The Extreme Fundraising Blog

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?