I’m thrilled to be participating in the Nonprofit Goodies Giveaway!

10 of us have gotten together to offer:

• 5 free ebooks including the Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising and my own Ask Without Fear!,
• 2 free workbooks,
• 2 free trainings, and
• one free Donor Map.

On the Nonprofit Goodies Giveaway site there are tools to help with your major gifts, annual fund, grant fundraising, storytelling and presentations. There’s even a training to help you with your benefit auctions.

But hurry these goodies are only available until January 31!
To get your year started with these great tools, simply go to: http://nonprofitgoodies.com/

[Warning: Rant in progress]
In my book Ask Without Fear!, I encourage fundraisers to PYITS–put yourself in their shoes. Thinking like the donor or prospect can save you lots of embarrassment in the process of asking for money.

But never forget: you are not your perfect donor

Your major gift donor prospects are not on the same life trajectory as you. They have different life goals, work patterns, and values. This is good. This is why they are in a financial place for you to be talking to them.

So listen to what they want.

Based on my trainings around the world, 70-75% of the people reading this blog are outgoing, gregarious extraverts who love to be recognized. Don’t assume your donor wants their name up in lights. They may simply want a note of thanks from the CEO. Or maybe a quiet coffee with her.

On the other hand, if you tend to be more introverted and detail oriented, remember that your donor may indeed want to have his name listed as prominently as possible. Or to be recognized at a big gala.

Today, take off your ear muffs

Even if you could never conceive of anyone really wanting “that” [splashy recognition, quiet recognition, whatever], listen to what the donor wants.

As you go through your day today, take off your ear muffs to listen. It might even help to stop at the donors office door and pantomime taking off ear muffs.

You’ll be able to raise alot more money when you remember that you really aren’t your perfect donor.
[The rant is now over]

How do you stop assuming you know and really listen? Tell us in the comments!

In the United States we’re honoring the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’m sure many people will be posting about the “I have a dream” speech. I get so inspired reading his speech.

We in the nonprofit world sure know about dreams! We see the world both as it is and as it can be. So much of our job is telling people that story.

But MLK’s life wasn’t just telling stories. He did the work. He marched. He went to jail. He put himself in harms way.

While I hope we get inspired about dreams and a free and equal world, I really hope we all get inspired to do action.

Tough action.

What kind of tough action are you willing to take this year to make the world better?

Let us know in the comments what you’ll do. I hope you’ll consider asking more!

I often have people tell me about job openings. But now I get to share one!

I’m working on a capital campaign in Lebanon, NH at the Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital. And APD is looking to hire a campaign assistant. The position is part-time and Raisers Edge experience is a plus.

You can read all the details here: Campaign Assistant-Philanthrophy & Community Relations Department

Whether you love or hate New Year Resolutions, millions of people use January 1 to start new habits.

As a result, I’ve been asked by several bloggers and magazines what New Year resolution I would suggest people make. My answer for nonprofit folks? Ask more.

If you could do only one thing this year

As I’ve worked with nonprofits over the last year or two, I’ve noticed a tendency to do everything but ask. Don’t get me wrong. I believe in developing donors and engaging prospects and thanking supporters. I think it’s good to learn how to tell their story effectively. These are all great and they’re vital for a robust development effort.

But you don’t have a development effort if you don’t ask for money.

As a fundraiser, not asking for money is tantamount to malpractice.

Your job is to raise money.

• “Getting word out” about your nonprofit is nice, but it isn’t enough.
• Sitting back hoping the letters you sent inspires people to give isn’t enough.

You need to ask people to take the specific action of giving money.

You need to ask them. Get on the phone. Set up solicitation appointments. You can even use fundraising events, provided you make an ask!

Get passionate about asking

I’m passionate about asking. I’ve written alot about asking on this blog. Check out http://fundraisingcoach.com/category/asking/

I even started FundraisingKick to help give people the kick they needed to get out the door!

I’m convinced that as you get some more positive asks under your belt, as you see donor’s eyes light up with excitement about being able to invest in your cause, you’ll get addicted to asking!

Whether you believe you’ll ever get addicted to asking or not, this year commit to getting better at asking! The people you serve will reap the reward of your effort!

Did you watch CNN this morning? It reported Paul Allen’s stats that Google+ growth is exceeding expectations. According to him, Google is now over 62 million users and adding about 625,000 new users every day.

His prediction? Google+ will have over 400 million users by the end of 2012.

400 million users in a year in a half.

Don’t ditch Facebook

Granted, there is a difference between “users” and “active users.” Facebook reports 800 million active users–people who actually use Facebook. And it reports that half of them log in to Facebook every day.

Facebook currently has more active users each day than the projected total users Google+ will have by the end of 2012. So you definitely want to get good at using Facebook. I recommend checking out John Haydon to get really good at using Facebook.

But explore Google+ in 2012

But even with Facebook’s success, when asked a question they can’t answer, people don’t say they’ll “Facebook” it. They still say they’ll “Google” it. And herein lies the secret to Google’s success.

CNN reports that Google has more monthly visitors than Facebook. And Google is advertising Google+ prominently, especially with the omnipresent black bar on many of its products.

The people will try out Google+. And as Google opens up it’s API, more developers will be able to create applications that interface with Google+. (Think Causes in Facebook. Or, unfortunately, Farmville.) These new applications will help “users” become “active users.”

Add to that all the changes Google is making to accomodate Google+ in all its other products, including and especially its search results, it’s important to your nonprofit or business to get familiar with Google+ now. It’s still an early adopter phase which means people are more forgiving when a company or nonprofit makes mistakes.

