Whether you are getting ready to build a whole new website for your nonprofit or thinking about updating your current one, we’d suggest you emulate MailChimp’s Voice and Tone guide to think through your content. (We’ve even got an easy worksheet below to help you.) Here’s an example from the guide:

Notice how it follows a very simple formula of identifying the users feelings while visiting each web page with a short quote from them to give you their perspective. This is then followed by a couple of tips to keep writing in line with the audiences needs and a quick example.

Let’s think through how this might be applied to your nonprofit’s donation page.

What are people feeling when they visit your donation page?

Eager to help

Want a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves

Happy to find a solution to a problem (e.g. hunger, education)

Apprehensive about giving their financial information

What they’re thinking?

“I really wish there wasn’t so much hunger right here in my community. I hope this gift makes things better for someone else.”

What 2-3 things do you need to say or have on this page to meet their needs?

Quick reminder of how they’re helping

Simple and professional giving form

Contact information

Here’s a great example of a donation page that does just this from Mercy Corps:

We like MailChimp’s simple formula so much that we’ve made you a worksheet for you to assess and tailor your website, enewsletter, blog or even print. Why not take one hour this week and complete a worksheet for each of the top 5 traffic pages of your website?

Download this worksheet

Want more?

This post by Nonprofit Tech 2.0 breaks down 11 great practices for your donation page

Check out our Creative Brief Worksheet which takes all these same themes and expands on them

Hear what the creator of the Voice & Tone guide has to say about it

Image thanks Flickr:Riley and Amos

Tool: Fenton’s just released See, Say, Feel, Do: Social Media Metrics Guide

About: Everyone knows that they should be measuring the effectiveness of their social media program, but few know how to actually go about doing it. What should you measure and what is all that data telling you? Fenton has just put out a resource guide that leads you through 4 metrics you should measure (see, say, feel & do). One thing we really like is how they challenge you to do more than count numbers, but to also give them context. For this they propose these questions:

+ Who is engaging?

+ What are they responding to?

+ What are they saying?

+ What does it mean? (This is where you really need to fire up the interpretive part of the brain.)

The resource guide ends with a sample metrics report and template.

Get it: Head over to Fenton’s website and you can download the report after supplying them with your contact information.

About Free Tool Friday

 Image Thanks: Flickr:AussieGall

Tool: Paper.li

About: If you’re a Twitter user you’ve likely noticed those tweets that go something like, “The Jane Jones daily is out with top stories by @bigbird, @ernie.” These are for Paper.li’s, which are incredibly easy to use and allow you to make pretty darn professional looking ‘newspapers’ on the Web. You can set it up to automatically pulls the top stories from the people you follow on Twitter or better yet, so it pulls from a specific Twitter list. That’s how we use it to create the Puget Sound Nonprofit Daily.  We’ve heard from lots of people in the Seattle area that they love reading our Paper.li as it keeps them up to date on the latest news from local nonprofits.

A couple of newer features of Paper.li are worth noting. First is their ‘Publish It’ browser button which allows you to add content from anywhere on the Web to your paper.  This allows you for more hands-on curation. Second is their Topical Browse feature which helps you find and read Paper.li’s on any topic, like philanthropy.

Truth be told, when we first encountered by Paper.li’s they royally bugged us, but we’ve changed our tune. When used well and thoughtfully it can be a strong curation tool and help position your organization as a thought leader on your issue.

Get it: Go to Paper.li  and sign up. If you really want to dive deeper on Paper.li’s merits we’d suggest reading Why You Should Give Paper.li Another Look and Paper.li – Clever Curation or Spammy Automation? 

About Free Tool Friday

Image thanks:Flickr:goodwines

Tools: SharingHope.tv & Community Audio

About: We recently found two sources for free music to add to your non profit’s videos or podcasts. The first, SharingHope.tv, is actually from the American Cancer Society.  It features music generously donated by 12 artists. The second is Community Audio from Internet Archive. This isn’t the easiest site to navigate but it features, “over two hundred thousand free digital recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users.” Like this set of tracks from Nine Inch Nails.

