Fundraising Detective

Some Friday afternoon reading for you...

A really productive week at work, with lots of new projects getting off the ground, which is great. Also been moving house, which means I haven't got as much writing done as I would've liked, but there's always next week!

Anyway, here's a round-up of my favourite recent blog posts:

Kev Baughen with some good thoughts on online giving and the sad demise of Bmycharity. The Raffle.It blog also has some thoughts on the matter as well.

Some good ideas on engaging entrepreneurial donors with creative thinking.

Katya has an important wake up call about your supporters.

Jonathan Grapsas on getting people to 'handraise' before fundraising.

Does your organisation's thank you letter suck?

Jeff Brooks with a list of banned words to avoid in your fundraising.

Need a social media policy? Beth has got everything you need...

Beth Breeze talks about two recent approaches she's had to be a donor.

Useful article on how to reduce your Twitter follower list without annoying people.

Could you make more use of video to help your customer service efforts?

Alan Webber on how change works

Fed up of long meetings? Why not try a 22 minute one? 

Saturday Fundraising Link Fest!

Attended the excellent Like Minds event in Exeter yesterday and got some interesting notes to write up.  Whilst I do that, here are several links to great articles that I've read over the last few weeks.

Kimberely has been on fire recently with a series of great posts, here are my two favs: Donor-Centred is just jargon and Stop complaining about your board of trustees and help them.

Jeff has been equally excellent and here are my favourite two of his recent posts:

Why making your fundraising easy to read matters and how to make fact trump opinions in meetings

Are you doing enough research? Based on the emotional power of soup!

Aline's Friday quiz I've missed the first two, but long may it continue. Good luck to Villa tomorrow...

How to creat buzz via social media: do's and don'ts

A sadly familiar story from a non-profit mystery shopping test

John Baguley on the art of storytelling

The six types of wealthy donors

At the nonprofit blog carnival top nonprofit gurus share their highs and lows of their careers.

Excellent commentary from Kev Baughen on uproar from Blackpool Hospice spending £50,000 on art.

I found the comments to this post about feeling guilty about giving to a donkey sanctuary on holiday really interesting.

Eaon's seven rules to foster collaboration with customers.

What you can learn about customer loyalty from Lady Gaga.

Will social media be the death of DM? HT to @gcohen85

Scott Berkun says good beats innovative every time.

What I've been reading this week

My first link round-up of 2010!  It's been a whirlwind start to the year and I've only just got on top of my Google Reader.  Hope you enjoy the selection of stories I've picked out this week...

Charities in trouble:  Barnardo's launches an emergency appeal - find out why New Philanthropy Capital think we should be supporting the appeal, whilst over in America, Sean Stannard Stockton features two posts on the crisis at Idealist.  Part 1 and Part 2.

Jeff Brooks says listening to donors will only take you so far.

Jonathan Grapsas urges us to make the most of the honeymoon period with your new donors.

A review of the new Heath Brothers book, 'Switch'.  It's on my must read list!

Words that describe philanthropy

Mark Phillips asks 'What really satisfies a donor?'

The Agitator on 'The Value of Now!'

Dan Pallotto over at the Harvard Business Review on why Haiti is a marketing lesson.  Don't agree with all that Dan writes, but it makes for an interesting debate. Look forward to hearing him speak at the IoF conference this year.

Seth on the power of a gift.  Closely linked to his new book 'Linchpin'.

Sean Platt on 14 lessons from one of the best paid direct mail copywriters.

100 Good Advertising Headlines via the 'Who really gives a toss?' blog.

Various links on behavioural economics at the Nudge blog.

Latest Fundraising Round-Up: 14 things worth reading...

It was good to read in Third Sector about Lindsay Boswell from the Institute of Fundraising resigning from the advisory panel of the Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy and looking to set up a new think tank to discuss ideas for practical fundraising research. 

The Institute is asking for ideas for research and has convened a meeting for early 2010. I've submitted some ideas with a colleague of mine and look forward to hearing more.

Meanwhile, here are a few other things that have caught my eye recently:

What does a double espresso in Ukraine have to do with donors?

Excellent, in-depth article from Kev Baughen on whether we ask our donors too often.

Another in-depth article all about measuring outcomes and impact of your fundraising programme.

Beth Breeze on million pound donors.

Sean Stannard-Stockton on using your head and heart in philanthropy.

No more impulse giving?

