Beauty is overrated

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

Are you creating fundraising that looks great or that gets results? Often, you can do one or the other, not both. In this look at the power of the odd, unattractive, and unfashionable in direct mail, broadcast, and online, we’ll show you how the quest to make your fundraising aesthetically pleasing usually leads to lower results. Mentioned in this podcast: Monday Morning Memo by Roy H. Williams.

What is your website for?

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

If the purpose of your website is to raise funds, why is fundraising limited to a couple of “DONATE” buttons? Here’s a look at how you can maximize online revenue by making your website relevant, useful, and easy for donors.

Websites mentioned in this podcast:

Is your fundraising ratio killing your fundraising?

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

The over-focus on the amount nonprofits spend on fundraising and administration (as opposed to accomplishing their mission) is throttling many organizations, keeping them artificially poor and less able to do what they exist to do. We talk about some alternatives to focusing on that fundraising ratio.

Beware! Branding at work!

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

Listen in as an executive director of a nonprofit and his enthusiastic brand consultant change the name and look of an organization. Warning: Satire.

How to deal with the next big thing in fundraising

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

For the sixth installment of our State of Fundraising series, we look at steady stream of innovations for nonprofits that happen all the time. How do you deal with it all? How do you know what to ignore and what to get involved with? Here’s a framework that can help you get it right.

Fundraisers beware of survey research

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

For the fifth installment of our State of Fundraising series, we take a look at survey research and how fundraisers can get value from it — without being led dangerously astray. Surveys seem (and often claim) to report the truth. In reality, they reveal something else that’s often far from truth.

Fundraising in the rest of the world

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

For the fourth installment of our State of Fundraising series, we interview Sean Triner, founder of Pareto Fundraising, who blogs at Sean Triner’s Blog. Sean shares some of what’s happening in fundraising outside the US, based on his experience in Australia, Asia, Europe, and Canada. The way we do it in America is not the only way!

What you need to know about online fundraising

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

For the third installment of our State of Fundraising series of podcasts, we interview Katya Andresen, Chief Operating Officer at Network for Good, who speaks frequently about online fundraising and blogs at Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog. She touches on many aspects of fundraising on the web, from what’s on your homepage to what you should do on Facebook. And don’t miss the one thing you can do that will make the biggest difference for your online fundraising — it’s surprisingly easy!

The two big trends in fundraising today

Fundraising is Beautiful Podcast

For the second installment of our new State of Fundraising series of podcasts, we interview Bill Jacobs of Grizzard, whom you can frequently read at Grizzard’s Blog. Bill talks about two massive changes that are hitting the fundraising industry: The arrival of Boomers in their prime giving years and the way donors now respond to our fundraising as they please — not necessarily in the ways we want them to. (Up to a third of response to direct mail comes in through channels other than mail!) If we don’t respond to these huge and growing trends, we are in deep trouble in the coming years.