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Every small business has an advantage. Unlike big corporations, smaller companies can be more personal, more relatable, more human. Unfortunately, most small businesses miss these opportunities. E-mail marketing is a classic example of how the little guys have the edge. Here are five ways to add personality to your e-mail marketing: 1. Include a sender name — be a person with a human name. 2. Include a picture of the author. 3. Take a stand. 4. Tell a story. 5. Say thank you.

Recent tweets from folks you should be following.

Want your donors to sustain you? Then you can’t consume them in five minutes. Yet all too often nonprofits treat their donors exactly like a gumball dispensed from a machine. Chew it up. Spit it out. Done. If you’ve been treating your donors like gumballs, start tomorrow with these five tips: 1. Thank them immediately and with gusto. 2. Pay attention to any particularities. 3. Develop and implement a donor stewardship plan. 4. Wrap engagement opportunities into your stewardship plan. 5. Always be donor-centered.

The Google Grants program is a little-known offering by the search giant that is extremely generous and useful for nonprofit organizations. Although the criteria for this are rather specific, it offers qualifying organization up to $10,000 a month in free search advertising to promote their missions and initiatives through the AdWords system. This is a great opportunity for these organizations to get in front of Web-savvy contributors and volunteers. It also presents a golden opportunity to begin the process of reorienting efforts to a more Web-centric approach.

I took ExactTarget’s fantastic list of 50 e-mail marketing tips and stats for 2014 and boiled it down to three key takeaways for nonprofits: 1. Don’t fret the small stuff. 2. If you’re not learning, you’re not growing. Start with the simplest of tests (subject lines) before building your knowledge-base utilizing testing frameworks. 3. It’s not a question if the mobile revolution is upon us, but how your organization will embrace it (hint: think content strategy).

We have seen time and time again the negative effect added friction in donation forms can cause to conversion rates, gift frequency, average gift rates and even in determining if you get that first gift. When was the last time you made a gift through your organization’s online donation process? Maybe it’s time to take a look at what you are asking donors to do in order to give to your organization.

All generations are not created equal! But you knew that, right? Understanding the multichannel preferences and charitable habits of Generation X, Generation Y, baby boomers and matures could have a significant impact on your nonprofit’s fundraising performance, but it could also leave you frozen, retreating back to the familiar. What’s a fundraiser to do? Here are a few fundraising ideas.

By now, you're probably familiar with "giving circles" — groups of individuals who pool their money, research potential organizations and then donate together to have a greater impact on a charitable cause.

From a nonprofit's perspective, giving circles are a tremendous opportunity. They offer a chance for larger donations without the need for potentially costly outreach campaigns.

What are some strategies to help your charity position itself to be attractive to giving circles? We have some easy tips you can follow to get on a giving circle's radar!

Nonprofits that have implemented blogs to their websites are able to deliver fresh content to their donors, volunteers and patrons. It’s also a great way to tell the story of your organization through a variety of authors and perspectives. However, if are you blogging regularly but aren’t seeing a significant return on investment in the form of website traffic, donations or awareness, you might want to consider making the following changes: 1. Stop writing about your organization. 2. Include strong calls to action. 3. Set up Google Authorship.

You use search engines like Google and Yahoo every day, and so do your donors. But what happens when a prospective donor types in the name of your nonprofit or your issue area in Google? Is your organization at the top of the results? The good news is that it can be, through search engine marketing (SEM). In a nutshell, SEM is a way to promote your website by increasing its visibility in search engine results.