It’s not easy being lean
The Lean Startup is a movement that challenges entrepreneurs to build and run their companies in a new way. It emphasizes making things that customers actually value and want, which minimizes wasted...
View Articlethinking is hard
Thinking is hard, which may be why we spend so much time trying to avoid it. Instead of thinking about what our audiences really want, what would really move them, we go in search of mindless rules,...
View ArticleFundraising’s Uncrossable Divide
The endless tension between program staff and fundraising folks is a rarely reported yet everyday fixture of the non-profit world. Even more than Democrats and Republicans, marketers and program people...
View Article11 Reasons Why Your Program Staff Shouldn’t Control Your Marketing
This incredible list comes courtesy of ad man extraordinarie Roy Williams. While he focuses on ads, this list applies to overall non profit marketing as well. 1. The world of advertising is noisier and...
View ArticleDo you know the six universal shortcuts to persuasion?
I’m fascinated by the science of persuasion. How can we craft our messaging and campaigns to effectively persuade people to take part, to take action, to give, and to volunteer? Somehow I missed this...
View ArticleHow to surprise the brain to attract attention
A purple cow stands out. A well-known song played in a minor key fascinates. An unexpected twist in a story you thought you knew the end to delights. Why? Humans owe our “need for surprise” to a part...
View ArticleWhy Pavlov is a better marketer than most of us
Ivan Pavlov understood the power of creating associative memories. In his classical conditioning experiment, he linked something his “audience” (e.g. the dog) wanted — food — with an external stimulus...
View ArticleAre you starting a relationship or ending it?
I don’t often blog about my mega-marketing crush Seth Godin. I figure he gets a ton of play and doesn’t need my humble amplification. But… this post is something fundraisers cannot miss! He asks the...
View ArticleIs reality the new new thing?
Meanwhile, back in the real world… The latest crop of up and comers in cybertopia share an interesting quality – they use technology to make our real lives better. Anyone who has witnessed the Soviet...
View ArticleYour Guide to Asking Better Questions – And It’s Free
Are you ready to stop being an order taker and to start co-creating? When it comes to design, strategy and other creative services, it’s easy to do what your client, boss or co-workers request. It’s...
View ArticleTo “Tote Bag” or Not to “Tote Bag”
Whether to use premiums in fundraising is as hotly argued as the perennial debate over whether the toilet paper should roll out from the top or the bottom of the roll. The latest addition to the tote...
View ArticleWhen We Count Everything, Nothing Matters
The proliferation of marketing metrics is a mixed blessing. In theory all that data allows marketers and communicators to reach the exact right audience with the exact right offers in an ever more...
View ArticleThe Fantasy of Zero Risk, High Return
Starting or expanding a fundraising program is exactly like launching a small business (or a big business in some cases). That means there needs to be a capital investment. There needs to be a clear...
View ArticleDecision is a destination: How we get there is murky
Yesterday I walked into a store in my neighborhood in hot pursuit of a pair of shorts. The one pair I own is in tatters and I need a new pair. There were plenty of cute shorts on display, but while I...
View ArticleDeath and Consulting
No really, working for nonprofits only sometimes feels like death. What I’m talking about here though is A Band called Death, a documentary film about music, family, and the price we pay when we refuse...
View ArticleConsulting BS Decoded
There are two schools of consulting, both alive and well. The “Bamboozle them with Bullshit” school uses highfalutin fuzzy language to instill the notion that you are dumb, they are smart, and you need...
View ArticleIs Boring the New Black?
“Let’s do something really innovative,” is the battle cry of many a digital pro. Run that phrase through Google Translate and what you’ll get back is “let’s build something no one will use.” There is...
View ArticlePlus Ca Change
I have long argued (and continue to fervently believe) that the Internet has not changed human nature (though it does seem to amplify both the best and the worst of us). As evidence of the enduring...
View ArticleThe Bottom Line is Love
Someone please explain this paradox: We do what we do out of passion, but when we try to recruit others to our cause we resort to frail logic. I got invited to see Sylvia Earle receive a very 19th...
View ArticleFundraising by Wire
A long, long time ago I was a guinea pig in a flight training experiment. The idea was teach budding pilots – I was 17 at the time – to fly first by learning to read the instruments – the altimeter,...
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