I’m a recovering perfectionist.
I didn’t choose rehabilitation; it was forced upon me. See, I’ve always struggled with completion because I’m never fully satisfied- there’s always something that can be reworded, rearranged, reworked. I just needed a little more time.
What I was unable to see through my type-A blinders was that it’s a process. Done, sometimes, really is better than perfect. And the process moves a lot more fluidly with the help and feedback from others, no matter how painful it is to hand over your project to scrutiny.
But that’s the only way to improve, to make it better. You have to throw things out there and see what sticks. If everything was perfect the first time around, or even the 50th time around, well..there would be no need for the posts below.
Here are this week’s nonprofit highlights:
- The 2nd gift. It’s almost as important as the first and it’s indicative of a donor’s likelihood to give again. In this post, How to Get a 2nd Gift from New Donors, Joe Garecht shares his 4 step new donor stewardship process to help nonprofits plan beyond the first contribution and get retention rates up past 22.9%.
- Have You Killed Your “Annual” Appeal Yet? Mary Cahalane challenges organizations to do more asking. If you quarantine appeals solely to the giving season, you’re not asking nearly enough. It’s time to build an asking schedule for the entire year. She tells you why on #fundchat, and addresses any concerns you might have about time, money, staff, and donor complaints.
- You’re using it to stay connected with your friends and families, but have you considered Using text messaging to achieve your mission? In her post, Farra Trompeter shares some of what she learned from pros Sam McElvie and James Servino, and points to a few nonprofits that are leading the texting for good revolution. {bonus: she includes video and slides}
- Stories. You know that in order to catch and keep the attention of new donors and current donors, you have to tell stories. And you have to tell them well. Marc Pitman brings Master Storyteller, Lori Jacobwith, onto his blog to give 7 tips for sharing stories about your nonprofit work. If you can learn to tell a great story about what you do, you’ll stand a better chance of compelling your audience to stick around.
- npNEXT 2013 – Penelope Burk is the first in a series of recorded presentations from Blackbaud’s experimental event, npNext. In this presentation, Counter-Intuitive or New Path to Profit?: What donors can teach us about making more money, Penelope shares 3 key research driven insights around donor-centric fundraising.
- We know that fundraising is all about asking. But is that ALL you’re doing? Are you a real fundraiser? Jeff Brooks puts it pretty simply on his Future Fundraising Now blog: if you’re not building a relationship - creating a story with your donor – you’re not doing your job.
Thoughts? I would love to hear them.
Yours truly,
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