The Little Words Mean the Most

it takes a village to visit Newfields, aka the Indianapolis Museum of Art

 

    best group photo evah? eyes closed, people looking away

    hosted by the LOVE family

 

Christie & plastic mold-produced penguin

Hair-dye experiment goes sideways

 

The Rise of America's Smaller Nonprofits

 

Metrics and research built into Bloomerang's CRM are shifting 75% of the nonprofit world toward higher-performance fundraising

(and a solution to that nasty turnover problem)

 

It's called "headline planning." Akin to "strategic planning," only more crystal-ball-ey. What headline would you like to read about your nonprofit/business in 3-5 years?

 

 

 

Today's day trip, 46 minutes from our house: Cirque de Navacelles: we drove in, the ducklings splashed, we drove out

 

Hendrickson ducklings ~ Oh-oh: Somebody has 6 toes

 

@ the moment

 

The Bug

 

 

 

I killed it

 "Can I have that cone in remorse?"

 

The Great Little Charity Series: High and Mighty Stables

 

Equine therapy. A magic place. Where wonders never cease. Who knew that for certain patients (across a wide range of maladies) horses would prove to be better therapists than humans?

The gardens of 2017, thanks to Kathy

 

 

 

 

Does your boss know, for instance...?

 

 

... that donors don't care to be "educated," at least not in the schoolroom sense. They are not proto-employees. They don't need to know the underlying pedagogy and the precious details.

They are NOT your organization's "mini-me's." (Well, there you go: Big Donor Newsletter Secret #1.)

Know your target audience, above all. It's the first (and kind of only) rule for success in marketing.

In other words: each donor made that first gift for her/his reasons ... NOT for your reasons.

You do NOT convince people to give. They give for their own reasons ... personal reasons ... reasons mostly to do with self-identity.

 

You know what? Even calling them "reasons" is guilty of mislabeling. These "reasons" are ALWAYS emotional triggers at work. I give because you've touched me somewhere I had a pressure point.

 

"I felt guilty." I gave.

"That could have been me." I gave.

"That was me." I gave.

"That was my friend." I gave.

"I'll never get into heaven at this rate." I gave.

We have a million reasons for our charity ... and they're all good.