Christopher Davenport is the founder of 501 Videos, a company that makes videos exclusively for nonprofit clients. His experience includes years in Hollywood working on commercial films and, later, making documentaries. His website is home to Movie Mondays, a weekly series of short films featuring fundraising professionals in action. The interview was conducted by Don […]
#MOVIE: Gray Memories Remixed (1989)
About Gray Memories Gray Memories follows “The Man” (Ken Vorspan) on his existential journey through the backstreets of Cambridge, Massachusetts in search of the mysterious “Leon”. Will his quest be realized or is Leon just another figment of The Man’s imagination? Production Information for Gray Memories Gray Memories was produced and directed by Marco Kathuria from […]
#INTERVIEW: Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications, Discusses Why Nonprofits Need to Embrace Video
Michael Hoffman is co-founder and CEO of See3 Communications and a leading authority on online video for nonprofits and online fundraising and outreach strategies. After turns as a political consultant and developer of Internet startups, he founded See3 to bring together his vision of the web and his passion for nonprofit fundraising. The interview was […]
#SM4NP: Scoop.it! For Information ‘Curation’ & Social Interaction
Last year we explored Pinterest, a social network that puts a premium on visuals and offers ‘pin boards’ of topics collected/bookmarked/’pinned’ by the user. The metrics on the platform show amazing growth over the last few months, and many are still waiting for an invitation to join up. Scoop.it! has, on the surface, a strikingly […]
#VIDEO: The Knowledge Fountain Promos
The Challenge: The Knowledge Fountain offers not-for-profit organizations a spectrum of short courses online covering fundraising, communications, organizational development, social media, and productivity software. It is a start-up venture co-founded by MKCREATIVE owner, Marco Kathuria and Don Akchin, of Don Akchin Strategic Marketing. The startup was looking for a cost-effective way to tell it’s story […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: It’s OK To Say ‘No’ To Your Social Networks
You know you want to… We are often extolling the virtues of particular social-networking platforms or encouraging specific strategies to reach out to your audience(s) across these platforms. When moving through the ‘tubes’ of our social networks, it is easy to think that each post we prepare is the most important one ever and that […]
#HOWTO: Tweak Your Organization’s Facebook Site For Graph Search
In February, 2013, we talked about what Facebook’s latest feature, Graph Search, is (namely, a way to combine keywords, categories, and what friends are saying about them within Facebook) and it is not (namely, a challenger to Google’s search algorithms across the internet). In this article, we want to help you and your organization make […]
#HOWTO: Taking Photographs with a Film Camera is Easier than Ever!
I’ll not wax poetic here, this is exactly what it says on the tin: if you are shooting with a film camera, or just thinking about it, read on. This article is for you. Get A Vintage Camera Vintage film cameras can be surprisingly affordable but, depending on the source, often require repair or adjustment. […]
#HOWTO: Establish A Tumblr Account & Why You Should Do So (VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUXnDZUcQY[/embed]
A while back we talked about the blogging platform Tumblr, and the series got a great deal of response from you our audience, and we really appreciate your interest and feedback! We want to step up that earlier discussion with a series of video how-tos that will show you a Tumblr account, what can be […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Let Flickr Tell Your Nonprofit’s Story As It Happens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R_MWGFvDEE[/youtube]
A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. And with digital social media, images are becoming both more common and more powerful as platforms such as Facebook and Google+ emphasize the photo and graphic qualities of their social-media networks. A kind of ‘visual economy’ is developing, within which social networks are competing and users […]
#VIDEO: Compass Academy Promo Videos
The Challenge: Compass Academy is a community of students, educators, and families dedicated to serving children of average to above average cognitive ability with a wide range of learning challenges including autism spectrum, ADHD, speech, language, and/or motor delays. A lack of funds to plough into marketing the school meant that outreach and engagement has […]
#NEWS: THE KNOWLEDGE FOUNTAIN LAUNCHES ONLINE CLASSES & SOCIAL SITE EXCLUSIVELY FOR NONPROFITS
http://youtu.be/ajF0oSL3qrI
The latest entry in the rapidly-evolving distance learning education market is a new online education service geared exclusively to people who work for nonprofit organizations. The Knowledge Fountain, which launched today, is offering a spectrum of courses online covering fundraising, communications, organizational development, social media, and productivity software. The site pitches its product as “just […]
#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 […]
#TECH: How and Why To Develop A Google+ Page For Your Nonprofit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hQN6LoHtiU[/youtube]
Yesterday we looked at how to pin something of interest to Pinterest, and why such activity can draw many many eyeballs to that interest and then to your organization. One of the striking demographic facts of Pinterest is that the audience is strikingly female. Toward the other side of the spectrum is Google+, which is […]
#HOWTO: Get Guidance From Google On Simple SEO Success
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmRg3p79pM[/youtube]
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a social media buzzword: gotta have it, gotta work at it, gotta pack it in to your website or blog! And it is true that SEO needs to be a part of your nonprofit’s online and outreach strategies. Why develop a new site or even update your outdated one if […]
#TECH: Google+ Gets Redesign To Emphasize Visuals & Customizations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Atj57r15U[/youtube]
