Communications Help

Eight benefits of having a clear Mission Statement

Jackie Jones — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:32:16 GMT

Developing a clear and concise mission statement early in an organization’s development is critical to its success. The first three benefits stated are tied to the process of creating the mission statement itself.

First, the process of creating a mission statement is tremendously valuable to the founders. This process helps define the company's goals to a concise and clear statement that is easy to share with the internal organization as well as to its customers.

Second, the process of defining the mission statement will help founders determine the scope of their effort; helps clarify competition and focus on their real market opportunities.

Third, create a better version of something that's already being done, help clearly differentiate your company from its competition.

Other benefits include direction, focus, policy, meaning, challenge, and passion. Direction states what the organization does and what it wants to be successful in. Focus concentrates on the company’s strengths and competitive advantages and tells people how to obtain them. Policy is a guideline of what a company finds acceptable and unacceptable and states organizational values. Meaning shows what a company strives to achieve and why they wish to do so. Challenge is the setting up of goals and measurements of achievement for employees. Passion makes everyone involved with the organization show feelings of enthusiasm, pride, and commitment.

One day all believers will stand before the Lord for an evaluation of how we lived our lives on earth. Will we hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant?" (Matt. 25:21)

--Jackie Jones is the Marketing and Communications Director of Christian Foundation Grants. She may be reached at jjones@christianfoundationgrants.com.

The Generous Donut

Jessica High — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 05:00:00 GMT

The Generous Donut

   Donuts can be generous.

   Let me explain. More than 17 years ago, my wife and I decided we’d pick a place and go there year after year for family vacations. That place was Estes Park, CO. The kids have enjoyed it, appreciate the routine and things they call ours—family traditions.

   Well, one of the places we’ve come to appreciate is the Donut Haus. The Donut Haus has been in business for more than 30 years. They make handmade donuts and pastries. They say their hours are 6am to 12am, but in truth, they are usually sold out by 10:30. So we’ve learned to get their early particularly if you want your choice.

   What’s their secret? How do they sell out so quickly? Generosity. They have generous donuts. My favorite is the raspberry filled donut. But this is no ordinary raspberry filled creation. In addition to light flaky pastry with just a light frosting glaze, this thing is filled edge to edge with raspberry. You need a napkin to catch the red raspberry dripping out.

   Other places skimp on the filling—just a dollop in the middle and lots of bread. They are stingy on the stuff that counts. So we don’t buy donuts anywhere or anytime but the one time we go out to Estes Park. Their generosity has earned my business. Alas, if they could only figure out mail order!

   Churchill said it: “we make a living by what we earn and we make a life by what we give away” -- even with donuts.

--William F. High is the President/General Counsel of the National Christian Foundation Heartland. He may be reached at whigh@nationalchristian.com.

Don’t be an ‘iffy’ Asker

Bill High — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 05:00:00 GMT

As a grant writer, your challenge is to be donor-driven NOT donation-driven in your asking strategy. God’s work done God’s way will produce God’s results and will NEVER lack His resources.

How to Fail at Donor Relationships—Part I

Jackie Jones — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:45:08 GMT

Not long ago a ministry approached me wanting a grant. This is not a new happening. I’m used to the idea.

    And let me confess, the traditional paradigm of ministry funding has ruled for decades. In this traditional model a ministry presents its vision, tells a story illustrating the vision, and then everyone stands back and says, “wow.” From there a check is written.

    That model is fading.

    The new model requires something more. There is more competition than ever for donor dollars. There are more than $1 million non profits in the country competing for $300 billion dollars of annual giving. This includes organizations like hospitals, universities and associations. The competition is intense.

    Back to the story: when the ministry approached me for the grant, I began to ask my normal questions. How many people have they served? How much was given? Could they tie the dollars that were given to any kind of tangible impact? Could the impact be measured without telling stories? Could they actually give me statistical data?

