Monday Mixtape 007: Spring Fundraising Ideas, Peer-to-Peer, & Nonprofit Email Tips

Monday Mixtape 007: Spring Fundraising Ideas, Peer-to-Peer, & Nonprofit Email Tips

Spring always inspires me. I am apt to start projects in the spring, get some grand ideas about how to revamp my entire life, and maybe think about painting my entire apartment. Anyone else?

Inspiration is the initial spark that makes you want to do something, and it’s important. But inspiration can only take us so far. Without strategy and action, inspiration fizzles out.

So for this week’s mixtape, I’ve got a springy mix of inspiring ideas for fundraising professionals and tools to get the job done. Happy spring, everyone!

Here’s the Week’s Mix:

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London

Track #1: How To Stop Reacting All The Time And Get More Strategic by Kivi Leroux Miller at Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog.

THIS. THIS. THIS. If you’re finding yourself knocked off course every time something new comes up, and never getting to your actual priorities, Kivi’s Facebook live chat is going to revolutionize your days. Take your time back!

Track #2: Want to Send Better Emails? Be More Personal by Brady Josephson at NextAfter

NextAfter is known as one of the top nonprofit fundraising optimization firms in the country. These guys know their stuff and help hundreds of nonprofits each year grow through experimentation and optimization.

In this article, Brady Josephson, VP of Innovation & Optimization at NextAfter, shares email fundraising lessons they learned from two experiments they ran with a client. These lessons, though simple, had a tremendous impact on the client’s email fundraising results and can help you raise more through email.

Weekly Wow: How World Bicycle Relief Raised +$1.4M With Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

WHAT?!?! REALLY?!

^ Indeed.

In an episode of CauseVox’s Rally & Engage podcast, we talked with Claire Geiger, the Grassroots Development Manager at World Bicycle Relief, to learn just how they’ve built a growing advocacy program.

She’s super smart, yet incredibly humble.

Claire shares how WBR leverages peer-to-peer in their donor engagement strategy and lessons they’ve learned that you can use to grow your donor advocacy programs.

Track #3: 9 Networking Tips For Fundraisers Who Hate To Network, by Simon Scrivner at Bloomerang

If going to the dentist is more appealing than a networking event, Simon has tips to put you at ease. His tips are practical and immediately actionable.

If you’ve ever stood around feeling weird at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, Simon has an eye-opening perspective for you:  “… remember that you are probably the solution to every person’s problem. That’s one of the great things about representing a nonprofit. You’re talking to businessmen and women who are trying to improve their brand’s reputation, find a new audience, meet connected people, motivate their staff, and change the world. The good news is you can help them with any or all of those! “

Track #4: Focus−The One Thing That Will Ensure You Raise More This Year, by Emily Hunsaker at CauseVox.

Sometimes at nonprofits, we get inspiration overload, and try to do every good thing. Multitasking is a trap that results in never giving anything your full attention. You have to focus on one thing at a time to achieve real progress.

In this post, Emily walks us through honing laser-sharp focus, and offers several models to determine priorities, plan a course of action, and pursue a single long-range goal.  She also tackles the main reasons focusing is so hard, and offers ways to bring your entire organization onboard your focus train.

Bonus Tracks

When you’re ready to start being strategic, tackle this giant timesuck: Bad meetings.

When you need to focus, but also need to jam.

When you’re feeling like life isn’t giving you enough gold stars …

By The Way…

Email accounts for more than 28% of all online giving to nonprofits. This makes email an essential channel to invest in and optimize as you grow in 2018.

So, we’re partnering with Brady Josephson from NextAfter, a nonprofit fundraising optimization firm, to host a 45-minute training all about email fundraising optimization.

Brady will be sharing the 10 key elements of a great fundraising email, based on 218 experiments, and uncover the ONE underlying secret behind successful email campaigns.

You can learn more and save your spot here.

Thanks for reading!

– Megan

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P.S. Questions about this week’s mix? Suggestions for next week? Don’t leave me in the dark. Let me know by emailing me at blog@causevox.com.