Kim Carpenter Drake has over 20 years of experience working with nonprofit organizations on everything from fundraising to cause related marketing. She is also a CNM trainer and consultant conducting  a workshop on February 4 entitled, What Sponsors Really Want: Successful Sponsorship Strategies; register today to ensure you have a spot! In the following blog post, Kim analyzes the value of reputation when trying to acquire corporate support:

The Value of Reputation

Benjamin Franklin said, “It takes many good deeds to create a good reputation and only one bad one to lose it.” This is so true, especially in the world on consumer culture.

A product or company lives by its reputation. To survive in a competitive environment, smart business people distinguish their offerings from the competition. Wal-Mart is the best value. Armani is the best quality. Southwest Airlines is friendly and efficient.

These are all excellent values but how do companies take this one step further? They enhance their reputation by aligning themselves with another success story. Often, these take the form of celebrity endorsement. In the last ten years, the “new” celebrity – the celebrated cause – has taken a higher profile. Breast Cancer Awareness, AIDS research, hunger relief, and homelessness are but a few of the causes with which corporations have aligned themselves to improve their consumer image AND their bottom-line.

Continue reading ‘CNM Trainer and Guest Blogger Examines the Value of Reputation’

Jeremy Scott of Keystone Business Solutions was kind enough to conduct our December Lunch & Learn series yesterday. Here is Jeremy’s Power Point presentation, and below is summary of the workshop. Put your blogging skills to work, and help us continue the discussion online by posting your comments!

 Nonprofits & Blogs

I recently had the privilege to speak to a group of CNM members for their December Lunch & Learn. Our topic for the day was “Blogging and Your Business.” Mostly I wanted to cover the whole gamut of blogging issues, so that everyone in attendance could get something out of the discussion regardless of how familiar they were with blogs coming into the event.

So we talked about what blogs are, why they’re popular, and why a nonprofit or business should definitely be thinking about blogging. The benefits to blogging are too numerous to count, but include improved search engine rankings, community-building with core audience, establishing authority in your topic, and even making a bit of money.

Continue reading ‘Guest Blogger Provides Follow-Up to Lunch & Learn’

Catherine Banich and Donna Roberts of Stites and Harbison examine important things to know when serving on a nonprofit board:

Serving as a board member for a not-for-profit organization can be a personally and professionally rewarding experience. But like any other venture, you should have a thorough understanding of what you’re signing on for, or have signed on for, when you agree to join a board.

When you volunteer to be a board member you become part of that organization’s management team. And not-for-profit organizations can open themselves to legal liabilities just as their for-profit counterparts can. Most state statutes specify the standard of care required by directors of not-for-profit corporations. These statutes usually require that directors discharge their duties in good faith and reasonable prudence. This isn’t a reason to shy away from volunteering, but it is reason to fully understand what you’re signing on for and what is expected of you.

If an organization has not told you what the responsibilities are for their board members, you should ask for a formal set of requirements and guidelines. While this may seem like a formality for a volunteer role, remember that you are agreeing to help guide and manage that organization. It is in every-one’s best interest to have clearly defined expectations.

Continue reading ‘Guest Blog Posting on Volunteering for Nonprofit Boards’

CNM Consultant Kim Carpenter Drake has put together a fantastic post on how to encourage supporters to make a difference:

Seamless Living
By Kim Carpenter Drake
www.goaldrivenphilanthropy.com

Stop and consider for a moment one simple question: what do our decisions say about us?

Not the big decisions, just the simple ones – such as what to have for dinner or whether to throw the can from that diet Coke you just finished into the wastebasket next to your desk or carry it to the recycling bin in the kitchen. No, this is not to make you feel guilty if you did not recycle that can. It also is not a condemnation of your diet if the dinner is a quick trip through the drive-thru (complete with a licensed Happy Meal toy, if you are my family) or if it comes from your share of the local farming cooperative.

My only point is to say that our lives are becoming increasingly “seamless” – without borders that distinguish work from play, philanthropy from shopping, and we from the world around us. As nonprofit leaders, this can be both liberating and exhausting. We can develop complex cause marketing plans wherein our cause benefits when a consumer buys the brand of choice at the store. We can encourage responsible behavior by bringing recycling bins and paper pickup campaigns to area businesses. We can even empower our supporters to change the standard practices of government or business through their actions.

Continue reading ‘Guest Blogger Provides Ideas on How to Empower Supporters’

Those of you familiar with the CNM Blog know that every once in awhile, we have a guest blogger put together a post on a topic that we think is of interest to nonprofits. This week, Jeremy Scott of Keystone Business Solutions, was kind enough to put together an interesting post on Search Engine Optimization. Read on to understand what SEO means, and why it matters to your organization:

The current economy creates some unique challenges for nonprofits. You need to continue getting your message out to as many people as possible while increasing the level of donations and grants you are able to bring in-and you need to do it spending less money than ever.

The Internet is the single most powerful tool at your disposal. Today’s donors and volunteers will slowly be replaced by tomorrow’s donors and volunteers-college students and young adults who are “wired” in a way a lot of us can barely understand. This generation speaks the language of the web, and small businesses and nonprofits who wish to remain relevant will soon be forced to find a way to connect with this demographic online if they hope to prosper.

One of the basic ways most nonprofits have embraced this idea is in setting up a Web site. Ten years ago, it was novel for a business of any kind to have a Web site. Today, it’s commonplace.

According to the Kelsey Group, 54% of people have ditched phone books in favor of search engines for their local search needs. This means that if Bob needs a mechanic, he’s now more likely to look for one on Google than he is to use the Yellow Pages.

That’s a sobering thought. Do you know what comes up on Google if people search for you? Do you know what keywords and phrases they’re typing into the Google search box when they search for you?

Simply having a Web site is no longer enough… the Web site also needs to be easy to find.

Research shows that if people can’t find what they’re looking for within the first two pages of Google results… they give up and try something else.

So the straightforward question is this: How many young people are out there, passionate about your issue or cause, but unable to find you online?

Search Engine Optimization (or “SEO”) is the process of writing and coding your Web site to most effectively communicate to the search engines what your nonprofit is all about. It involves keyword research to determine what search phrases your target audience is using, and then inserting those phrases into the on-site text and behind-the-scenes HTML code of your Web site.

There are many reputable SEO firms to choose from, though you should take care to be cautious of those that make bold guarantees and use buzz-words like “magic” or “mojo.”

Typical SEO services can run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, depending on the size of your Web site and the work required to help it rank better-but it’s well worth the cost.

I’m sure each of you has budget constraints-it’s one of the hallmarks of running a nonprofit. But I urge you to strongly consider your marketing budget for the coming year. Traditional marketing like print, radio, and television, isn’t obsolete… yet. But online marketing and advertising simply cannot be ignored any longer.

Today’s young people, who will fuel your nonprofit’s future, are looking for you on MySpace. They’re looking for you on Facebook and Twitter. They want to read your blog. And they’re definitely using Google to discover things that move them.

You can throw up a billboard for a few thousand a month, cross your fingers, and hope that the right prospective customers see it and remember to call you. Or you can spend that money with a search marketing firm, get your site ranking well on Google, and know that your message will be right there in front of the very people who are already searching for you.