If you’re not reading Seth Godin’s blog, you may want to make it a New Year’s Resolution to start!

He recently had a pithy blog post on improving copywriting using the slogan on the sign in a Peets’ Coffee store “Unlike Any Coffee You’ve Ever Tasted Before.”

He proceeds to take out banal words, which makes it tepid. Uncomfortably similar to many of our nonprofit taglines!

He then goes through the steps to bring it to a truly great marketing offer:
“FREE TASTE TEST
Are we better than Starbucks?”

As you plan for the new year, read his blog postand ask yourself how you could move your next fundraising letter from banal bragging to something that gets people to take action!

2009 looks like it’ll probably be a challenging year. Since many are having their education budgets cut, I’ve put several tools up on the web. These are packed with incredible content and are conveniently available for you to learn without leaving your office!

Last issue, I mentioned Who’s Telling Your Story?. Storytelling is the best way to non-threateningly market your nonprofit, prospect for new donors, and reinfoce your culture with your staff. Some of the things you’ll learn:

• 2500 year old method to structure an effective story that still works today
• 5 categories of stories to use to reinforce your organizational culture
• Why stories of times you’ve failed are as important as stories of times you’ve succeeded
• A 3-step tool to help you tell stories in ways that board members, volunteers, and staff will find themselves repeating them - singing from the same sheet

The MP3 is $97. The flash video with the PowerPoint slides is $127. Or you can have both for the same price: $127! To see the full list, check out Who’s Telling Your Story? at http://fundraisingcoach.com/storytelling/

And now there’s also the new Ask Without Fear! EXPANDED! I kept the book intentionally slim so others would feel motivated to get out and ask people for money. But people keep asking me to expand on the book. Now, in 4 1/2 hours of teaching spread out over three webinars, I have the luxury to go into much more detail.

So much is covered, it’s impractical to list it all here. So go to Ask Without Fear! EXPANDED fundraising seminar to see the more than 90 items listed!

Each webinar is available for $197 individually. Or you can get all three and a free copy of a workbook to help you put this strategies into practice for only $497. Much cheaper than going to a conference!

See’s Chocolates sent me a tin of chocolates they use for a chocolate fundraiser. I told them my blog doesn’t talk about fundraising sales, but they insisted and who am I to turn down free chocolate?

The tin came yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised by both the assortment of chocolates in the tin and at how good they tasted.

In a totally unscientific poll, I ask our dinner guests:

1. Did you like the chocolates? They did.
2. If they were being sold as a fundraiser for your church’s school, would you buy them? They would.

Then I asked, “If you had to raise money for your church’s school, would you prefer to ask for donations or sell chocolates?”

They strongly preferred to sell chocolates. Even after I told them that only a portion of the sale would go to the school, the rest would get sent to California. They still insisted that selling something would be easier. One guest said she’d much prefer to give the person something “tangible” than just take their money.

And she’s not alone. I can talk ’til I’m blue in the face about how asking people for money isn’t taking from them. Jeff Brooks does an even better job. (Listen to my interview of Jeff for my occasional Ask Without Fear! Radio Show to find out more.)

And I could go on and on telling people that selling things dilutes your brand and potentially confuses your message to donors. I could even warn them of the “slippery slope.” Doesn’t it seem that after an organization does one type of fundraising sale, they keep adding on more? Starts with chocolate bars. Then wrapping paper. Then raffle tickets.

But all of these eloquent pleas wouldn’t change the fact that many people think fundraising is taking something from someone without offering something back. And selling them something tangible feels more comfortable to them.

So if your volunteers want to do fundraising sales, it may be a form of engaging your volunteers. I’d recommend asking them to do the research and finding the best ones. (See’s Chocolates may be a good place to start.)

But I’d be sure to reserve the right to make the final decision. Make sure your fundraising reinforces the mission and message of your school or church or nonprofit. (I’m tired of salespeople eagerly trying to prey on my volunteers, hoping they’ll become a cheap sales team for their long distance calling card or other product!)

And while you’re using these types of sales to engage volunteers, be sure to use your nonprofit storytelling skills to educate them on the joy donors receive when giving is moved from a business transaction to philanthropy!

I sure love the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “Give & Take” roundup of nonprofit blogs. Today I found a gem from fundraising consultant Tom Belford on the Madoff ponzi scandal.

Tom writes on a pretty obvious, but unspoken, double standard: every few years, nonprofits are called to account for their actions and donations but large players in the finance industry go free without regulation.