Get it: Go to SharingHope.tv or the Internet Archive and spend some time browsing around.

BONUS:

While we’re on the topic of non profit videos we’ve got to remind you about the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards which are going on right now! Enter your nonprofit’s video from 2011 and you might win a cash prize or the chance to be featured on YouTube’s home page. As if that weren’t enough the good folks at the Case Foundation have added a category that is near and dear to our hearts – fearless. They’ll be giving an extra cash prize to one video in each category that isn’t, “…afraid to deviate from the norm, use innovative approaches and fearlessly tell compelling, honest stories that are from the heart. Fearless video means taking risks and trying new approaches for the sake of creating moving content that inspires the viewer.” Find out more and enter the contest by the end of February.

Image thanks to Flickr:motherAWESOME

My co-presenter, KarenRosenzweig of One Smart Cookie Marketing, started off with the top three things she loves about social media. They are:

1. As a communicator, information is your business – you need to be “in the know” about what’s new and what people are talking about.

2. Your clients – and potential clients – are using Social Media, and they expect you to be there too. It’s as necessary and expected now for businesses as a phone or website. If I can’t find you there, I’ll probably look for a business that is.

 3. Customer service (be responsive and available) and reputation management (people are talking about you whether you are there or not; shouldn’t you monitor and respond?)

 I could list 148 things that I love about social media, but whittle my top three down to:

1. Ability to listen – with social media you can hear from a very broad range of people on the issues you care about, and in real time too.

2. Get big – no matter the size of your organization social media allows you to have your own 24-hour news channel. Even scrappy little groups can have a big presence with social media.

3. Be human – through listening and engaging brands and organizations can be that much more human and build relationships with your community and customers.

Here are my slides from the presentation on how to use Facebook more effectively.

Were you once reluctant to use social media? What got you to change your mind and embrace these tools?

Image thanks Flickr:footloosiety

First was this picture from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) which spread around Facebook like wildfire.

Now imagine if they had just used the text of that quote as a status update? Would it have spread so far or fast? Nope. If they had posted a picture of Gov. Gregoire and the words as a descriptor I also doubt that I would have seen it from friend after friend on Facebook. Their simple call to action, ‘Do you agree? Click ‘Share” is also a really nice touch.

Is there a similar message that your organization would like your supporters to share with their friends? If you don’t have a graphic designer at your disposal you could still easily hack something together using a tool like Picnik (at least until they close in April).

The other impressive thing that I saw on Facebook yesterday was this timely and compelling ad which appeared in my personal Facebook stream moments after the Governor signed the marriage equality bill.

I tend to ignore Facebook ads, but I just had to click on this one. It went to this landing page for the Democratic Governors Association. Notice how incredibly simple this form and page are.

Now I hope that they are going to pass on the words of thanks to the Governor, but I’m sure the main impetus for this campaign is to identify progressive voters in Washington State, which has a Governors race in 2012.

Since Facebook ads are so easy to target and time your organization could replicate this for your issue. It could be around legislation, or timed to coincide with a holiday or other event. The critical factor is timeliness and being focused on the issue rather than your organization. If this ad had said, “Join the Democratic Governors Association and thank Gov. Gregoire” it would probably receive far fewer clicks.

Lastly, while we’re on the topic of love, I have to make sure you’ve seen these Valentines cards on NPR’s Facebook page. They speak directly to the organization and all the things that its passionate listeners love, and sometimes loathe, about it. This is a perfect example of what we love about digital communications and social media. It allows your organization to show more sides of itself, in this case showcasing NPR”s fantastic humor.

Some new tools have come on the scene and have us re-thinking this traditional blogging strategy. None of these make us believe that blogging is dying, because it’s not. They do, however, make us question what we’re trying to accomplish with our blogs and whether an emerging platform or tool better fits our goals.

