By: Sherry Quam Taylor QuamTaylor LLC The energy and passion needed to successfully fund and launch a nonprofit is not the same energy and passion that will keep it moving forward. Growing your organization takes even more, and most leaders feel this playing out daily. I’ve found that most nonprofits are full of passionate, thoughtful, and sacrificial leaders who have the ideas to make a great impact in the world. But I also know gaining traction and momentum to move forward isn’t easy. Often it takes an outsider’s perspective to bring clarity to problem areas. Whether your organization generates $300K or...
Save time, money and effort By: Melissa Lagowski CEO, Founder and Queen Bee, Big Buzz Idea Group When your plate is full—perhaps too full—it’s hard to do anything well as you’re pulled in different directions and constantly hurtling from one task to the next. Meanwhile, your team is also working hard, but they likely don’t have the time or all the necessary skills to propel your nonprofit’s growth. The result? Burnout, stagnation and missed opportunities. Rather than focus internally, the solution may lie outside of your organization. Partnering with an external business to delegate key tasks or areas of expertise...
By: Lidia Varesco Art Director & Designer, Lidia Varesco Design I work with many nonprofits in Chicago, and one of the reasons they choose to work with me is because they need help bringing consistency to their branding and marketing materials. For an established organization (or even a new one), branding can start to become diluted over time, with marketing materials using multiple versions of logos, colors and images that are not on-brand, and messaging that is not targeted or audience-focused. This is where brand guidelines can make a big impact. What are brand guidelines? Brand guidelines (also sometimes called...
By: Melissa Lagowski CEO, Founder and Queen Bee, Big Buzz Idea Group The Two Most Powerful Parts of Crafting Your Organization’s Story Within the nonprofit world, so many organizations are looking to connect with donors, supporters and volunteers. How does one NPO stand out from another? The answer: its story. Sharing through storytelling is powerful: it humanizes and personalizes your work and the community it serves. Storytelling conveys WHY you do what you do. It brings your mission to life. When you’re in the business of marketing communications, you see a lot of examples of successful stories and some attempts...
By: Chris Baylis President & CEO, The Sponsorship Collective Events can be great. They can engage your donors, show off your cause, increase revenue and, most important of all (in my highly biased opinion) drive sponsorship dollars. Sponsorship sales can be a major revenue source from events. With a little effort, you can make your next event a sponsor’s dream! MAKE SURE YOUR ATTENDEES LOVE YOUR EVENT What do your attendees have to do with fundraising event sponsorship? Everything. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the people at your gala are excited about another 30 second speech from a donor or sponsor....
4 Ways Core Values Contribute to a Nonprofit’s Culture and Success By: Melissa Lagowski CEO, Founder and Queen Bee, Big Buzz Idea Group As individuals, we each live by our own set of core values. These are the beliefs and ideas we use to shape our goals, guide our actions and ensure we stay on track. For nonprofits and businesses, creating a concrete set of core values is equally important. Much like our individual values, a nonprofit’s core values provide direction and guidelines for the organization itself as well as every person or entity it comes in contact with. Why...
By: Valeria Basso Symphonic Communications Consulting Here is a fact you most likely don’t want to hear but need to: 98% of your marketing is a waste of money. It’s just noise and your audience is hardly noticing it. The truth is that most non-profits miss the mark with their marketing because their message fails to answer a simple question: What’s in it for the donors? You can tell uplifting stories about how your organization is changing lives but if you don’t show your donors how your work impacts and matters to them, those stories are going to be largely...
8 Ways Social Media Can Further Your Mission By: Melissa Lagowski CEO, Founder and Queen Bee, Big Buzz Idea Group When to-do lists run long, social media management is often one of the first things to fall off a busy nonprofit team’s plate. While it’s crucial to stay focused on organizational strategy, building and maintaining a social media presence is a tactic that can help your nonprofit successfully execute that big-picture strategy and meet next-level goals. Social media may seem small-reaching, especially if you’re still working to build a following, but with consistent, engaging content, it has limitless potential. How...
Interview With: Kimberly Bares President, PLACE Consulting Nonprofit organizations are, by nature, heavily dependent on their Executive Directors, so when an ED resigns or has to be let go, the Board of Directors is often overwhelmed with the looming candidate search that is suddenly before them. In fact, many organizations come to a screeching halt because the Board doesn’t know how to function without an Executive Director. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This month, we interviewed Kimberly Bares, President of PLACE Consulting, who has previously filled the role of Interim Director. BBIG: How did you first become...