You don’t want to end 2012 wishing you’d checked out Google+ a year ago.

Some tools to help you get started

I’ve written a lot about Google+ and why I think it’s great for nonprofits. All the posts are available here: Google+ for Nonprofits on FundraisingCoach.com. Here are some of those articles:

• Getting Started on Google+ for Nonprofits

• Google+ for Nonprofits seminar at BlogWorld (this is more of a seminar)
• How to hold a Google+ Hangout and why you should

Here are some quick videos on YouTube about aspects of Google+:

• How to Start a Google+ Hangout (3 minutes)

• Google+ profile picture trick (39 seconds)
• A quick way to find interesting people on Google+ (1 minute 10 seconds)
• How to set up multiple administrators for your Google+ page (43 seconds)

Nonprofits, businesses, and geeks alike were thrilled when Google+ finally rolled out business pages back in November 2011. But one of the huge limitations of pages were the limit of only one admin per page. Any time a business or nonprofit wanted to post something, it had to go through the person who first created the page.

Talk about a communications bottleneck!

Bottleneck no more

Fortunately, Google has broken that bottleneck in the last few days. Now it’s incredibly simple to add more admins to your page. I think the process is even easier than Facebook.

Here is a 40-second video I created to show you how:

In case you wanted a cheat sheet, here is a 1-2-3 image that also shows you how to add multiple admins for your Google+ page:

People love deadlines

This week is a huge week for giving! Christmas is over but there are still a few days before the end of the tax year. People are motivated by deadlines. And the end of the calendar year is a powerful deadline.

Use it to you advantage.

Make the most of this week

Earlier today, I sent subscribers to my Fundraising Kick email 5 activities to do this week. Since they pay for those emails, I’ll share the first three here. (The last two were about social media and using your email list. You can get those if you sign up at: http://letter.ly/FundraisingKick/.)

• Remember to change your voice mail like I mentioned in last week’s email. Be sure to:
  1. give donors a way to contact you
  2. tell them when you’ll be in the office and
  3. to point them to both the donation form and the stock transfer information form on you site. (You do have stock transfer information on your site right?)
• Write a few notes to people on your “chicken list”—the list of people you’d love to contact but are just too chicken. Send them something like
  

  “in this season of thankfulness, I just wanted to say thanks for your [support of our community, work in our cause area, show of support to the (name of another nonprofit)]. Your efforts are noticed and appreciated. Thank you!”

• Spend a couple days in the office. They don’t have to be full days, but be sure to be in a couple of days. Chances are no one will just “show up.” But if you DON’T spend time in the office, you KNOW someone will try.

As I told the Kickers, lots of people will give over the next few days. Like you would with a leaky roof, put as many buckets out to catch it all!

This afternoon, I was working on my “List of 100 Things to do in 2012.”

While doing it, I asked my 12 year old son, “If there were one thing you and I could do together in 2012, what would it be?”

He freaked out.

He dramatically slumped on the kitchen counter and then fell too his knees shouting: “WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME?!?!? I CAN’T TELL YOU!!!! ARGH!!!”

Whoops. I guess that one thing may be connected to something I’m getting under the tree tomorrow.

If you’d like to freak out your family members by asking them what they’d like to do with you in 2012, check out my plan for setting goals.

My son after he picked himself up off the floor.

One of your 2012 New Years resolutions should be to get more media for your nonprofit.

No matter how big your marketing budget is, chances are great that you could use more exposure. More postitive exposure!

I know for nonprofits, it’s much easier to fundraise when the organization is getting positive press. And it’s great for donors to see people from your organization included among the experts quoted in an article. It reassures them that they made a great investment when they gave a gift to you.

• HARO

  HARO stands for “Help a Reporter Out.” Every day, three times a day, HARO sounds out an email with dozens of information requests from journalists, TV show producers, radio shows, bloggers, book authors and others. Their site claims to send out 200 requests a day. Because of HARO, I’ve been included in a couple books, some online articles, and even interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. (Alas, I didn’t make it into the WSJ article.)

  When I started, I read each query title line by line. But I already have a fulltime job, I didn’t need to make HARO one too! A hundred queries a day is a bit overwhelming. So I usually just skim the queries relying on my eyes to pick up interesting keywords the might fit me “nonprofit,” “social media,” “charity,” etc. This cuts my HARO time down considerably and still allows for some good exposure. From time to time, friends email me HARO requests that seem appropriate.

  You can also use HARO to gather information for articles you’re writing. Just sign up as a reporter and post your question to the list.

  If you’re not signed up for HARO, I strongly encourage you to do it for 2012. I use the free HARO and couldn’t be more pleased.

• Reporter Connection

  Reporter Connection seems to be a HARO wannabe. Rather than three times a day and hundreds of queries, this is a daily email with only a dozen or so queries. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever responded to a query from the Reporter Connection. But this is one of the few emails I make time to read every day.

  Why? Each email has a PR tip from Bill or Steve. It could be about a TV show looking for stories; or how an author got lots of notice for a book; or even a simple tweak to your website for generating more traffic from media outlets. Today’s was a quick suggestion for writing Facebook headlines that get attention.

  These tips are quick and helpful. A couple weeks back, Steve told of speaking with a TV producer about how she finds guest for her show. She said she googles on the name of the topic and the word “expert.” Steve’s tip? Put the word expert in your the meta fields on your website! You can increase the SEO by narrowing it down with adding the field of your speciality.

  These tips make signing up for Reporter Connection a must in 2012 too!

Free PR can help your nonprofit get in front of more

Those are my favorite free PR tools! What do you use?

Let us know in the comments!