#Communications: Postal Rates Raised Last Week – Not For Nonprofits
The United States Postal Service has been struggling financially for the last few years. The Bush Administration saddled the service with pre-paying its future retiree benefits for a decade (2006-2016), a demand uniquely imposed on the USPS. Bush’s policy meant the service went from profits in the $1.4 billion range in 2005 to one that has laid off thousands of works, closed numerous branches, and still needs to raise postal rates in an effort just to stay open. So what he did to the postal service he did to the country.
This past Monday many postal rates changed. For example, first-class mail went up by a penny and its guaranteed one-day delivery (depending on distance) was removed. Or perhaps you didn’t notice?
Popularity: 1% | Category Advice, Campaigns, Civics, Communications, Community, Direct Mail, E-Mail, Fundraising, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newsletter, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Politics, Publications, Strategic Marketing, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Communication: Six Tips To Expand Readership On Your Nonprofit’s Blog
We thank you for reading our blog, and we hope to provide relevant, timely, and interesting material for you for 2012. Producing a timely and engaging blog (at least we hope so!) requires some effort. But the opportunities and results they can produce are well worth the investment. If your nonprofit organization has a blog, you want to ensure regular production of high-quality. And if it doesn’t, you’re missing great opportunities to tell your stories, to turn your passive followers into active volunteers and donors, and to benefit from the multiplier effects of readers sharing, tweeting, and faving your nonprofit’s good work.
Plenty of advice about how to raise your blog’s readership exists in the same blogosphere your organization is already working in. A recent post by Jeff Ogden at SocialMediaToday.com particularly caught our eye because he keeps the advice clear and simple and because he stresses quality over quantity. And let’s face it: the internet largely encourages the latter over the former. So what is on his short list?
Popularity: 1% | Category Advice, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Media Review, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Reviews, Social Media, Storytelling, Twitter, Web and Print, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#HowTo: Resources To Launch Your Nonprofit’s Video Campaign
The holiday season provides us an opportunity to take stock of the past year and to consider new paths and goals for the next year. In that holiday spirit, MKCREATIVEmedia has been turning our focus (and hopefully yours) toward the benefits of video outreach and how video can reach the hearts and minds of donors and supporters. With the costs of decent video cameras and video editing software ever falling even as their sophistication rises, 2012 might be the perfect time to get your nonprofit’s video campaign up-and-filming.
Today we wanted to point to two fabulous resources to support your planning in the winter so you can efficiently and successfully get shooting in the spring.
Popularity: 2% | Category Advice, Campaigns, Communications, Crowdfunding, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, Nonprofit, Public Media, Resource, Social Media, Storytelling, Technology, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#SocialNetworks: Facebook Faces Backlash As Public Offering Nears
The social networking phenomenon that is Facebook offers wonderful opportunity for connection, for spreading the word, for sharing, for changing the world. But it also offers unnerving chances for friction, for spreading rumor, for sharing a too personal party pics of friends, and for changing our skin-and-blood friends into an array of advertisers’ targets. MKCREATIVEmedia has often praised the opportunities to spread the good that an organization’s page offers, but we have occasionally wondered where all this private-made-public material is going – especially for individual citizens.
And as Facebook heads towards a likely Initial Public Offering early next year, we see a swelling trend of even Millennials who are backing off the platform. Is Facebook on the wane?
Popularity: 3% | Category Advertising, Blogs, Campaigns, Civics, Communications, Community, Facebook, Facebook, Marketing, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Social Media, Technology, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Tech: Net Neutrality Supported in Europe – Not Unsupported in US
The European Parliament voted last week to continue to encourage net neutrality as a means to foster innovation and to encourage the dissemination of information. The resolution states, in part, its ambitions “to ensure that internet service providers do not block, discriminate against, impair or degrade the ability of any person to use a service to access, use, send, post, receive or offer any content, application or service of their choice, irrespective of source or target.” Political support for the measure was bolstered by the Plum Report, funded by such content providers as the BBC, Yahoo!, and Skype.
In the US, on the other hand, the Senate recently blocked a Republican-sponsored bill that would block the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)from blocking service providers who block, or at least slow down, internet traffic. Why is the Senate’s position so much more convoluted than the one presented by the EU?
Popularity: 2% | Category Civics, Communications, Community, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Site Administration, Technology, Tools, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#SocialNetworks: Set Up & Take Advantage Of Google+
Setup takes seconds...
Alright, your mind might be elsewhere today: packing – or already travelling – for Thanksgiving, getting the wine chilled or the bird defrosted, remembering all the reasons we are celebrating ‘Thanksgiving’…
But at least bookmark this post so that when you return to your desk at your organization, you can set up your nonprofit’s Google+ page and start growing those Circles during the holiday season. This period is the one most Americans give to their favorite charities and projects, so outreach via social-networking platforms in the days after Thanksgiving is pivotal.
