The Extreme Fundraising Blog

Need I say more?

I am thrilled beyond words to announce that Ask Without Fear is now on Amazon.com!

If you’ve purchased a copy, please write your review! If not, you can get a copy here:
Ask Without Fear!: A Simple Guide to Connecting Donors With What Matters to Them Most
or here:
Ask Without Fear at Fundraisingcoach.com

(Hint: You get the autograph if you buy through the Fundraisingcoach.com link.

Here’s something I wrote for the Facebook page of my local library. Unfortunately, it’s too long for the 1000 character limit! So I post it here and hope it’ll help others.
———————
Hi gang,

Whatever you think of last night’s budget session, it’s clear that that we need to get the message out to an even broader audience.

I’m sure Sarah has back up for some of this but I’m thinking of a “Did You Know” campaign. Something that could be easily printed off by each of us and hung at our work places and in the cafes we frequent. Simple short messages that could even be put in our email signatures.

Something like this. (I don’t know if all of these are true, but it gives you an idea.)

DID YOU KNOW…
    …cities with libraries are more economically prosperous?
    …cities with libraries have lower taxes?
    …cities with regional libraries attract more out-of-town people to local businesses?
    …cities with libraries spend less on GA?
    …library circulation has increased by X% in the past 3 years?
    …people use libraries even more during recessions?
    …libraries keep money in the local economy?
    …libraries help reduce family expenses?
    …people with library cards tend to have higher salaries?

They could all end with a “Go to www.SupportTheWatervilleLibrary.org to show your support!”

The website would urge people to give based on the three ways they can give: time, talent, treasure.

A simple clean landing page that had three links:

• Get a library card < -- and make the process online and easy
• Give money to the library campaign < -- leading to a page with something like a Google Checkout account
• Get involved < -- leading to a page with linked PDFs that are easy to print out and HTML code for “Did you know…” web banners and squares for facebook and myspace and blogs.

What do y’all think? Is this something that sounds easily implemented?

Gayle Robertswas my guest on today’s Ask Without Fear radio show.

You really owe it to yourself to listen to Gayle’s thoughts on fundraising and generousity. You’ll be challenged to re-evaluate your thoughts on raising support for nonprofits. And you’ll be re-energized as you realize how incredibly important your role is. And you’ll hear Gayle’s advice of how to fundraise during a recession.

You can listen to the show here or go to http://fundraisingcoach.com/radioshow.htm:

You can subscribe to the RSS feed at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/marcapitman/feed

We’ll take the next couple weeks off. Our next show will be on Tuesday, June 3 at 11 a.m. with Jeff Brooks.

Jeff Brooks’ recent post at DonorPowerBlog is such a great reminder: when you’re writing fundraising letters, you need to write like a human being .

He offers a great real-life example of typical copy from a fundraising letter he received. He then points out:

No mentally healthy person would speak those sentences.

Scary isn’t it? If people give to people, why do we make our fundraising letters so boring?

And I love that he reminds us that “there’s nothing forcing you to write that way”!

Read his entire post, and many others like them, at his blog: http://www.donorpowerblog.com/

Today I interviewed Jay Love of eTapestery.

We talked about everything from databases to podcasting to raising more money on an annual basis.

You can hear the entire show by going to:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/marcapitman/2008/05/06/Jay-Love-eTapestrycom

You can subscribe to the RSS feed at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/marcapitman/feed

The next Ask Without Fear radio show will be on Tuesday, May 13 at 11 a.m. My guest will be Gayle Roberts.

I’m pleased to announce that the Extreme Fundraising Blog is now featured on Alltop.

I’m pleased to announce the Ask Without Fear! Radio Show is starting today!

This radio show will be hosted through BlogTalkRadio.com at 11 a.m. (I chose 11 a.m. because it’ll be the start of the day for our West Coast colleagues and the end of the day for our European listeners.)

Today’s guest is, Jay Love, founder and CEO of www.eTapestry.com

While the show is geared at fundraising professionals that have been in the field a long time, other fundraising enthusiasts will benefit from the interviews as well.