Here’s what we’re seeing:

Google+ -

We’re hearing a lot of long time bloggers say that they’re blogging less since Google+ launched. Google+ doesn’t have a word limit, like Twitter’s 140 characters or how Facebook used to, so it allows for long posts, similar to a blog post. Because it is a social network what you share on it is visible to a larger crowd who may not have visited your blog, and bookmarked or RSS’d it. Not to mention that a ton of bloggers are SEO obsessed (that’s Search Engine Optimization, or the process of writing and tagging your content in a way that makes it come up sooner when someone searches on your topic). Google+ is being integrated into all of Google’s services, including search, which could really change the game on how people find out about you and your blog.

Embeddable Tweets -

When Twitter released its latest incarnation in December it allowed you to take a tweet and make it live, i.e. embed it, on any website.  Recently we’ve found ourselves embedding tweets that comment on our blog posts. This bridges conversations about a topic between mediums, in this case your blog and Twitter. Have you been measuring your blog’s success based in part on the number of comments your posts get? If so, you might want to re-think this data point and recognize that the conversations you are sparking might happen outsides the confines of your blog.

Curating in public -

The rapid rise and popularity of sites like Pinterest, Storify and Scoop.it allow you to share content where people are gathering online, as opposed to trying to drive them back to your blog. All three of these tools allow you to curate a topic, capturing and sharing something (e.g. a news story, your mission, an event) in real time and as it evolves. Of course all three of these can and will be traffic sources for your blog, but viewing them just as that would under-utilize them.

For example, during the Super Bowl there was a Twitter campaign called Take Back the Pink in reaction to the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle. In the past I would have written a blog post about this campaign, but instead created a Storify story in real time as it unfolded and instantly shared it. Now I could still blog about it if I wanted, but this new tool gave me a quick and easy way to share the campaign and interact with a community that cares about this issue.

Think about it this way: A blog post is like painting. You start with a blank canvas, fill it up with paint to create a picture and then hang it publicly for people to look at and comment. However tools like Scoop.it, Storify and Pinterest are more like creating a mural in a big public space. It changes and evolves and people can watch and comment as it takes shape. Heck you might even have people contribute to it.

The biggest take-away from all of this? Always, always stay focused on what it is you’re trying to achieve with your blog. Are you trying to build community, shape public policy, show what makes your organization different, build your email list or be a thought leader on your issue. New tools and trends will continue to come along and disrupt what we’re doing. You’ll know which to embrace and how to modify your blogging strategy if you know what it is you’re working to accomplish.

Image thanks: Flickr:tajai

Tool: Nonprofit Goodies Giveaway

About: Free advice via video, workbooks and ebooks covering fundraising topics from how to build your dream board asking team to determining your asking style. All this free advice from names you know, like Pamela Grow, Marc A. Pitman and Christopher Davenport of Movie Mondays. Hurry

Get it: Go to NonprofitGoodies.com and pick and choose your free samples. But hurry up, it’s only available until January 31st.

About Free Tool Friday

Image thanks Flickr:peapodsquadmom

Are you ready for takeoff?

Does the constant pressure to learn new things at your job make you want to get up earlier, or yearn for a time when you knew what to do everyday?

Do you greet the statement, “every business and industry will have to change & adapt or become obsolete” with a fist bump or a grimace?

When experts say that there is no longer one way to run a business or organization are you excited about the possibilities or nostalgic for a simpler time?

If you landed on the get up earlier/fist bump/excited end of those statements then there’s a good chance you’re a part of Generation Flux. (And if you were more on the other end of the scale don’t freak out too much – us Gen Fluxers love to lend a hand.)

So what is Generation Flux? It’s a term recently coined by Fast Company magazine in a special report on a new breed of pioneers.  GenFluxers are successful in our current climate because of their ability to roll with the punches and adapt to what is possible now.

“What defines GenFlux is a mind-set that embraces instability, that tolerates–and even enjoys–recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions.” From This is Generation Flux 

Generation Flux is written primarily about corporations, but these same trends and opportunities apply to non profits and foundations as well.

