Time Inc.

As a nonprofit fundraiser, do you ever feel bombarded by “good” fundraising ideas? You know how it goes … you develop a fundraising plan for the year, and your board approves it. Then, over the course of the year, it seems like everyone on your team comes up with new major projects.

In the meantime, you are busy trying to implement the fundraising plan you wrote for the year … the one that is well-thought-out, comprehensive and achievable.

People on the move in the fundraising sector, March 2014.

Now that we’ve been through an end-of-year campaign and a major disaster (Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines), what do Facebook advertising results look like? Short answer: small but promising.

Despite the emphasis on content marketing for nonprofits — crafting the right content to motivate each specific group to take the action you desire — there’s one important ingredient left out of the discussion time and time again. Copy editing — checking for spelling, grammar, consistency and accuracy. Are you investing the time and resource to polish that compelling content before you distribute it? Based on the content I see from many nonprofit organizations, the answer is “sometimes.”

Ah, video content marketing. It’s been a hot topic in 2013, and many end-of-year predication posts assert it will be more of a focus in 2014. Why? Well, as Forbes explains, people respond to faces, voices, movement and emotion — and video often contains all four of those elements, making it one crazy-powerful marketing tool.

Recent tweets from members of the FundRaising Success Editorial Advisory Board.

Still stuck for subject lines for your year-end e-mails? The subject line is like the outer envelope for direct mail. It’s the window into your message. Make sure it’s wide open and gives a glimpse of something that grabs folks’ attention. Make it intriguing, urgent, exciting, compelling, emotional, shocking or funny. The more useful and specific it is the better.

Content Marketing Institute and Blackbaud’s 2014 Nonprofit Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America report just hit the scene. In my world, this is exciting news, as it’s the first-ever research report to benchmark what’s going on with content marketing in the nonprofit sector — the sector I’ve spent the past 10 years of my life serving.

Needless to say, I’ve been geeking out over the data, so I thought I’d offer a few thoughts and insights based on the findings …

I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t be busy, but I’m saying you will be MORE EFFECTIVE if you allow yourself to rest… even in the busiest of seasons.

Recent tweets from folks you should be following.