What I learned: April 15-19
Each week, I share my favorite resources that I found while helping organizations make a LEAP to support leadership, increase engagement, improve accountability, and foster philanthropy.
Leadership
In-person Workshop: Seeding Success: Cultivating Your Board to Grow Your Funding
I really enjoyed the workshop Mitzi Keel did for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter. Her comparison of board cultivation to gardening really hit home for me as I’ve spent much of my free time lately thinking about those exact topics. Everything from deciding what to plant, preparing the soil, watering your seedlings, to (hopefully!) watching them blossom and thrive worked as a great analogy for how we can shepherd board members along to be amazing advocates for our organizations.
Engagement
Blogpost (Veritus Group): What Kind of Home Have Your Created for Your Donor? (#1 of 6)
I’m excited about this series of blog posts that Veritus Group is putting out about the culture organizations are creating for their donors and the analogy they are using around what kind of “home” you’re creating. I love nothing more than when people visit my actual home and tell me how cozy it is or how they feel so welcomed immediately. Are we doing the same thing in our organizations for our supporters?
Accountability
Blogpost (Clairification): Why You Must Put Real Resources into Building Nonprofit Donor Loyalty
If your organization is only tracking one donor-related metric, make it donor retention. Hold your organization accountable to doing the foundational things that are needed to renew philanthropic support – sending timely acknowledgments, reporting back to donors on how dollars are used, and sharing continuously how donors can help you advance your mission.
Philanthropy
E-book (Julie Campbell): 6 Types of Stories You Should Be Telling On Social Media
While doing some prep work for the Nonprofit Leadership Institute course I coordinate for our local technical college, I came across the e-book from Julia Campbell about storytelling for nonprofits. It made me think about how tactical we get when creating communication and solicitation calendars. What kind of results would we see if we started with storytelling and then tied in the fundraising asks instead of the other way around?
