Learn how leaders are using community, content, membership and newsletters to reach new audiences, raise more money and build stronger organizations.
Articles
- Be needed first. Then use this plan for email deliverability.
Want email that gets to the inbox and converts? Start by making sure that the email you’re sending is needed and useful. Then start using this plan for email deliverability. - Don’t hesitate to (re)activate: Member and donor retention strategies for everyone
Member, donor and subscriber retention matters more than ever. If you want to keep people around help them feel part of something bigger. Check out examples and ideas from the world of news and nonprofit supporter engagement. - Social change without social space
Social platforms like Meta are limiting news or getting rid of it altogether. They’re also downgrading “political” content which includes some or most (or all?) social change and advocacy content. How do you communicate? Advertise? Reach supporters and new audiences? - Why trust matters in an era of distrust
We live in an era of distrust that diminishes the value of government, social change, marketing and news. But building trust into our plans, behavior, content and community matters more than ever. - Why news organizations love newsletters (and what nonprofits can learn from it)
A look into how news organizations use newsletters to not just engage current subscribers but also reach new audiences and generate revenue. - Primo newsletter links of 2023
Simply put: some of the best articles, guides, resources and case studies about newsletters I bookmarked in the past year. - 2,024 (or maybe 5) thoughts about content, community and fundraising
Ideas we want to explore in 2024: using registration to build stronger online community and fundraising programs, content with purpose, finding good jobs for good people and more. - Getting users the content they need
How do organizations prioritize content in a world drowning in text, audio, video and social media feeds? Think carefully about audience needs with some of the tools and guidance provided here. - Turning a list into a community
Content strategy and its cousins fundraising and ad sales are driven largely by attention, impressions and pageviews. It’s a numbers game. This is often self-defeating for nonprofits and news organizations who may want more people but really need people who will invest time and money, not just a click. - The brilliance of creating nonprofit newsletters people want
How do nonprofits create email newsletters that have an impact and people love getting? A few weeks ago I asked around for examples of nonprofit newsletters that bring joy. Here’s what we learned. - 5 steps to a super delightful email program
Email programs, at least in nonprofit organizations, don’t often get the resources and strategic leadership needed to excel. We look at applying product team approach to email programs as a way to effectively engage a cross-section of staff in owning, planning and implementing email. - How content strategy builds relationships and grows revenue
We’re looking at how organizations undervalue the first, and often only, thing people coming to them experience – their content. The articles, stories, blog posts, photos, videos, emails, and social posts are all opportunities for connection, not just attention. Here’s why that is and how to think strategically about content for connection. - What’s trauma got to do with it?
Too many communities, including our members and supporters, are dealing with fear and trauma. It can affect people’s ability to engage in community work, volunteering, and even donating. How can organizations help communities and supporters recognize and deal with fear and trauma? - We all stay. Except maybe the donors. Where are they going?
In 2022 there were fewer donors and donations to nonprofits. Perhaps donors recognize that repairing communities and society is long-term work – the kind many organizations aren’t committed to doing. - About that stupendous fundraising match in your inbox
All the fancy tech and supporter data in the world is wasted if you treat people poorly. A look at how honesty and transparency is good for donor retention. - Why people stay
Can we build email, donor and supporter lists with value and trust instead of churning through names? Let’s recognize the value people seek in organizations and invest in giving them value and keeping them around. - Give people stuff they can use
In late-2021, Intuit completed its acquisition of the once wee newsletter provider Mailchimp. Intuit paid $12 billion in cash and stock. Substack announced this week that newsletters hosted by the platform had over 20 million active subscribers and 2 million paid subscriptions. Some folks think there is money to be made in email. Given the financial structures needed to host,… Read more: Give people stuff they can use - How scale kills campaigns
We’ve long been told that we need scale for impact. What if our quest for growth and reach sacrifices impact? Here are four ways to seek social impact and growth without scale. - On Imagination
The world’s biggest problems can often be traced back to a complete lack of imagination. We fail imagine a better future. We see broken systems as unchangeable. We fight over the meaning of history (in books, politics, immigration, economies, gender and so much more) because we don’t have the capacity to imagine the systems for living together in abundance. Organizations,… Read more: On Imagination - Complete Control: The Clash on corporate social media and email.
The Clash were known as a band who loved their audience. They also demanded control over their music. They learned that corporations control communication between band and audience. This was the 1970s, long before social media. But their experience offers insights into how organizations control (or don’t) their communicat - Boom goes the Twitter: 5 lessons about content and community as Twitter implodes.
Many of the nonprofit-oriented email lists and Slack groups I am on have had multiple threads titled (more or less): what are you doing about Twitter? So far, the smart money isn’t betting against Twitter: “don’t leave…wait and see…maybe set up over on Mastodon or something…download your Twitter history…surely it will exist in some form so keep your group/personal account… Read more: Boom goes the Twitter: 5 lessons about content and community as Twitter implodes. - Why We Need a New Organizational Operating Language
The case for community-centered languages that help groups succeed in chaos and complexity. Organizations exist in a complex landscape. It’s hard to make sense of economic, political and climate chaos. How do you make plans for hiring and fundraising when you face existential questions about the ability, even the need, to meet your mission? The nonprofits/NGOs with whom I typically… Read more: Why We Need a New Organizational Operating Language - How community drives narrative change
Narrative change happens in communities. Here are key questions you need to answer about community when doing narrative work. - Community Language
A look at how language builds community, can leave people behind and and ways to open up community language. - Grief and the future of community
Should organizations, campaigns and movements that build community or run membership programs do more to acknowledge grief and engage in ways their members experience it? - Community and mutual aid
You’re not building community if you’re not building infrastructures for self-healing and sustainable mutual aid. Potential and problems for a mutual aid focus in community. - Membership architectures to create power
We talk with Ben Pollard, the founder of London-based Local Welcome about building community, crafting leadership, learning and resilience. - Five questions to ask about membership
Five questions you can use to get to the center of your community’s who, what and why. - Too much content. Too few storytellers.
The internet and social media disrupt the relationship between story and how we understand the world around us. The other day I wrote this about storytelling and content strategy in a project brief for a potential client: The candidate (or party, group, movement, government) who controls the narrative has an inside track on guiding people’s hearts, minds and passions. Even… Read more: Too much content. Too few storytellers. - The incentives are all wrong
It’s normal to be exhausted by endless crises, a President who throws tweet bombs at 6 am every day and the non-stop punditry cycle. Unfortunately, wearing you out is a valuable, sometimes intentional, benefit to those who disagree with you. A crisis a day makes good information go away There’s a lot of fallout when multiple political and social crises… Read more: The incentives are all wrong
