I've been doing what I call "Kivinars" for a couple of lucrative years now. Kivi Leroux Miller created the model and produces a busy schedule of trainings. We always sell out, because the class size is strictly limited; and it has to be. The personal attention in a Kivinar is lavish. First, students get 2 hours of intense lecturing online: 2 sessions, one hour each, of best practices. Students look at successful examples of fundraising direct mail or donor newsletters, depending on the Kivinar topic. They're walked through a deep analysis of all examples. The hidden structures and techniques that guarantee success are explained. Then the students go away for a few days. They come back with stuff they write fresh, and send it to me for critiques. My critiques are public, held in front of everyone on a GoToMeeting conference call. These critiques are frank; not brutally, but frank. And very fussy. Everyone is strongly encouraged to attend all the critiques, to wring the full value from the training. And they do.
So here's what happened.
A few months go by. Past students start sharing via an exclusive Facebook group the real work they've done since for their charities, post-Kivinar-training: appeal letters and donor newsletters. And their stuff is FREAKING amazing! All lessons learned! Anyway, just saying: you can teach this stuff.