#INTERVIEW: Christina Attard, Philanthropic Advisor, Blogger, and Development Director
Christina Attard writes the “Ask Better-Give Smarter” Blog. As a philanthropic adviser, she helps both nonprofits with their development programming and individuals planning tax-smart donations. She has been a Gift Planning Officer at two Canadian universities and is currently the Development Director for a Christian diocese in Regina, Saskatchewan. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: How did you manage to get to this place of semi-guruhood from a B.A. in mediaeval studies?
CHRISTINA: How it actually happened is that I was starting university and paying my own way. I had some money saved, but not enough. When I went to see my Dean, a Sister of St. Joseph, she said, how do you plan to pay for your year here? I said, I’ve been praying about that and hoping for an answer soon. She said, that’s very nice, do you have a resume? (Yes.) Go get your resume and go to the financial aid office. I’ll call ahead, go see a woman named Pauline and we’ll see if she can get you through with some cash from a bursary. Pauline saw me and said, we have this bursary and you’ll be eligible for it, it’s still not going to be enough, do you have your resume? (Yes.) Well, go across the street to the alumni office, talk to a woman named Mary Ellen and see if she’ll give you a job. Mary Ellen gave me a job in the fundraising office, and at graduation they said to me, we’d like to keep you, come tomorrow, we’ll offer you a contract and you can come on as a full-time fundraiser. They did a lot to train and build me over a period of several years. Eventually, I followed my partner when his job transferred to Kingston, Ontario and I became a Senior Gift Planning Officer at Queens University, which has one of Canada’s top fundraising shops, and I got to learn from some of the best in the country. I just got very lucky.
Popularity: 1% | Category Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Perspectives, Resource, Storytelling | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#FUNDRAISING: Impact Of Mobile Donations To Haiti Two Years On?
Two years ago this month, Haitians endured a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that destroyed much of the infrastructure in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed over 300,000 people. The outpouring of support from numerous nations inspired faith that rebuilding after the tragedy would bring notable improvements to the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.
Unfortunately, two years on, much of the news concerns not the rebuilding of the island nation but the challenge of simply finding where the promised money and resources went. Much of it simply has not shown up as countries have given less (some news sources state as much as half) than first promised. But of what has arrived has often been diverted to non-Haitian companies or to corrupt local officials who overcharge for minimal services.
And yet we also have the data to show how much non-governmental was raised ($43 million) and how.
Popularity: 1% | Category Case Study, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Media Review, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Publications, Research, Resource, Social Media, Study, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#interview: Simone Joyaux, Nonprofit Consultant, Author, and Columnist
Simone Joyaux is an internationally recognized consultant to the nonprofit sector on fund development, board development, and strategic planning and management. She writes a column, “Unraveling Development,” for the Nonprofit Quarterly. She is the author of Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last, now in its third edition, and is co-author, with Tom Ahern, of Keep Your Donors: The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: I have difficulty maintaining one blog. Why do you have three?
SIMONE: I made a decision that I wanted to do not just a professional blog, but I also wanted my website to talk about the world and social justice issues. Because I have always felt that there isn’t enough speaking out. I decided I would take the risk to speak out about my political and social beliefs on my web page, but that if I was going to do that, I had to distinguish between them, hence what I call “Personal Rants.” And then I thought, I have a lot of peeves about professional stuff, so I thought, okay fine, I’ll do professional, pet peeves and personal rants. Now I can do three posts in 30 minutes. I only post once a week, and you will notice, nobody is allowed to respond. You can send me emails, but you can’t comment. I have a job! I can’t possibly maintain comments from people.
Popularity: 2% | Category Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants and Funding, Interview, Marketing, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Resource | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Interview: Allison Fine, Author & Analyst — Examines Intersection of Social Media & Social Change
Allison Fine researches and writes about the intersection of social media and social change. She is the co-author (with Beth Kanter) of the bestselling book, The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change
MKC: You’ve researched and written about social media and how it could impact democracy in the 21st century. Is the Occupy Wall Street movement along the lines of what you were envisioning?
ALLISON: Occupy Wall Street is absolutely part of the same DNA of social protests that we’ve seen for about the last ten years or so. They are widely distributed – meaning there’s no centralized organizing person or organization. They are fueled, but not caused, by social media – the ability to share messages, share photos, share videos, which are very powerful, is part of what’s stirring the pot and helping to organize the events. Occupy Wall Street has some of the drawbacks of this kind of mobilizing as well: the lack of a centralized message and the lack of goals. Whether or not those ultimately stop the momentum for these self-organized efforts locally will be interesting to watch.
Popularity: 1% | Category Blogs, Book Review, Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Crowdfunding, Development, Direct Mail, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Resource, Reviews, Social Media, Sponsorship, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Tools, Twitter | | 1 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Interview: Gail Perry, Fundraising Consultant, Trainer & Author of Fired-Up Fundraising
Gail Perry is a fundraising consultant and trainer and the author of Fired-Up Fundraising: Turn Your Board’s Passion into Action. She is a highly sought speaker and writes a popular blog. Her most recent venture is an online coaching group. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: What are the issues that are keeping your clients awake at night?
