Copywriting

Nonprofit organizations of all sizes have a valuable opportunity to strengthen their messaging with the just-launched Nonprofit Tagline Database.

If the 2008 election was about hope and change, the 2010 midterm campaign, judging by its direct mail, was mostly focused on anger. That's the most obvious takeaway based on a review of the fundraising appeals and campaign fliers that we've seen during the year. Whether directed at President Obama, or at congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, this emotional touchpoint dominated political mail like it hasn't since the days of Bill Clinton.

Here are nine things about fundraising I've discovered along the way that I really wish I'd known earlier.

We'd like to introduce SOFII to those of our readers who don't know about it and share some of the fundraising efforts that have made it into the site's Best of the Best Showcase.

We found eight distinct cases of hemispheric flip in direct-mail fundraising. Hemispheric flip is when the sides of the brain are incorrectly deployed: What should be rational decisions are made emotionally ... and vice versa.

The only voice we should be concerned about in our direct-mail fundraising is the voice that works — the voice that raises the most money. And the great thing about fundraising is that we can test one letter versus another, one style or voice against something very different, to find what works best.

Here are three of the main ways marketing was turned on its head in 2010, and what that means for fundraisers.

At a time when people are tweeting, blogging, e-mailing and more 24/7, the best way to genuinely connect and create change is via truly human, in-person presentations. To help you get started creating presentations that really stick with your audiences, here are a few tips on how you can incorporate repeatable sound bites.

There are still several common mistakes fundraisers make in their online communications, says Thomas Gensemer, managing partner at online technology provider Blue State Digital. Here, he shares those common online fundraising mistakes and provides ways fundraisers can overcome them.

Start your donor relationships off right with prompt, polite thank-you notes, and start lighting the fire for your end-of-year appeals today.