Is this the future for direct mail? An automatic spam filter?

5 things not to do in a digital campaign.

Read this employee love letter to customer service favourite, Southwest Airlines.

Tom Peters on the importance of appreciation.

Lessons in blogging from Confucius.

Seth on leading with your glass jaw and on how to be a good client.

Predicted trends in social media for 2010.

This Week's Fundraising Must Read Round-Up

I had to have my first day's sick leave in over two years last week and have been playing catch up ever since.  I'm rubbish when I'm not well, so I want to say a big public thank you to my wonderful girlfriend for looking after me.  

Fortunately I'm feeling much better and I'll hopefully have time to write up some of the ever growing list of article ideas I have.

Whilst I do that, why don't you check out some of the best recent articles...

Katya on the one word secret to great relationships.

Scribblybark with a great fundraising e-mail from charity:water.

Matt Parkes looks at the relationship between charities and their agencies.

Jonathon Grapsas challenges the sector to get over our obsession on admin costs.

Who good fundraising is a lot like creating a fan club.

Mark Phillip's comment on the recent charity branding report in the UK.

Bryan Miller on why good segmentation can still fail.

Aline asks "What can we learn from brands people love". Lovemarks is one of my favourite marketing books and well worth reading.

5 Tips to Improve Your Appeals

Presentation tips from Steve Jobs.

Tom Peters has 9 questions to see if you are caring enough.

Lessons in marketing from a 5 year old.

How to inspire people

Chris Brogan on how to prioritise your social media efforts.

Some Midweek Reading to Keep You Out of MIschief!

Spent last weekend in Krakow with some old school/uni friends and am still recovering from the late nights (i'm getting too old to stay up to 3 a.m), hence the lack of posts in the last week or so!

Anyway, last week's round-up of stories is overdue and so without further ado, here are some of the articles.

There was some more good articles related to the 2020 vision. I particularly enjoyed Kimberley's comments.

Although it wasn't directly related there was a series of excellent posts on Sean's blog about a new book on philanthropy. It's relevant to the debate as I believe fundraiser's need to do more to get people to think about giving in the coming years. The first post asked why you give and attracted over 40 comments and there are many that are worth reading - ignore the first one though! :)

Howard Lake pointed out a new feature on Amazon to promote items via Twitter to raise funds.

Does your definition of lapsed match your donors?

Three good related articles on transparency (via Katya' blog.)

Sean on long fundraising letters.

Beth Breeze challenges X-Factor (and other mainstream appeals) to pick less conventional causes.

Some great tips from the Fundraising Coach on using Facebook and Twitter.

Future Fundraising Now (Jeff Brook's new blog) on how to get donors talking about you.

Adrian Sargeant on self regulation of fundraising.  Ties in with my post on the IoF's direct mail crackdown.

Beautiful World ask if anyone is watching charity video?

Would you dare ask an unruly donor to stop giving? Here's an example from a cinema who bans unruly customers!

Eaon on passion & types of advocacy

Hugh talking about 'Evil Plans' - my review of his last book is here.

Chris Brogan on a tactic I like to use at work: "A Middle Up Down" approach!

This Week's Essential Reading

 

I spent half of last week over in Lisbon watching the football (had a great time, apart from the result) and so had a mountain of reading to catch up on my return and have put together the following links that I think are worth checking out.

As for this week, I'm speaking at the Third Sector Forum on Wednesday.  If you're attending then make sure you say hello - it would be good to chat with you.

Happy reading!

Karl Howleger of telephone fundraising agency Pell & Bales provokes controversy over at Third Sector by suggesting charities should check whether people still don't want to receive phone calls.

Fans of the Freakonomics book should check out this free talk by the authors at the RSA, London.

The Fundraising Coach on writing good letters.

The Agitator on Charity:Water and their use of the web.

Nancy announces the winners of her tagline competition.  Really enjoyed voting and learnt a lot on how to formulate a successful tagline.

John Grain on the simple things in fundraising.

What your donors are really thinking...

A promising start by the new author of the Donor Power blog with this article on what it means to be a donor.

Fascinating debate on previously lauded Kiva and their loans.  Make sure you also check out how quickly and honestly they responded to the debate.  Very impressive.

John Haydon on how to control social media.

Mark Phillips on benchmarking the success of your e-mail campaigns

Scientific evidence of why bullet points don't work in presentations: better change my presentation on Wednesday!