We begin by establishing your organization’s presence in Google+. A great walk-through/how-to is presented here by the blog ‘NonprofitOrgs’ (from which came the image above). As of today, the URL created for your page is not customized (nor is it memorable/elegant). But once the page is up, it has features just like personal pages: Circles, Sparks, etc. For a tour of nonprofit sites already on Google+, visit this portal to get some great ideas.
As we and many other strategists have stated, plenty of good reasons already exist to establish a Google+ page. Which is not to say everyone needs to jump on the bandwagon just yet. Deborah Askanase at SocialBrite.org points out the notably 30/40-something-and-male demographic that is overwhelmingly on the platform at the moment. Moreover, the audience seems notably tech-engaged, which might mean, for your audience, directing resources to Google Plus at the moment might not make the most sense.
But once you and your colleagues commit to establishing a presence on the platform, rest assured that the tech side of the setup is pretty straightforward. Moreover, Google is establishing the connective technologies and APIs that will allow you to update your nonprofit’s page through such third-party platforms as HootSuite and BuddyMedia and Vitrue that your organization may already be using. So upkeep and outreach through the holiday season will be as easy as setting up the page.
Finally, we at MKCREATIVEMedia wish you and yours a joyous Thanksgiving. Safe travels, bon appetit, and take a moment to reflect on those families separated by war this Thanksgiving so that we can enjoy ours at home.
Popularity: 6% | Category Advice, Blogs, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, Measurement, Media Review, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Reviews, Site Administration, Social Media, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#ProAging: SM Savvy Encourages Cross-Generational Connection
Click to enlarge
With Thanksgiving a mere 36+ hours away (30 of which might be spent in a ticket line or sitting on a runway or hoping the traffic finally gets moving), we are all thinking about re-connecting to family and old friends. That we do so via social networking platforms has become the assumption among the Millennials and the Gen-Xers, whether in the holiday season or not. The social networking demands of these generations encourage them to keep up with the latest technologies as well – not a bad thing for the economy.
What happens to the previous-generation phones and laptops as younger Americans buy the latest-and-greatest? One thing that happens to them is they become ‘hand-me-ups’.
Popularity: 5% | Category Boomers, GI Generation, Independent Living, Internet, Interview, Media Review, Nonprofit, Report, Resource, Retirement Living, Reviews, Site Administration, Social Media, Technology, Technology for Aging, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Tech: Online Security For Your Person-Not Just Your Passwords
What is to be done?
Securing one’s passwords, email accounts, and banking information rightly gains the lion’s share of attention in the media. Having one’s email hacked into – even if the account contains no particularly personal or truly incriminating information – can be a terrible headache for oneself and for one’s family and friends.
But are we aware of just how much of our activity is tracked and counted and bought and sold as we browse the internet outside any personal accounts? Computer scientists at Stanford Law School’s ‘Center for Internet and Society’ have been pursing this issue for a few months now, and they trace the myriad ways our identities are shared via even the most innocuous of surfing.
Popularity: 5% | Category Advertising, Case Study, Communications, How-to, Marketing, Measurement, Media Review, Public Relations, Research, Resource, Reviews, Site Administration, Study, Technology, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Fundraising: To Bring Donations In, Keep Sending Emails Out
With all the buzz about social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, we can lose track of tried-and-true outreach tools. Though these other platforms might be great ways to advertise events or spread late-breaking news about your organization’s work, they are not proving to be efficient fundraising instruments (yet?). John Haydon at Inbound Zombie and Razoo Fundraising has been crunching numbers to demonstrate the fact that email remains the best way not only to bring in donations, but to bring in bigger donations.
What makes email, the communications platform that seems oh-so-90s, so successful as a fundraising platform?
Popularity: 2% | Category Advertising, Advice, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community, Development, Direct Mail, Donor Acquisition, E-Mail, Fundraising, How-to, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Media Review, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Reviews, Social Media, Technology, Twitter, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#HowTo: Dropbox Is A Dream For Nonprofits’ Need To Share
We feel the pain of David Pogue, technology reporter and blogger at The New York Times:
Every time I’m tempted to write about some tech product that’s been around awhile, I’m torn. On one hand, I’ll be blasted by the technogeeks for being late to the party. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem right to keep something great hidden under a barrel from the rest of the world. So here goes: I love Dropbox.
His story concerns the ways edits and design of his latest book could be kept in sync among his colleagues (each working on different parts) via the simplicity of a shared Dropbox folder. Imagine the grant proposals, fundraiser fliers, and sections of annual reports that your nonprofit could be sharing among its staff (even on a ‘Need To Know’ basis) in just the same way. And did we mention that it’s free?
Popularity: 4% | Category Advice, Blogs, Communications, How-to, iPad Apps, iPhone Apps, Marketing, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Resource, Reviews, Site Administration, Software Review, Technology, Technology for Education, Technology for Nonprofits, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
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