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A Summer Learning List: 15 Books, Blogs, and Podcasts for Nonprofit Professionals

May 20, 2020
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Blogs & Newsletters, Books, Donor Newsletters, Management and Leadership, Personal Growth and Productivity, Podcasts

As the pandemic restricts where we can go and what we can do, there will undoubtedly be time for some extracurricular reading/listening this summer. Below are 15 books, blogs, and podcasts that I would characterize as essential reading/listening for any nonprofit professional. A SUMMER LEARNING LIST: THE BOOKS 1. Donor CARE: How to Keep Donors Coming Back After the First Gift (John Haydon, 2020) Nationally, nonprofits retained, on average, just 45% of donors from one year to the next in…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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The Savannah Bananas’ Lesson for Fundraisers: Focus on Fans

February 2, 2020
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Books, Fundraising

On one of my recent, daily walks, I tuned into Pat Flynn’s Smart, Passive Income Podcast. (I keep a running list of podcasts I like on my Resources page). The episode featured Jesse Cole, owner of the Savannah Bananas, a summer league baseball team for top college players from around the country that is headquartered in Savannah, Georgia. All 4,000 seats at Savannah’s historic Grayson Stadium have been sold out for the Bananas’ home games since the team first started…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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BEAT DOWN FOR DOING GOOD: The Nonprofit Overhead Myth and Its Impact on Nonprofit Funding

June 1, 2019
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Books, Fundraising, Management and Leadership

[siteorigin_widget class="SiteOrigin_Widget_Headline_Widget"][/siteorigin_widget] Do you consider yourself a fairly charitable person? If so, here’s some bad news: Everything you think you know about what it financially takes to run a nonprofit is probably wrong. Because of that, you’re probably hurting the groups whose missions you claim to support. [A recent survey] shows most people still believe … that groups keeping operational or indirect organizational costs low are somehow more effective at accomplishing their missions. B. Paynter. “Donors Can’t Stop Believing That…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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The Remote Nonprofit: Meeting Your Mission Virtually

May 31, 2019
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Blinkist, Books, Evernote, G Suite, Management and Leadership, Nitro Pro, Nozbe, Personal Growth and Productivity, Remote Work, Snagit, Software

In thirty years’ time, as technology moves forward even further, people are going to look back and wonder why offices ever existed. (Richard Branson, CEO, The Virgin Companies) Remote nonprofit work is more prolific than you think. The 2018 Digital Adoption Report found that 41 percent of employees at nonprofits it surveyed were working exclusively outside the organization’s office delivering programs and services, working from home, or telecommuting. (NTEN, Digital Adoption in 2018). The report also found that roughly 12…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Do without Doing: Life Lessons on Happiness & Productivity from an Unlikely Source

July 16, 2018
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Books, Personal Growth and Productivity

[D]own through the centuries, man has developed a mind that separates him from the world of reality, the world of natural laws. This mind tries too hard, wears itself out, and ends up weak and sloppy. Such a mind, even if of high intelligence, is inefficient. It goes here and there, backwards and forwards, and fails to concentrate on what it's doing at the moment. It drives down the street in a fast-moving car and thinks it's at the store,…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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The Basics of Nonprofit Marketing Messaging

January 16, 2018
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Books, Fundraising, Marketing, Messaging

The Basics of Nonprofit Marketing Messaging After you’ve described your audiences, delineated the right media for your messages to them, and decided on the channels for delivery of those messages, you need to think about what you’re going to say. In this post, we’ll discuss: (1) Why nonprofit marketing messaging is important; (2) Four components of a good foundation for nonprofit marketing messaging; (3) Three key nonprofit marketing messages that you should develop and keep in your back pocket; (4)…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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How to Develop a Simple Nonprofit Marketing Plan in 5 Short Steps

January 6, 2018
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Books, Marketing Plans

A marketing plan is an essential component of any well-run nonprofit, no matter how small. In this post, we'll review the definition of marketing and why the term has negative connotations for some people. Next, well look at what a marketing plan is and why it's important to have one. And, finally, we'll look at the five short steps involved in developing a marketing plan. We'll use plenty of examples and illustrations along the way so that in just a…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Improve Your Productivity with Evernote & Find Things Fast

October 26, 2017
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Books, Evernote, Personal Growth and Productivity

As “Jacks of All Trades,” we in nonprofit work spend some portion of our time each week being knowledge workers. As such, we have to acquire, analyze and manipulate information. Because the volume of information coming our way can be vast and there is often a need to retrieve it down the road, we need a simple system for storing and finding things later. Without such a system, the longer the passage of time that exists between saving and retrieval,…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Nail Donor Communications with (Print) Newsletters and Watch Your Fundraising Soar

October 15, 2017
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Akubo, Blogs & Newsletters, Books, Donor Newsletters, Fundraising, Marketing

Folks, I have three truths to share with you: 1. Fundraising begins with communications. Get good at donor communications and you will become adept at fundraising. 2. The smallest of organizations can become good at donor communications, particularly donor newsletters. With a few principles under your belt, you can probably put together something that's better than the products of organizations two or three times your size because many are not attending to what works. 3. While emailed newsletters can play…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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A lot of People are Depending for Better Lives on Our Ability to Manage US

September 23, 2017
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Books, Evernote, Nozbe, Personal Growth and Productivity, Software

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). That's what drives so many of us to this work: using our talents and skills to make a difference. And a lot of people are depending for better lives on our ability to manage us, so that we can make the difference they so desperately…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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