Shifting focus in crowdfunding

by Marc A. Pitman | May 8, 2020 | 3. Ask, Donor Evangelists, Events

This week, international crowdfunding expert Anita Gallagher came to The Nonprofit Academy to teach us the latest trends on successful crowdfunding. The shift in messaging may surprise you. Appealing to the Head or Heart? For a long time, nonprofit fundraisers have...

Are you as creative as Red Box?

by Marc A. Pitman | Sep 18, 2011 | 4. Love (Stewardship), Donor Evangelists

Yesterday, I got an email from Red Box asking me to take a picture of myself hugging a Red Box. Hugging a huge DVD dispensing box. Why haven’t I done this with my nonprofit?! This is a simple tactic of creating buzz. And it’s really easy! If you’re...

Nonprofit Executive Director and Fundraising Revisited

by Marc A. Pitman | Jun 22, 2010 | 3. Ask, Donor Evangelists, Question Marc?

A few weeks back, I posted this question: Q: As an E.D., what percentage of my time should be spent on fund raising? I am relatively new at this and want to balance my schedule. My answer was something like, “100%.” And I got some comeuppance. Here are...

Using Twitter and Facebook in your year-end fundraising letter strategy

by Marc A. Pitman | Nov 3, 2009 | 3. Ask, Donor Evangelists, Fundraising Secrets, Internet & Social Media

Last time, we looked at creating a year-end strategy for fundraising letters. But in today’s world, it’s wise to consider complementing these appeals with tools like Facebook and Twitter. According to FundRaising Success Magazine: Between 35 percent to 42...

Development and Social Media in a nutshell

by Marc A. Pitman | Oct 16, 2009 | 2. Engage, 3. Ask, Donor Evangelists, Fundraising Secrets

In the last three weeks, I’ve given five talks about social media and fundraising to various groups of development officers. Today I was asked to sum up one of the sessions. Summing up social media without slides is challenging but here was my attempt: Social...

Ostrich Mentality: Social Media and Storytelling

by Marc A. Pitman | Apr 2, 2009 | 2. Engage, Donor Evangelists, Internet & Social Media

The latest edition of FundRaising Success Magazine has a terrific article by Bryan Schoell called Get Your Head Out of the Sand. Here’s the begining: People are talking about you online. Ignoring that fact won’t make it go away, so you’d best join in the...