Steve Thomas | March 3, 2010
Depending on who you listen to, Facebook (FB) will either completely revolutionize your fundraising or it is a complete waste of everyone’s time. Most of us are in the “somewhere in between” camp. It makes sense that Facebook would help fundraising, but at this point there aren’t a lot of clear and clean examples of [...]
Steve Thomas | February 22, 2010
Many charities host annual event fundraisers — dinners, auctions, desserts, breakfasts, even a few murder mystery events (don’t even get me started about the murder mystery dinner I attended to benefit a domestic violence shelter). Before you go very far ask yourself a few questions:
1. What’s the goal? No fair having some vague goal like: [...]
Steve Thomas | February 15, 2010
Interestingly the last post I ran with contained a series of thoughts, okay rants, called “think this, not that” that didn’t provoke much in the way of discussion on the blog. But it did generate some back-channel discussions via email and phone. “Think bonding, not branding” started more than a few, “nice line, but what [...]
Steve Thomas | February 1, 2010
We spent some time last week with one of our favorite people. She’s brilliant, wise and a terrific nonprofit marketing strategist. The discussion turned to fundraising for Haiti. We’re all in the business, so the discussion went deep and to the details very quickly. One of the topics that we batted around was the phenomenon [...]
Steve Thomas | January 26, 2010
The buzz about the Haiti-effect on fundraising in 2010 is growing nearly as fast the number of dollars that are being raised for relief. We’ve been drawn into several questions and discussions about how the massive relief and fundraising efforts will impact income for 2010.
Interestingly, I’ve heard and read several in our business who discount [...]
Steve Thomas | January 25, 2010
If you had any doubts that the whole Internet thing is completely out of control, allow me to blow your mind. Pingdom.com recently released some stats that still have my head spinning. I mean, you know there’s lots of “web-stuff” out there, but consider:
There were 90 trillion emails sent in 2009.
247 billion per day! (Makes [...]
Steve Thomas | January 7, 2010
We use the phrase “integrated income solutions” in talking about our work for nonprofits and ministries. It isn’t unusual for a prospective client to ask, “exactly what does an ‘integrated income solution’ look like?” Sean Corcoran with Forrester Research had a terrific post that helps illustrate our point. Sean explained “earned, owned and paid media” [...]
Steve Thomas | January 5, 2010
If you want to increase your online donations, take advantage of these 5 easy steps culled from our intensive survey. OK, it wasn’t an intensive survey. It was an intense hour and half of real-life giving. But my opening sentence holds. If you’ll follow my suggestions, your income online will improve.
Here’s what happened. December 31st, [...]
Steve Thomas | December 31, 2009
Unless you’re working in gift processing, this was probably a little calmer week for you than many of the previous weeks in recent months. In addition to returning all those unanswered emails and wondering (worrying?) exactly how 2009 will total out, here’s one thing you can do today that will make 2010 better. Make a [...]
Steve Thomas | December 29, 2009
I don’t know about you, but at our house there isn’t much time to watch television. So based on the recommendation of a trusted friend I checked out a new series. And I gotta say, it’s fascinating. Now my new favorite TV show is the Fox network’s ”Lie to Me“. The show’s main character is Dr. [...]
Steve Thomas | October 27, 2009
I love reading blog posts that I wish I’d written. OK, candidly, I both love and hate reading blog posts that I wish I’d written. I love to find someone who thinks the way I do, delivers great content and does it in an entertaining style I appreciate. I HATE reading blog posts I wish [...]
Steve Thomas | October 11, 2009
This is a humbling post to write. The Oneicity blog has been quiet for a month. You probably thought we’d been abducted by aliens, bought out by some big corporation or something equally unexpected and bizarre. Alas, not so. We experienced something we always advise our clients to anticipate–we were buried in 4th Quarter Craziness. [...]
Steve Thomas | September 9, 2009
An important strategy for improving fundraising is startling your donors with an amazing, surprising fact about your work. Are 40% of the homeless people in your area children? Are 60% of the homeless women victims of domestic violence? Did 70% of the juveniles in prison come from the foster-home system? Are children in the foster [...]
Steve Thomas | September 8, 2009
Last month we told you if you want to improve your fundraising results and thrill your donors, be specific about what a donor is doing by giving to your organization. We usually talk with clients about it this way: “$=X” Your nonprofit must “frame” for me as a donor what my gift of a dollar [...]
Steve Thomas | August 26, 2009
For nonprofits and ministries, data hygiene and data purity are pretty boring subjects. Why would a CEO or CFO or Development Officer get worked up about clean data? You’ll remember that data hygiene is the discipline of making certain your data is right… names right, addresses right, gift history right, etc…
Boring. So, boring.
Let’s talk [...]
Steve Thomas | August 24, 2009
What would you say if I told you I could double the traffic to your website? Would you say: “Wahoo! Let’s do it!”? or would your first question be: “How much does it cost?” Or: “What’s the catch?”
Those aren’t bad questions, in fact they’re logical, but not the best, first question you should ask. [...]
Hoots and Thomas | August 21, 2009
In our pursuit of helping nonprofits discover the very best fundraising, social media marketing and branding ideas we’re interviewing some of the great thinkers and “doers” out there. Today we’re totally pumped that we have an interview with Chris Brogan. Chris Brogan and Julien Smith have a new book out, “Trust Agents.”
Trust Agents is [...]
Steve Thomas | August 20, 2009
What should you know to be a great nonprofit leader in this time? We regularly hear from people who either want to break into the nonprofit sector or who are looking to advance in nonprofit leadership. People also touch base who have just started their nonprofit and are wondering… “now what?”
We’re asked: What should [...]
Steve Thomas | August 11, 2009
Specifics improve fundraising. It’s that simple. Telling your donors and prospective donors exactly what you do and exactly what will happen if they give you a gift will lift your income. The more specific you are, the better.
In presentations, I often use this PowerPoint slide to provoke the discussion. Usually, we have a fun (at [...]
Steve Thomas | August 5, 2009
Oneicity is always on the lookout for resources and ideas that will inspire those of us serving nonprofits. Today we’re thrilled to share our interview with David Meerman Scott: the marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader and author of the hit new book World Wide Rave. David graciously agreed to answer a few questions for [...]