“Every enterprise needs to find–and evolve–the structure, system, and culture that best allows it to stay competitive as its specific market shifts. Business leaders need to be creative, adaptive, and focused in their techniques, staffing, and philosophy.” From This is Generation Flux 

Generaton Flux is also one of the most inspiring things we’ve read in a while. Yeah, we fall into the GenFlux camp here at Mixtape Communications. The article describes a revolution brought on by technology, information overload, disruption, ambiguity and evolving personal & professional networks. And yet it’s exactly these factors, that if recognized, prime the pump for real change and greater effectiveness in philanthropy.

“Put this way, the chaos ahead sounds pretty grim. But its corollary is profound: This is the moment for an explosion of opportunity, there for the taking by those prepared to embrace the change.” From This is Generation Flux 

So how will Generation Flux impact and change our philanthropic and non profit sectors?

Here are some of our best predictions:

Chaotic philanthropy – Philanthropists are striking out on their own, looking for nimble solutions instead of instead of turning to community foundations or starting hard to adapt family foundations. Examples include the Awesome Foundation or community funding like Start Some Good. All these make it easier than ever for like-minded philanthropists to find each other and the causes they want to fund.

Cause before company – Nothing defines this trend better than the Occupy Wall Street movement, which focused 90% of its energies on the cause and only 10% on governing the “organization” itself. Decentralized models like this, glued together by mission but not a mission statement or strategic plan, will become more prevalent. Take a look at To Write Love on Her Arms’ website. They are a non profit focused on reducing self harm & depression and catering mostly to teens. Their site is full of ways to make the work your own and highlights projects taken on by its members. In fact, it’s actually a little work to find the Staff page on their website, which is usually so prominent.

Collaboration over turf – Whether it’s foundations coming together to address inequities with their combined forces or non profits entering into partnerships that recognize their unique assets, the barriers to identifying partners and collaborating with them are lower than ever. Combine this with a ‘cause before company’ mentality and we’re likely to see all types of unique partnerships emerging in philanthropy and non profits.

More meaningful ways to contribute – Traditionally the ways to help a cause have been to give money or give time. Donate or volunteer. With the rise of social media & other networking tools people have more ways then ever to contribute to their favorite causes. Individuals are now the PR agencies for causes they care about, sharing their content with their personal networks. They are the fundraisers, taking to peer-to-peer fundraising tools like Crowdrise & Razoo. They are the strategic planners, speaking up and expecting to be heard when they want a nonprofit they care about to change course or address an issue. Nonprofits that recognize this trend are able to scale up quickly. See the profiles of KaBoom! and CyberMentors in this report as two great examples.

 

“To flourish requires a new kind of openness. More than 150 years ago, Charles Darwin foreshadowed this era in his description of natural selection: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives; nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” As we traverse this treacherous, exciting bridge to tomorrow, there is no clearer message than that.” From This is Generation Flux

What are your thoughts on Generation Flux and  how you imagine it will affect and benefit our non profit & philanthropic sectors?  Comments are open!

We’re proud to be a part of Generation Flux. It’s a bumpy ride but there’s never a dull moment! ow.ly/8ERPm via @zanarama

— NPower Northwest (@NPowerNW) January 24, 2012

Nice writeup. RT @zanarama: My take on @FastCompany ‘s Generation Flux article & how it will affect #nonprofits bit.ly/yEUohm

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) January 25, 2012

@jennapettinato @zanarama I LOVE ’cause before company’, totally agree with that. Thx for sharing Jenna! #GenFlux

— Brock Warner (@brockwarner) January 29, 2012

Image thanks to Flickr:Kevin Dooley

Tool: Buffer App

About: Queue up tweets so that they go out when your followers are most likely to see them (and click & retweet them). If you’re like us and get up first thing in the morning and find 5 things you want to share, you can easily add them to Buffer and they will post throughout the day. With Buffer you can fully edit your posts and content and then quickly see how many people you reached and who re-tweeted you. Buffer also has a mobile app and is now integrated directly into Twitter.

Get it: Go to BufferApp and try it out. Be sure and tie it into your bit.ly account if you have one.

Look! You can easily add to Buffer right in Twitter.

About Free Tool Friday

Image thanks  Flickr:woodleywonderworks