    Here’s where the failure occurred. The ministry told me they appreciated my questions, and kept pointing towards their stories. But no data. No hard evidence they’d succeeded. Worse they were a bit miffed that I asked for this kind of data.

    Unfortunately, this scenario occurs more often than I care to admit. But in our brave new world post 2008, its clear that more than ever donors do care and are concerned that their gift demonstrate results—in actual data and not just stories.

--William High is the President of National Christian Foundation Heartland. He may be reached at whigh@nationalchristian.com.

Ten Tips to Make Your Website Work for Your Donors

Bill High — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:24:17 GMT

The online world is here to stay for ministries. For that reason, it’s a good time to evaluate your website from a donor’s perspective. Here are 10 tips:

1. Be concise. Most donors are scanners. Big blocks of text scare people off. Use bullet points and small paragraphs.

2. Use pictures. Show the story. Don’t just tell it with text. Pictures produce emotions, and let your readers “feel” your mission.

3. Highlight your vision, mission and key objectives. Make sure that people know where you are going, how you are going to get there and your 3-5 mission critical activities.

4. State the problem clearly. Make sure that your donors know what problem you are trying to solve. Make sure your solution is clear as well.

5. Have a “donate” button. It’s imperative that you give people a way to help. Include cash, credit card and non cash giving options. See www.idonate.com as one non cash service option.

6. Make giving easy. No more than 2 clicks away to the donate page.

7. Give something away. The best bet: give away information. Maybe you can give away a white paper. Give them a reason to visit your site because of timely, relevant and shareable content.

8. Provide contact information for board and staff. People want to know who is involved with your organization.

9. Keep it current. Enough said.

10. Optimize your site so people can find it. Make your site easy to find with search engine optimization. SEO work doesn’t have to be costly. Use a provider from elance.com for instance.

--William F. High is the President/General Counsel of the Servant Christian Community Foundation (www.servantchristian.com). Servant’s mission is to inspire, teach and facilitate revolutionary biblical generosity. He may be reached at whigh@servantchristian.com.

Understanding the Big Why of Giving

Bill High — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:31:06 GMT

Not long ago, I sat in a ministry presentation. The ministry was clearly trying to win the crowd to gather support for its ministry.

It was a fairly typical presentation. They described who they were, and they listed the numbers behind the impact they were making. And they made a call for support.

But they failed to present the big why. Most importantly, they did not understand that their ministry was not the big why. It never is.

What is the big why? The big why is the overall strategic reason for the organization’s existence. For instance, Young Life is not the big why. Reaching young people, however, is a big why. The reason why Young Life exists as an organization is to reach young people.

So often we tend to elevate an organization as the big why. The organization is only a tool, however, to reaching or fulfilling their call. We place the organization as the first answer. In reality, that which motivates us—reaching young people—is the first answer. How we reach young people may be accomplished in many ways.

By keeping in mind the big why, we can better keep ourselves, our givers, our staff focused upon what is truly important. It is the cause first, not the organization. May we never confuse the cause with organization.

--William High is the President/General Counsel of the Servant Foundation (www.servantchristian.com). Servant’s mission is to inspire, teach and facilitate revolutionary biblical generosity. He may be reached at whigh@servantchristian.com.

Online Fundraising: 4 Do's of Email Replies

Bill High — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:42:42 GMT

How to reply to emails is an overlooked topic, because it seems basic. However, that second contact can be critical. You have just invested a lot of time in sending out a great email campaign, so make your response equal in quality. Having received and responded to many emails from ministries, I want to share some of my insight and perhaps a few humorous examples.

1) Do write in a black standard font, size 12pt or 11pt—
I will never forget an email that I received once: Most of it was written in CAPS LOCK, each paragraph’s font color alternated between pink, green, or blue, and all the key words were bolded, italicized, underlined, and made larger.

Clearly, this example is an extreme, but use it as food for thought. Keep your emails as simple as can be. Your email campaigns are where creative designs are permissible. Here, think professional. Colors tend to be distracting, and font formatting should be kept to an absolute minimum.

