Creating a Planned Giving Plan

In this episode, Meghan Speer, host of the Nonprofit Hub Radio podcast, interviews another Megan! Our guest, Megan Donahue shares her wisdom about tweaks and simple things that nonprofits can do to improve messaging. 

Megan talks about her ideas on improving letters and email acknowledgments,  how to sound personable in communication, and how to move away from organization-centric messaging and toward donor and audience-focused messaging. 

Megan Donahue is a writer and nonprofit communications consultant, focused on helping organizations create content that connects with their audiences. She specializes in finding the human story within your facts, drawing in your audience, and building your relationship with them. Megan is the host of Love & Robots, a monthly webcast on the intersection of nonprofits and technology, a dedicated theatre nerd, and an enthusiastic pie-baker

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

Nonprofit Leadership Under the Microscope

What traits do you associate with strong nonprofit leadership? Confidence? Persistence? Assertiveness?

In speaking with our latest guest, Trent Dunham,  the president and CEO of Dunham+Company, we learned that essential nonprofit leadership traits are often much more humbling.

Trent upens up about how his leadership grew as a result of accepting tough feedback, questioning himself, and pausing for reflection. His prevailing mantras "humble aggressiveness, patience, and honor" have helped orient him through the hurdles of being at the helm.

Trent contends that the drive to be a leader will always remain, but the path to getting there means honoring the leadership in place before establishing your own and occasionally taking sharp criticism on the chin in order to grow.

Stream this episode to get great tips on navigating the leader's journey.

Trent Dunham serves as President+CEO of Dunham+Company, providing strategic leadership to its teams around the world ensuring Dunham+Company remains an effective partner to thriving faith-based nonprofit and for-profit organizations. He is a recognized expert in integrated marketing, fundraising, media, and communications.

Continue your learning by checking out Nonprofit Hub Radio’s full episodes list.

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

How do Plato's models of persuasion hold up with respect to direct email marketing over 2,400 years later? According to our guest Derek Scott, pretty reliably!

People who see poor results with their direct email marketing campaigns usually make at least one of the following mistakes. 

1) They fail to segment their donors when they should be rewarding the most consistent ones and recalibrating for the MIA ones.

2) They excessively manufacture a sense of urgency to the point that recipients are numb to campaigns.

3) They over-rely on pathos (emotional appeals) to coax repeat donations without demonstrating the positive impacts of donors' previous gifts.

4) They over-invest in the bells and whistles of their campaigns and demonstrate that donations just flow back into lavish automation cycles. 

 This episode covers how to craft intelligent and persuasive direct mail marketing campaigns. Efforts that appeal to audiences' logical centers in addition to their emotions, and that won't bombard them when they aren't interested.

 Derek weaves a marketing ethos that prepares fundraisers for discerning donors. Ones who will ask questions like: "I see that there are struggling parties you aim to help, but what good is my donation if it is just reinvested in future email blasts?"

 Assuring quality and staying consistent while not overmarketing takes finesse. Stream this episode to hear how Derek balances these elements. 

 Derek Scott is the president of Creator, an agency that specializes in high-powered direct-response copywriting. He founded Creator in 2021 after nearly two decades of writing copy and leading creative teams at agencies serving the non-profit space. 

Derek has crafted campaigns for thousands of fundraising and marketing efforts, so he knows the art and science of direct response copywriting and design. This means he can lead his team to translate fundraising strategies into creative that empowers non-profit organizations to see the results they want.

Website: www.creatorgroup.co

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

How can we be more engaged and authentic in our professional lives?
Amidst a slew of excellent advice our Guest Bethany Cranfield shares in this latest episode, two mantras stand out.

First, we must keep "All bars on green" meaning we optimize our professional practices so that they don't evaporate our energy by day's end. We can do this by prioritizing self-care, but also by setting professional boundaries in ways that might make us uncomfortable at first. Especially if we are habitual overachievers!

The second is that we "show up" on our professional social channels. This means taking our true selves and unique perspectives, tailoring them to the professional environment, and then claiming space online by sharing them. Bethany advocates for making connections for connection's sake and allowing networking and business development opportunities to arise as a natural part of it. So just by showing up, we both honor ourselves and nutrify our professional lives.

If you are an overachiever who wants to continue getting things done without omitting self-care and connection, this episode is a must-listen. 

Bethany is passionate about helping leaders and businesses achieve scalable and sustainable growth by prioritizing healthy disciplines. With this approach, Bethany is building Door No. 3’s business development program to achieve its growth ambitions. She’s focused on making new relationships for the agency and building a virtual and in-person community of tenacious marketing leaders. 

Her career began as a foster care and adoption caseworker. While the shape of her work has evolved significantly, her magic has always been to listen loudly to a client’s presenting challenges and make an actionable plan.

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

"There's no excuse for not knowing a little bit more than you do right now about your audiences." (Ben Smithee)

In 2024, transparency and adaptability are more essential than ever for the survival of your brand. 

Transparency, because stakeholders have so many options to pick from that if your marketing material fails to clearly outline what you are offering and what they must do to obtain it, they will distrust you and switch to your competitors. Adaptability, because easy access to information about global pandemics, contentious elections, and technological upheavals puts their values and priorities in a state of continuous flux.

According to Ben, if you want your marketing to be effective in 2024, you must invest in results-driven creativity. Converting the adjective 'creative' into a noun, when Ben talks about developing your 'creative', he refers to original marketing that is efficacious instead of merely making art for art's sake. "I've seen really beautiful pieces that have caused nobody to donate and then I've seen artistically not my style [pieces] that have been really great optimizations."

Marketing experts cannot rely on the same old best practices in today's shifting landscape, but they have to make sure that their creative efforts actually drive results. Learn how to do both by streaming the full episode.

Ben Smithee is CEO of The Smithee Group, a digital growth agency with a mission to empower entrepreneurs and businesses to dream bigger and achieve multi-generational integrity. Ben has spoken to audiences in over 20 countries and is regarded as an expert in the next-gen consumer.

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

If you have been to a nonprofit event or conference in the last few years, chances are you've run into Erik Tomalis from Virtuous. Maybe you've even been in one of his famous LinkedIn selfies. His passion for helping grow generosity is unmatched, and he speaks and shares across the country to help industry professionals do their best work. Erik joins Meghan on the podcast today to talk about practical steps you can take this year to make donor personalization a priority in 2024 by working on your segmentation and listening. He shares some really great insights from giving data in 2023 that will help seasoned pros and nonprofit newbies alike to zero in on their goals and target their messaging for this year and beyond.

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

It's a new year and a new chapter for the Nonprofit Hub Podcast! We are excited to kick off the new podcast season by introducing you to your new hosts, Meghan Speer and Cara Godlesky. Both of these ladies share a passion for supporting the nonprofit community and are looking forward to a season of great interviews full of helpful, actionable content. Listen to meet the ladies!

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

James Thorne is a passionate creator dedicated to empowering individuals, families, and communities through entrepreneurial opportunities. In a career that has spanned a range of industries—from hospitality to ministry, from filmmaking to marketing and business coaching—James has managed teams, led departments, and built several businesses from the ground up. 

Tune into this episode to hear James talk about creating relationships with donors that last, how to create a smooth donation process, and how to add value to email campaigns to secure more donations. 

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org

 Don’t lose funding because you can’t report on your impact. 

Cyrus Z. Kazi has been working for over 20 years with tech companies to drive social impact and is here to share more about all the functions of a nonprofit that provides valuable data for moving your supporters to action.  Check out Quanitbly for more information and tools for impact reporting!

Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org