Interesting report at GOOD on food waste in the U.S.A - sample quote: "in just one year the United States may even produce enough food waste to feed all of Europe."

Seth on avoiding and overcoming 'Trolls'. 

The DumbLittleMan Guide to Comma Use

What i've been reading recently...

Another week flies by and thought it was time I gathered another selection of articles together of what i've been reading recently.

At work, October is shaping up to be the busiest month of the year. Planning and budgeting for 2010/11, signing off all the Christmas appeal direct mail and launching our first ever national raffle has made it hectic to say the least!  I can not complain though as I'd much rather have it this way than being sat round twiddling my thumbs...

Enjoy this week's round up.

Fundraising:

Katya asks:Is philanthropy ready for the new consumer?  Also, a good slide-deck on marketing at the bottom of the page.

Interesting piece on the future of direct mail at the Beautiful World blog.

Are you looking after your in-memoriam donors properly?

Pamela has 6 great tips for collecting stories.

Alternatives to using overhead costs as a measure of your organisations success

Non-fundraising:

Men with Pens look at what Walt Disney can teach you about writing

Some cool videos of how making things fun can change people's behaviour - can you apply this to your fundraising in any way?

Interesting look at how visualisation can help you present data

Chris Brogan on starting the case for social media in your organisation

Good fundraising stuff from past week

I was surprised by the reaction to my post on SOFII & the FRSB last week.  Thanks to everyone who got in touch and retweeted the post.  It was by far my most read post ever and seemed to strike a chord with people.

I attended the two IoF half day conferences last Friday and hope to get some of my notes written up this week.

In the meantime, here are my favourite bits and pieces from the last week or so.  There has been a flood of interesting social media articles this week and i've listed my favourites.

First up The Agitator highlights two great articles.  First up is Smashing Magazine's 'Nonprofit Website Design', which lists 20 of the best nonprofit website.

Secondly, is a link to a free report (e-mail address required) about e-mail testing.

Jon Waddingham of Justgiving reminds people to watch out for jargon creep in your copy.

Harvard Business Review on the Boston Foundation's "Brave Act of Leadership"

Need some help with your social media guidelines?

Third Sector reports on a Barclays Bank that refused to take a charities cheques.  A sign of the future? (Log-in required)

Interested in improving your writing skills?  Here are the ten best blogs for writers.

If GM's CEO can get social media, why can't yours?  Maybe this video interview will help...

Eleven interesting points of view on the changing business landscape at the Herd blog.

A great slide-deck on measuring social media impact.

Using google as a cheap market research tool.

Should your employees be your best evangelists?

Fundraising News Round-Up

A bumper round up of articles that i've read recently. 

Why you should use the word 'charity' in your fundraising communications rather than 'non-profit'.  Same probably applies to 'Third Sector' as well?

Bryan Miller looking forward to the launch of 'See the Difference' in the UK.

Adrian Sargeant on the language to use in legacy marketing.

A great resource for all aspects of social media.  I've already sent this round my charity and had some good feedback.  Thanks to Allyson at Frogloop for the tip.

Another batch of great posts from the team at Bluefrog.  @markyphillips and @alinereed consistent insight and shared wisdom makes these by far the best blogs on UK charity direct mail (and fundraising in general).  Check out the following four articles:

• The importance of donor experience in creating a brand
  
• Why looking cheap can be beneficial in direct mail.
• Getting ready for Christmas
• Great visual example of why re-branding isn't necessarily the answer to your problems

The dangers of expounding 'best practice'.  Are you sure it's not just conventional wisdom waiting to be challenged?

Have you got your schedule the wrong way round?

Get over your obsession with getting younger donors!

How many of these barriers to implementing social media exist in your organisation?

Seth opens a can of worms about non-profits and how slow they are to respond to change.  Lot's of interesting response to the article with my favourite being this considered response by Sean at Tactical Philanthropy.

@chrisbrogan looks at how he can he can promote his book and social change.  Some really good suggestions in the comments that you might be able to apply to your charity.  I've just bought Trust Agents and hope to read it in the next few weeks.

What can you learn about crisis management from Beyonce's response to Kanye West's antics?

Andy Sernovitz's looks at marketing lessons from the Flaming Lips.  I've included it as they are one of my favourite bands, with 'Do you realise' being one of the greatest songs ever!

Finding your 'village of customers' - linked to my post about finding your true fans, advocates and ambassadors.