This morning Google announced a striking rise in income that beat stock analysts’ predictions for this first quarter of 2012: $10.65 billion for this past quarter. The number represents a 24% increase from last year’s Q1. Just before the search giant released these huge numbers, it announced a redesign of its social network, Google Plus. […]
#TECH: Google Now Designing Glasses And Giving Us A New ‘Play’ Service
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4[/youtube]
The good people at Google have been busy releasing new aspects of their services that are meant to augment our muti-media experiences. As is often the case, one’s first blush of these technologies might appear a bit overwhelming or a bit far out on the bleeding edge for most of us. But one of our […]
#SM4NP: ‘Kony 2012’ Still Stirs Engagement, Controversy, And Embarrassment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc”
The controversy surrounding the viral video ‘Kony 2012’ continues even as its
#COMMUNICATIONS: Plan Your Nonprofit’s Story, Then Shoot The Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kP4SaAO2Xk[/youtube]
Making a video is all the rage in the nonprofit world – and it should be. Videos can engage the eyes and ears and hearts of your audience in ways that can and should complement other means of outreach. Videos can also be presented in a myriad of ways: posting it on YouTube and Vimeo […]
#PHILANTHROPY: Google Can Give Time, Resources, & AdWords To Nonprofits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsNPmJ8QL58[/youtube]
Google is the great behemoth of web searching and video hosting. Google.com is default homepage in millions of browsers and YouTube has inspired citizen journalists in war-torn Syria and video mashups of cute kittens in suburbia. Google.org is perhaps not as well known, but its philanthropic outreach is huge, and it offers that money and […]
#SM4NP: Automate Your Google Searches To Follow Important Issues
Searching on Google is perhaps the single experience of the internet we all share. In the fine and flexible tradition of the English language, we turned the noun into a verb: to google (someone or something). The behemoth that is Google Inc. began over a decade ago (hint: Sarah McLachlan and Elton John won big […]
#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 […]
#Interview: Gail Perry, Fundraising Consultant, Trainer & Author of Fired-Up Fundraising
Gail Perry is a fundraising consultant and trainer and the author of Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Your Board’s Passion into Action. She is a highly sought speaker and writes a popular blog. Her most recent venture is an online coaching group. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a […]
#Interview: Gail Perry, Fundraising Consultant, Trainer & Author of Fired-Up Fundraising
Gail Perry is a fundraising consultant and trainer and the author of Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Your Board’s Passion into Action. She is a highly sought speaker and writes a popular blog. Her most recent venture is an online coaching group. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a […]
#Development: Make The Nonprofit Video – Don’t Sweat The ‘Viral’
Happy New Year to our much-appreciated readers! May your 2012 be notably donor-rich and Mayan-free. In case we are not here in 360 days, let’s get right to work. We turned our attentions toward video outreach last December, and we begin this year’s posts with a story expressly about a business that turned an internal […]
#HowTo: Resources To Launch Your Nonprofit’s Video Campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpKAtk5C0lM[/youtube]
The holiday season provides us an opportunity to take stock of the past year and to consider new paths and goals for the next year. In that holiday spirit, MKCREATIVEmedia has been turning our focus (and hopefully yours) toward the benefits of video outreach and how video can reach the hearts and minds of donors […]
#Fundraising: Make A Video — Grow Your Outreach
http://vimeo.com/33692178
Telling stories is one of the elemental qualities of humans. We love to tell them, hear them, and watch them. But sometimes changing media can short-circuit our storytelling instincts as we work our way through the technology yet allow the narrative to dissolve. In the nonprofit world, one of the great developments in media is […]
#Interview: Mike Kujawski, VP at CEPSM, Blogger & Speaker on Social Media
Mike Kujawski is Vice President of Strategic Marketing & Digital Engagement at the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing (CEPSM). Mike blogs at Public Sector Marketing 2.0, speaks frequently on social media and serves public sector and non-profit clients internationally. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and […]
#SocialNetworks: Are You LinkedIn To Your Nonprofit?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bQIQhhkcx0[/youtube]
This past summer we discussed the fact that LinkedIn had developed organizational pages designed for nonprofits. It was but one feature added with the input of Bryan Breckenridge, whose job it was to expand the ‘LinkedIn for Nonprofits’ project. But like any good SM platform, LinkedIn has not been sitting on its laurels.
#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 […]
#Interview: Rob Wu, Founder of CauseVox, On Building Online Tools For Nonprofits (Part 1 of 2)
CauseVox offers a unique combination of online tools to nonprofits. It acts as a website building Content-Management System (CMS), a social-media platform with built in connections to a nonprofit’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… accounts, and a system to track donors’s contact information and their relations with your organization (for example, how much they have given over […]
#Interview: Marc Pitman, Owner of the “Fundraising Coach” Blog, Author, and Fundraising Consultant
Marc A. Pitman writes the Fundraising Coach blog, in addition to writing books, giving seminars, engaging in social media and consulting with clients. His own fundraising career began at a small New England liberal arts college, but by 1999 he found the consulting life fulfilled his desire to teach and help people. Marc was interviewed […]