Creative

Today's donors are savvy, skeptical and well-informed. As a result, they know when someone is trying to sell them something — including donating. So how do you motivate people to support your cause in a world of mass messaging? One way to do it is to go old school with word-of-mouth and align it with your fundraising.

NonProfit POWER resumed yesterday with a full day of educational content and networking for nonprofit leaders and decision-makers. Here's a brief look at what attendees experienced yesterday. 

Often, we fundraisers and direct marketers want to try something new because we were tired of it long before the donors are. We are always trying to come up with new stories, new ideas, and new approaches. But at some point, the creative juices stop flowing and we’re getting closer to burnout.

Testing is about the most basic best practice we have in direct marketing. It’s how we measure what works and what doesn’t. In fundraising, it’s critical because if there’s one lesson we’ve all learned over and over, it’s that direct mail is counterintuitive. Logic and common sense do not apply. Except when they do.

From increased revenue to improved volunteer and donor engagement, new data from 99designs by Vista reveals how investing in professional design and visual branding creates tangible financial benefits for charities and nonprofit organizations around the world. 

Here are some best practices you can use to expand your creative choices and optimize your nonprofit campaign’s chances for success.

Here are five tips to develop innovative nonprofit marketing campaigns that will raise awareness and let you stand out from the crowd.

You can increase the response rate of your fundraising direct mail campaigns by designing your envelope to stand out. These five ideas will instantly help your donor want to open your mail piece and review your carefully-crafted message inside.

Our stories have to engage readers on such a powerful emotional level that when we transition from them to the ask, readers feel compelled to take an action or make a gift. Like a still-life painting or a well-written haiku, archetypal images set a scene for readers in just a few words...

We all know telling a good story engages readers and gets them emotionally involved so that they feel compelled to send a gift to your organization. But simply being advised to “tell a story” is pretty empty advice without some concrete guidance about what kind of story to tell and how to tell it.