GAIL: I think the economy is just a huge issue. People are worried about whether they can raise the money they need or not. But I’m also seeing a really interesting problem. My consulting clients are struggling to learn how to take donors who are identified as potential major prospects and bring them into the major prospect arena by closing a gift. It’s a very delicate, step-by-step, intuitive process to bring a major donor along. That’s a lot of what I’m teaching my clients, all these little subtleties of developing that type of relationship.
Popularity: 17% | Category Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Crowdfunding, Design, Development, Direct Mail, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Research, SEO, Social Media, Sponsorship, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Twitter, Web Design, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#interview: Tom Ahern — Author, Award-Winning Journalist, and Communications Consultant
Tom Ahern is the author of four books on fundraising communications, with a fifth on the way. An award-winning magazine journalist, he has written case statements for numerous campaigns and is a popular communications trainer and consultant. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: You’ve written four books. You’ve trained hundreds, maybe thousands of communicators, and by now you’d expect everybody knows what to do. Yet you’re still in high demand! How do you explain this?
TOM: How fast can you actually change the characteristic habitual behavior of communications in an industry as big as the nonprofit industry? At one point there were 1.6 million charities in the United States alone, and we’re not the only mature philanthropic market.) Some of the models that are well entrenched are just, I think, wrong. Yet everybody borrows from each other, they copy each other. And so you’ve got widespread bad practices, not best practices.
Popularity: 2% | Category Communications, Community, Conference/Congress, Cross-Post, Design, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Graphic Design, How-to, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Perspectives, Publications, Publications Design, Social Media, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Interview: Howard Adam Levy, Principal of Red Rooster Group
Howard Adam Levy is Principal of Red Rooster Group, a New York City-based branding, marketing and design agency for nonprofits. Howard, who began working with nonprofits as a graphic designer in 1991, founded the agency 10 years ago. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVEnonprofit blog.
MKC: What is most challenging about branding nonprofits?
HOWARD: Nonprofits face a wide variety of constituents, from clients, referral sources, donors, partner organizations, board members and others. So a lot more is involved in reaching out and developing messages and strategies for each of those audiences.
Businesses, especially small businesses, can make unilateral decisions on their marketing. Nonprofits are typically more consensus oriented. And particularly when it comes to the brand, you really want to get everyone’s input and have a feeling that everyone is contributing to the process of what we’re all about. So you need a process that can build consensus in a politically neutral environment and get everyone feeling really good about the brand and their role as brand ambassadors.
Popularity: 3% | Category Blogs, Branding, Campaigns, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Design, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Graphic Design, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Publications Design, Slide Presentations, Social Media, Storytelling, Strategic Marketing, Web Design, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Fundraising: How To Apply For A Grant From Intel
This week in our ongoing periodic series on grant providers and how to apply for their support, we look at the tech company that helps build Microsoft and Apple computers: Intel. The corporation is best known for its processors and motherboards and for its 5-note jingle - but its stand on corporate social responsibility is truly impressive. A post on the company’s CSR blog site by Perry Gruber back in 2008 nicely shows the synergies Intel envisions between corporate wealth and nonprofits and charities that do work that also helps those corporations who support them. A (Flash) video about Intel’s more recent philanthropic outreach can be viewed here.
Popularity: 4% | Category Banking & Finance, Blogs, Civics, Communications, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Technology for Education | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Interview: Michael Stein, Author, Blogger, & Veteran Nonprofit Technology Strategist
Michael Stein, Senior Account Executive for Donordigital, is a veteran nonprofit technology strategist whose areas of expertise include online fundraising, email messaging, email list growth, blogging, website content, mobile messaging, and social media. With Nick Allen and Mal Warwick, Michael wrote the groundbreaking 1997 book Fundraising on the Internet: Recruiting and Renewing Donors Online.
The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVEnonprofit blog.
MKC: How did you get into this field?
Michael: About 20 years ago, I was working for an environmental group just as the Internet started to emerge. I got in on the ground floor, building bulletin board systems for Greenpeace activists and others tracking toxic chemical emissions around the U.S. I helped build the pioneering Internet provider called IGC.org that trained nonprofits to use the Internet, which then morphed into the first experiments in online fundraising on the Web for Rainforest Action Network. In the mid-1990s, I hooked up with legendary direct mail fundraisers Mal Warwick and Nick Allen, and we started to think about what the future of fundraising might look like with the evolving Internet. Together we wrote the first book about fundraising online.
Popularity: 8% | Category Advertising, Advice, Blogs, Branding, Campaigns, Communications, Community, Copyrighting, Cross-Post, Database, Development, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, iPad/Tablet, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Newsletter, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Public Relations, Social Media, Storytelling, Technology, Tools, Tweets, Twitter, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Interview: Mazarine Treyz of the Wild Woman’s Fundraising blog and author of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising
Mazarine Treyz writes the Wild Woman’s Fundraising blog and is the author of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising. A nonprofit fundraising consultant and trainer, she is also a social media trainer for the City of Austin, Texas.
Popularity: 9% | Category Advice, Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, How-to, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Perspectives, Social Media, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
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