To join in the fun, at 11 a.m. Eastern time today, either:

1. go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/marcapitman or
2. call the "call in" number (347) 996-5931. 

The show is free but if you choose to call, your telephone company will charge the same long distance charges that you’d pay to call your Aunt Ethel in NYC.

I hope you can join the call!

P.S. The show will be recorded so you can listen to it anytime you want. The link will always be available at:
http://fundraisingcoach.com/radioshow.htm

Jim Bush wasn’t able to make it to Andrew Mosawi’s Web 2.0 seminar here in Montreal. So I thought I’d blog my notes and tweet the link to him.

Web 1.0 - all about commerce
Web 2.0 - all about people

It’s all about relationships, not the technology

The fastest growth in internet users is grandparents. Our DIRECT MAIL folks are GOING ONLINE!!!

Average policing time on Wikipedia: 4 minutes

Wikipedia: 1.5 million articles and growing. Encyclopedia Britannica: 42,000…

Blogs: Kryptonite locks were breakable by a Bic pen. The blogosphere rallied and Kryptonite missed it.

Bloggers: more likely to have an income over $75,000 and are much more likely to buy things online

Seth Godin “The best blogs start conversations, they don’t control them.”

Widgets: flickr, facebook (see my frcoach blog), 6degrees, chipin.com,

How do we treat a $20 giver that pulled in $50,000 gifts for your org from his network?

YouTube: can have great success telling your story. no need to have professional film crew

Wired Mag: Wired. Tired. Expired. Do, or stop. They recommend focusing all your efforts in one space rather than diluting it across 4 or 5 platforms.

What’s important to your organization? Engagement or money.

“Causes” engage but don’t necessarily monetize

Kiva.org, givemeaning, donorschoose: it’s almost like we missed a step…donors used to have to go through someone to help people…

Content is king: no more going to websites, with RSS the content comes to me,

The Long Tail: Donor Pyramid is the head of the tail, it still applies but the longtail is in social networking, we can now impact conversations than ever before

What does that look like for your organization? Where are you putting your effort?

Twitter is like hanging out with your friends. Blogging is like reading their homework.

Don’t you wish you were here?

I’m pleased to announce the Ask Without Fear! radio show is starting next Tuesday!

This radio show will be hosted through BlogTalkRadio.com. Every Tuesday at 11 a.m., I’ll be interviewing the top fundraising gurus from around the US (and eventually from around the world).

My first four guests are:

• Jay Love, founder and CEO of www.eTapestry.com
• Gayle Roberts, uber blogger and fundraising counselor www.gayleroberts.com
• Jeff Brooks, another uber blogger, the man behind the ever popular www.donorpowerblog.com
• David Phillips, president of CDS, a nationwide consulting firm based out of SC.

The show is geared at fundraising professionals that have been in the field a long time. (But other fundraising enthusiasts will benefit from the interviews as well.)

To join in the fun, go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/marcapitman at 11 a.m. Eastern time next Tuesday. (I chose 11 a.m. because it’ll be the start of the day for our West Coast colleagues and the end of the day for our European listeners.)

You can listen online or by calling the "call in" number (347) 996-5931. Long distance charges may apply for the call (just as they would if you were calling your Aunt Ethel.)

If you could ask Jay, Gayle, Jeff, or David just ONE question, what would it be?

You can reply to this email or send me one at: marc@fundraisingcoach.com

To your fundraising success!

Marc

P.S. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 a.m.

About.com’s Nonprofit Guru, Joanne Fritz just posted a delightful review of Ask Without Fear!.

This is how she starts out:

It must be the years of graduate school that have resulted in my current love for small, easy-to-read, even “sassy” books.

I just found another one, Ask Without Fear: A Simple guide to Connecting Donors with What Matters to Them Most, by Marc A. Pitman

I think it may be the first time I’ve been called “sassy”!

Read the entire AWF review at: http://nonprofit.about.com/od/fundraisingbasics/fr/fundraisingfear.htm