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Pop Art Airplane

Effective Fundraising Is Always a “Choose Your Own Adventure” Story

Storytelling
Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? They are kid-fiction adventures that originated in the late 70s. Each book is narrated in the second person — you — and offers periodic decision points for the reader. It goes something like…
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VIDEO: How to Feel the Holiday Season When It’s Still Far Off

Fundraising
One of the strange challenges of the serious fundraiser is the long stretch of time between when you should be crafting your messaging and when it finally goes out to donors. And now, the midst of August, is when that…
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Fundraising Ninja

8 Secrets of Fundraising Ninjas

Fundraising
You’ve heard about regular ninjas. They’re highly trained people with such well-developed fighting skills that they appear to have supernatural abilities. I don’t know if this kind of ninjas are mythic or real. But I do know that there are…
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Pop Art Man Hide and Seek landscapeCAT VIDEOS

VIDEO: Good and Bad Delusions: What My Cat Is Teaching Me about Fundraising

Fundraising
I’d like to introduce you to Dulcinea, my cat. She’s very nice. We have a great relationship, as long as I keep supplying cat food. But we’re both delusional. That’s okay, though. It’s how two very different species can get…
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Pop Art Sing

5 Professional Tips for Making Your Fundraising Stories Sing

Storytelling
Jeff Brooks joins long-time friend and colleague, Kristine Poggioli to talk about writing great stories for fundraising — for direct mail, email, or any other medium. Kristine’s tips for fundraising stories that really do the job: Grab the reader’s attention…
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Pop Art Robot Hamlet

You Have No Dramatic Stories to Tell? You’re Looking at it Wrong!

Storytelling
We don’t have any dramatic stories to tell! How can we tell great stories? We don’t work with babies or puppies! We have no way to be emotional. Have you heard or said things like this? It’s flat-out wrong. If…
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What to Do When the Fundraising Experts Are Wrong

Direct Mail
Every once in a while, I hear from a fundraiser who says something like this: Our direct mail is not at all the way you say it should be. It’s wordy, complicated, and written at a very high reading level.…
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The Art of Not Being Clever in Your Fundraising

Fundraising
One of the reasons I like the Web: It’s helping kill off the Clever Headline. Google and the other search engines don’t understand puns. They don’t appreciate wordplay. They don’t admire a Joycean multilingual, triple-entendre, back-flip ironic headline. These things…
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Bad advice charities are given

Crazy Advice Charities Are Given

Fundraising
Sean Triner, Fundraisingologist at Moceanic and Lynne Boardman, Managing Director at Harvey McKinnon Associates tackle some common advice nonprofits receive, including: “Don’t ask your donors to put you in your will. Talking about death will upset them.” “Don’t thank donors…
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How to Write Like a Nonprofit Genius and Motivate People to Join Your Cause

How to Write Like a Nonprofit Genius and Motivate People to Join Your Cause

Writing
Once upon a time, I was an English teacher. A guardian and promoter of our written language in its formal academic form. Please accept my apology for the damage I did during those years. I worked hard to teach my…
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