If a picture is worth 1,000 words, how much is a video - even a short one - worth? 10,000 words? 100,000? A million? 

Video is the ultimate storytelling device, says Burr Purnell, the Director of Social Good at VidMob Gives, and using it gives nonprofits an easy, fast, and affordable way to amplify their message to the world. 

VidMob helps brands create digital video ads with expert teams. But for every 20 or so videos it produces for commercial clients, it also provides a free...

Jarrett Ransom, the self-described “Nonprofit Nerd” talks with Cindy about strategies to build your relationships with your donors. Concentrating on “Return on Relationship” instead of “Return on Investment” will get you much farther in your retention efforts.

But what are the building blocks you can use to create these better relationships with the people who are key to supporting your organization?

Jarrett says these five steps have served her well...

Donor retention continues to remain important, but as with everything else in 2021, your approach to it will be a little different as we begin our recovery from the pandemic. 

The basics remain the same: if your nonprofit has a high retention rate, you have a base of supporters you’ll be able to rely on year after year to sustain your programs and forward your mission. If it’s low, you're constantly scrambling to find new donors (far more expensive than keeping your current...

The New Year is our cue to take up different things, try the unknown, expand who we are. 

That same adventurous spirit should be part of our nonprofit marketing efforts as well. Marketing keeps evolving and we need to be willing to investigate new methods and avenues to keep up with it. 

The good news is that, if nothing else, 2020 taught us that we can shift and change pretty quickly, particularly in how we use digital marketing. 

This episode is all about exploring ideas you...

Now that the New Year is here, I have two questions for you: 

• What would success for your nonprofit really look like in 2021?
• And how will your marketing plan get you there? 

Welcome to the Great Reset. 

After the year we’ve had, developing a marketing plan might seem like (a) an exercise in futility, given what happened last year; or (b) way too much work for a document that might end up gathering dust on a shelf.

Both of those assumptions are untrue. Your marketing...

Recharge. Reboot. Reinvigorate.

For most of us, that’s what a new year is also about. 

But after a hard 2020 - and the time and effort it is going to take to recover in 2021 - I worry that my nonprofit marketing friends are almost afraid to greet the new year with optimism. 

Don’t let the past year rob you of that sense of hope and purpose. There is a way to balance a positive mindset without sounding like a hopeless and uninformed Pollyanna. In this...

We all know the importance of marketing your nonprofit. 

It is your main pipeline to clients, advocates, volunteers, and donors. It’s what makes the connections possible and enables your organization to do the good it does in the world. That’s why smart marketers make the case for their marketing budgets, which are often the first on the chopping block during the hard times.

Realistically, however, there are times that the dollars just aren’t there. And with the...

Normal might be overrated. 

As we head into 2021, I think many of us are torn by the idea of “returning to normal.” Of course, we want things to improve from the unrelenting challenges of 2020. We want lives saved and economic prosperity to return. But I think we also want things to be better than they were before coronavirus invaded our lives. 

COVID-19 was a crash course for almost every nonprofit in how to survive, how to revamp your operations during a...

As you fine-tune your end-of-year appeals, it’s worth thinking about the words that - when used judiciously - can inspire people to give to your cause. 

Below you’ll find a link to one of my most popular guides about the 20 or so words that are powerful and proven to impact donations. But in today’s podcast, I’m focusing on seven words and phrases to consider as you craft your ‘asks’ for support. 

• A few are from my list of...

You’d never buy a house and neglect to do the maintenance, right? 

Website agency founder and CEO Anne Stefanyk of Kanopi Studios, this week’s Marketer on a Mission, says you should treat your nonprofit’s website the same way. 

You’ve spent a lot of time and money creating that online presence and it should last you at least 10 years, she says, as long as you do the maintenance.

Or, to put it another way, the launch of your website isn’t the end of the...