Today the press reports that the SEC chief admits that his watchdog agency never investigated Madoff’s activities despite years of complaints. But let one nonprofit emit an errant fart and grandstanding Members of Congress and the IRS would be all over it (the nonprofit, that is) like ticks on a hound.

He sure paints a picture with words!

The end of the year is coming upon us with unrelenting speed. Even if it’s not the end of your fiscal year, this is a tremendously important time. And there’s just over 2 weeks to go.

I tend to focus on soliciting individuals…or rather “inviting people to invest in your cause.” And with good reason. Year after year, GivingUSA shows that 80-85% of gifts come from individuals.

But this week, I want to remind you to solicit businesses. Despite this soft economy, many companies are actually increasing their giving.

Since there’s only two weeks left, here’s a tip: smaller companies tend to be more generous. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, less than 70% of companies making more than $1 million give to charity:

By contrast, 80 percent of businesses that earned between $250,000 and $1-million gave a share of profits to nonprofit groups, and 77 percent of companies that earned less than $250,000 gave to charity.

So you might want to focus your business conversations with the smaller firms on your donor list.

But as you’re asking, please remember that nobody owes you anything. Businesses are feeling a pinch now, so they may have to be more creative or flexible in their giving. Perhaps they could allow employees to volunteer for your organization. Or let them have a jeans Fridays with the proceeds supporting your cause.

Treat these businesses well. Businesses and business owners are already doing alot for our communities. And, if you’re able to be understanding now, you’ll be building relationships for years to come.

Like many Americans, I’ve been inundated with news stories about the Big 3 automakers attempts to get a federal loan of billions of dollars. Yes, billions.

So I started wondering, what if the Big 3 were to teach nonprofits how to fundraise?

Some of the humorous answers included:

• Lose touch with your donor base: Ignore the fact that the market’s changing and just stick with what used to work decades ago.
• Don’t spend too much time figuring out strategy: When you’re asking for huge amounts of money, there’s no need to have a plan of action. A “you can trust us” approach is fine.
• Assume everyone’s going to fund you: After all, you are the center of your universe. Why shouldn’t you be the center of theirs too?

Admittedly, these were thought up with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. But it’s scary how often we do the same thing.

• Many nonprofits just do the same old fundraising events and mailings because we always have without measuring their effectiveness. And we too often forget to explore new tools like Twitter or Facebook.
• Talk to many nonprofits and they can’t clearly articulated plan including:
  • specifically how much money they want to raise
  • what they’re doing to do with it, and
  • by what date.
• Many nonprofits seem to forget that nobody owes them a gift. We need to earn the donor’s trust each time and be transparent about how we report back.

Those were my ideas for fundraising like the Big 3. This morning, I sent out a message on Twitter just to see what others would say. Some responses were:

TerraScene what a dismal business model

TerraScene arguably a big payoff in the shortrun - but no soul. no accountability. no long term vision for the greater good. yikes!

@rogercarr Fundraising like the Big 3? Volunteers (and development staff) might be members of the Union of Nonprofit Fundraisers.

You mean mess up royally, abandon your donors, and then ask for help?

@forimpact re: big 3. I think most nonprofits DO fundraise like them ‘bail us out’. And therein lies the rub…

How about you? What do you think it would look like if nonprofits fundraised like the Big 3?

Use the comments to let us know. And, please, feel free to be humorous.

I love the benefits of social media: the ability to make connections, meet people I’d never meet staying here in Maine, two-way conversation rather than simply one-way broadcasting, etc.

So I’ve added Google FriendConnect to my site. Just go to www.FundraisingCoach.com and you’ll see the group on the left side of the screen. (I’m assuming you’re reading this from a blog reader rather than actually being on the site!)

The Official Google Blog states:

Friend Connect makes it easy for anyone to sign in to a website, share a little bit about themselves through a personal profile, discover other people with similar interests, invite their contacts, and interact with friends. Even better, you don’t have to deal with the hassle of creating yet another username and password — Friend Connect lets you log in using an existing account from Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID. Similarly, you can choose to either establish a new profile or use profiles and friend sources from other social networks that have opened up their services, like Plaxo and orkut.

Sounds easy, huh?

So why not venture over to FundraisingCoach.com and join today?

As this grows, I’ll share my insights on how this tool can help your nonprofit raise money and create donor evangelists. But even before then, you can get to know some of the thousands of people that are regular readers of this blog!