2) Do be gracious—
When I first began managing emails, it was a major learning experience to respond to many questions or rude & demanding emails. I soon saw that frustration was pointless, if I decided to communicate with grace and excellence. I decided that if I received a demanding email I was going to be two times as gentle and helpful in my reply. I resolved that there were no trivial questions, and I would invest just as much care in my reply to the broken English email of a pastor in Kenya as I would in my email to the CEO of a world-wide ministry.

Resolve for excellence. You never know what a person is going through; even a simple reply is a way to be a blessing. Include compliments or words of thanks as much as possible. It’s all about giving honor and grace.

3) Do reply quickly—
With emails, a person’s initial decisions and impressions are often made in the first 48 hours. Make it your goal to reply within the first 24 hours. Take note if there are inquiries that do need an immediate response. Always read and re-read an email before you reply so that you are clear in what they are asking and how to respond. If you are unclear, be honest and ask in your reply.

4) Do include your contact information—
Especially if people are replying because they are needing more information, your email signature is an important piece. Include the relevant contact information (eg. name, email, website, phone number, etc.) By giving people multiple ways to contact you and learn about you, this helps meet their needs.

To close with some humorous examples that I have encountered, you probably should not include these things in your signature: your bank account information, your wife’s bank account information, the entire governing principles of your ministry, the names of all your children, links to seven other websites that you like, or your doctrine of the Christian faith.

-- When Jessica High is not replying to emails, she manages marketing and research at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online. Find Jessica on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-high/23/235/477

Online Fundraising: 7 Rules for Email Campaigns

Bill High — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:55:24 GMT

After building your email database, it is time to prepare your first campaign. Here are some basic rules:

1) In the time leading up to the campaign, especially invest in relationships—be sensitive to needs and larger situations occurring during that time of the year etc.

2) Determine your objective, and let this drive your entire campaign—Remember, if you are sending multiple versions of the campaign, the objective may vary slightly. Nevertheless, keep a clear focus so that people know your purpose in writing.

3) Make the desired action clear—People need to know what to do with your message. If you are wanting them to attend your upcoming event, you should include this in your subject, include multiple links to sign-up, tell a story about the past history of the event, etc.

4) Meet peoples’ needs—If you can give people what they need, they will give you what you want. Keep your email relevant to your audience’s needs. If the content is also helpful to them, they are far more likely to engage with you. Continue reading tips on how to do this here.

5) Review, test, repeat—Your email needs to be free of mistakes, no exceptions. Proof-read your articles and have others review them. Make sure your subject line will not catch spam filters. Test every link in your campaign; it will be embarrassing to you and frustrating to your recipients if a link does not work. Once you have done all this testing and made corrections, do it once more. It may seem like a lot of work, but excellence is important.

6) Give recipients direction from the campaign—Always have landing pages included from the campaign. Include links to your website and donation pages. Help them continue to engage by providing them with the social media connections.

7) Keep it short and sweet—Most people who open emails will just scan it. Use bolded titles so people can quickly find the most important information. People should be able to read the first sentence of each paragraph and know what your entire email was about. If you want to include a longer story or article, use a “Read More” link—this will save space and also drive traffic back to the desired pages.

Read Part 1 here: http://blogs.christianfoundationgrants.com/archive/2010/07/23/182.aspx

Additional information taken from Convio’s “Using the Internet to Raise Funds and Build Relationships”

-- Jessica High manages marketing and research at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online

Online Fundraising Guide

Bill High — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:34:41 GMT

The best online fundraising practices and plans of action will be included in this next series of posts. With experts’ advice in a simplified format, this guide will help you easily start or grow your online giving.

Part 1: Email Campaigns

Some people suggest that email will soon be yet another dying form of communication. However, trends do not show this at all. Rather, it is a fundamental tool to communicate with an ever on the move society. This does not mean it is the only tool, but it still is a valuable one, so let’s get started.

