An organization’s most important audience is their donors. Donor support makes your nonprofit possible, and they need to be the primary audience for timely information, updates, and gratitude from your organization. But how do you grow your donor base? How do you create a flow of new donors to support your fundraising? You create a… Continue reading How Nonprofits Can Use Marketing Funnels to Gain New Donors
Sunshine, beaches, barbecues, the vacation you wait for all year…these are all the things that nonprofit professionals look forward to. What’s even better, most of us aren’t as busy because the constant craziness of event registrations, blog posts, interviews, and social media pushes dies down in the summer. This calm actually makes the summer one… Continue reading Why Summer Is the Best Time to Start Communications Planning
Every nonprofit needs to pull off great events, but you can’t have a great event without getting people to come, and that requires marketing. You don’t need a big budget for marketing, but you do need to spend time planning your outreach. This blog post will help you avoid the biggest pitfalls of a nonprofit… Continue reading 4 Event Marketing Mistakes Your Nonprofit May Be Making
Many of us in communications are competing for unrestricted funding (the birthday cake of the nonprofit budget) and we need to give clear reasons for why our department deserves the resources. At that moment, how isn’t as important. Your boss, board, or donor will want to know the why. Why are we investing in this? Why… Continue reading 5 Reasons to Invest in Nonprofit Communications
It’s easy to find advice on how to write the perfect story. We’ve all read those blogs and we’ve attended those webinars. But the truth is, writing the story is just one piece of the puzzle. Every story has a lifecycle. Collection, writing, editing, sharing. And this process takes an enormous amount of time. What… Continue reading The Missing Link in your Storytelling Strategy
The following is a guest blog I wrote for Williams Whittle. I hope you enjoy it! Hashtags are so commonplace now, they’ve become a part of daily life (at least on the internet). They are a quick, easy way to join an existing conversation and amplify your message to even more people. However, if you… Continue reading 5 Hashtag #Mistakes Your Nonprofit May Be Making
The following is a guest blog I wrote for Williams Whittle. I hope you enjoy it! GuideStar has announced a complete website redesign, which included a vastly different way nonprofit information was shared with the public. The design did away with the old style tabs structure, and instead shows an entire Nonprofit Profile, featuring modular… Continue reading 5 Ways to Make the Most of your New GuideStar Nonprofit Profile
A few years back, I was getting pro bono advice from a few PR folks who worked at big firms. They had fancy degrees and long, unintelligible titles. I showed them a few examples of our collateral, our website, and our social media posts, and sought their advice. "Well, first you need a completely new website.… Continue reading Bizsplaining: Mansplaining for Nonprofits
In the nonprofit sector, discussions of diversity and equity are everywhere. Sometimes it feels like the statement, “But we need to make sure [blank] is equitable,” is said in every single meeting. But too often it’s said by white people. To white people. About people of color. Last week, Rainier Valley Corps hosted its third… Continue reading The Importance of Sitting Down: White People and Equity
This month, YNPN Seattle is posting blogs about “starting from scratch.” They’ll be giving you tips and advice on how to build things from the ground up—without burning out. My installment in is focused on creating an attainable, effective, and measurable communications plan. So last week, I shared some tips for sketching out the main… Continue reading How to Create a Nonprofit Communications Plan from Scratch (Part 2)
Allison Carney Consulting 