the candidates, their platforms, and their messages. There has been much talk about the low level of discourse that has driven the campaign thus […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: IOC Struggles To Corral First “Social Olympics” In London
The Opening Ceremonies went off without a hitch. Security concerns have been allayed thus far. The weather hasn’t been too bad. For Americans, we’ve had a few sub-par performances in the pool and on the gymnastics apparatuses, but so far, so good. Unless the issue is how this so-called “First Social Games” is going. The […]
#TECH: Microsoft Surfaces To Shake Up Tablet Market & Challenge iPad…Someday.
Full disclosure: We at MKCREATIVEmedia are pretty Apple-centric, even though we are aware that many of our readers are using Microsoft products to access the blog. So when we heard that Microsoft want to enter the tablet market, we thought, “well, that’s about two years too late.” But we also wanted to see how Microsoft […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: NTEN 2012 Report Shows Real ROI Growth Over Past Year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYcoJWfsQ30[/youtube]
Okay, so you have been developing your nonprofit’s presence on the staples of social media new for a couple of years. Facebook page? Check. Twitter account? Sure. But how much time do you want to put into keeping up with those outlets? Has your organization seen any growth in volunteers or donors thanks to the […]
#FUNDRAISING: Maximizing Your Organization’s Return on Fundraising Events
We are pleased to welcome back Susan Emfinger of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. For her previous posts on institutional fundraising, please click here. In today’s post, I ask readers to imagine a world in which fundraising staff and programmatic work closely together with a variety of “programmatic” events in order to expose the […]
#COMMUNICATIONS: Make Your Next Fundraiser An Online Conversation Too
Though weather in the mid-Atlantic continues to flirt with spring while staying surprisingly loyal to winter, it is the season to be planning summer festivals, fundraisers, and rallies. And if you really want to stay on top of your nonprofit’s schedule, start planning your end-of-year banquet as well (and use Tungle). But in this day […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Kony 2012 Covered The Night. Did It Jump The Shark?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEKr1mjII-c[/youtube]
The sensation that is/was ‘Kony 2012’ has been a part of the nonprofit social-media landscape for six-plus weeks now. The hundreds of millions who made the original video a viral sensation in March were not all supporters of the message, though, and challenges to the drive launched by the San Diego nonprofit ‘Invisible Children’ continue […]
#SM4NP: Kony 2012 Will Get A Sequel & More Context Today
As any Hollywood mogul will confirm, when your movie is watched by 100 million people, you need to make a sequel. That market is just too big to pass up. And the renown viral video Kony 2012 has been viewed well over 100 million times. Nevertheless, the reasons the San Diego based firm ‘Invisible Children’ will […]
#TECH: Latest iPad Shifts Mobile Toward Creative Productivity
Apple unveiled the latest iPad this past Wednesday, and though the third generation, Apple will not call it the ‘iPad 3’. Indeed, one of the interesting sideshows of the product’s history has been the sturm und drang over its name. But for its form factor, the changes are both incremental and market-shifting – typical Apple, really. […]
#HOWTO: Time Those Tweets To Test And Build Impact
Earlier this week we introduced and reviewed a few social-media dashboards to help tame your organization’s streams of updates pouring in. Many platforms (like Hootsuite, TweetDeck, and SproutSocial) also offer the ability to schedule a series of tweets to go out over days, weeks, or months. This feature is obviously handy if your charity has […]
#Tech: CES 2012 Shows Off The Flat Entertainment Coming Post-Recession
Each mid-January, while much of the country is struggling to get through wintery weather and get kids back on a school-day schedule, the brash, bold, and bright world of near-future technology is shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Not the back end of the financial crisis/Great Recession, not the fact […]
#ProAging: CES Highlights Tech For Boomers On-The-Move
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiLya6beplU#![/youtube]
This past 10 through 13 January saw the annual International Consumer Electronics Show present some of the up-and-coming technologies for the next year(s). The CES “is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $186 billion U.S. consumer technology industry.” Most of the news pertains to the latest […]
#Tech: SOPA Inspiring Blackouts & Lobbyists – Should Nonprofits Care?
On the surface, not much seems to be of relevance in the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ (SOPA, H.R. 3261) because nonprofits aren’t really in the business of selling digitized content, much less pirated content. Nevertheless, nonprofit organizations and consumer protection groups are decrying the bill and calling for an internet ‘blackout’ on 18 January as […]
#SocialNetworks: Videos Demonstrate The Power Of Storytelling For Nonprofits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XauYVuwI6Bo[/embed]
Perhaps making a series of videos for your organization seems a bit too daunting. Making them certainly will require a bit of planning about the stories to tell, the shooting and editing of the material, and the advertising of the great results. But the return on investment can be huge. And what better way to […]
#Philanthropy: Livestrong Bucked Economy & ROI Expectations Via SM
The Great Recession hardly seems over, though most are confident that we have worked through the deepest part of the proverbial woods. Nonprofits, whose work is even more vital for many thousands of people during an economic downturn, suffered as well. But a few were able to fight the long dark night by sticking to […]
#ProAging: Celebrating The Senior Games As Winter Approaches
http://vimeo.com/24026838
Doctors, teachers, and athletes encourage us all to get more exercise. For many of us, our springtime means the energy to start a program to get fit and overcome the initial discomforts. As we enter our summer months, the foundation of better health has been set, and we begin to push some of our boundaries. […]
#ProAging: Bringing Ballots To Nursing Homes Via The iPad
When the people of Oregon needed to replace Congressional Representative David Wu this week, the state Board of Elections used the opportunity to develop means to get ballots to older citizens in nursing homes. The traditional means to do so were to send absentee ballots out, but such ballots waste a great deal of payer, […]
#Enviro: Time To Plan Your Proposal For The 2012 Baltimore Green Week!
The fine folks at Baltimore Green Works have been putting on Baltimore Green Week for the past eight years, and they are calling for submissions for those individuals and organizations ready to make the ninth one the best yet. The form required to propose your project, product, booth, or happening is available online, and is […]
#Social Networks: Google+ vs. Facebook – Let The Debates Begin!
If you’re a social-networks maven, you’ve probably heard a lot, perhaps even too much, about the exclusive/VIP/by-invite-only launch of Google+. As noted earlier, I am not on that A-List (either), but many smart people not on that list have already begun to handicap the fight between Google+ and Facebook. My goal is simply to introduce some […]
Sustainability: The Ultimate Guide To Green Conferences
Kerry Given, a writer with Green Marketing TV, has published a very useful list of conferences focusing on sustainability and green issues that will take place in 2011. Kerry writes that, “with [the] many different green conferences to choose from, how can you decide which are most important for your business to attend? Choosing wisely […]
Enviro: Towsontown Spring Festival Rocks This Weekend
We continue our periodic series on upcoming festivals by directing you to the forty-fourth annual Towsontown Spring Festival, which runs this Saturday and Sunday (April 30-May 1) on the Towsontown Square north of Baltimore city. The festival began as an arts festival, but has branched into opportunities for local businesses, community associations, and charities to […]
Enviro: Deepwater Horizon Disaster One Year Later
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSfrYJFECX0[/youtube]
The explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico erupted one year ago today. Eleven workers on the Transocean/Halliburton/British Petroleum were killed, though BP has still managed to avoid investigation into their deaths. The terrible tragedy of 20 April 2010 became the ongoing ecological crisis of the largest oil spill in US […]