Step 1) Choose an email campaign service—

Unless you have access to a great email design program, it usually is best to choose an email campaign service. You can easily store all your addresses there, track statistics, send to large or specific lists easily, and create nicely designed emails. Constant Contact and MailChimp are two of the top providers. Want to see an example? Go to www.christianfoundationgrants.com and sign up for our mailing list!

Step 2) Build your database of email addresses—

You have an easy starting point with all your current contacts. However, never stop there. Utilize events and other meetings to gain email addresses. When you meet with a prospective donor, exchange business cards with them or ask if they would be interested in receiving your newsletter. Ask for email addresses on your event response cards. Convio, Inc. gives this creative tip: “At events where you will interact with a large number of constituents, […] offer a giveaway for attendees who drop in their card with their name.”

Your website is also a powerful tool for gaining sign-ups. Include a sign-up box that displays on multiple pages throughout your website. Keep the sign-up form simple and make sure people know that they can opt out at any time. Include inviting text that conveys signing up as a benefit to these people. For example: “Sign up to receive our latest updates and stories”

Step 3) Segment your lists of addresses—

Knowing your audiences is an important part of email campaigns’ success. Think about age group, supporter or volunteer, location, etc. You may often want to send different versions of the email because these different groups will want to see different things. For instance, if you have a large group of Gen Y that you interact with, you may want to customize the email to them with a catchy subject line, includes stories, and give the links to your social media. If you are emailing established donors, use a short subject line to tell them what the email is about, include a story that lets them know how their donation is being used, and keep content simple.

Come back on Monday where we will continue this series! Be sure to find Jessica on LinkedIn as well to stay connected and follow the latest CFG updates. (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-high/23/235/477)

How to Improve Grant Writing

Bill High — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:24:21 GMT

Do you want to receive grants? This is the one change you need to make.

Here in the non-profit world, we have become quite adept at following rules and completing instructions. I am not here to advocate throwing all these off, but I do fear that we have lost our sense of story. Think about it. Why are social networks flourishing? People want to know about what is truly occurring, even if just in 160 characters or less.

It’s time to listen to what donors and research are telling you. Story-telling. It is becoming vital to fundraising success for ministries to rethink their communication. Unfortunately, many ministries do not realize how dire this need is, because on the surface it seems they have things down pat.

Let me illustrate this with a short story:

I have served as a grant-reviewer for the past five years at the Servant Christian Community Foundation for their annual awards. My passion is ministry, so I rather giddily anticipate the week when grant-proposal reviews begin. Though grammar mistakes are the bane of my existence, I genuinely strive to see the best in these proposals; I want to know more about these great servants of our community.

Last year, as I was reviewing, I came across the perfect proposal. It really was perfect. They had answered each of the questions beautifully in perfect paragraphs. Pertinent statistics were included in all the right places, and they provided nice short testimonies to complement the statistics. From most standpoints, it should have been a compelling proposal.

Yet somehow, I found myself dissatisfied but even a little concerned—and not just with this one proposal. In a sense, I fear we see the greater reflection of the non-profit world in that proposal. As someone whose job entails working with ministries seeking funding, I continue to see this illustrated.

Most ministries I talk with quickly deny that this is even true of them, but I am issuing a challenge to the non-profit world. Stop. Think about. It’s time for a perspective shift, as I will continue to reiterate this summer. Are we truly telling the stories of value? Or are we just looking to punch the right buttons on the ATM machine that we also call ‘donor’?

It is okay to talk about passion. It is okay to risk a little vulnerability. The masquerade of perfection fools no one. Stories talk about real life. Stories invite community. Maybe your donors need you too. Maybe they need to know your story to see where they belong. Remember, there is value in the rules, but let us use them as tools, as part of the greater vision.

In one of my previous posts, I invited those reading to share their stories. The offer still stands. It is not a sales pitch. I want to know more about the individual stories occurring; it helps me serve you better. Let’s talk. It’s time to start this dialogue towards telling stories and better communication.

--Jessica High manages research and marketing at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online