Posted in donor, donor engagement, economic recession, fundraising, investment, lifecycle, marketing, marketing budget, non profit, nonprofit on Aug 3rd, 2010
While meeting with a client the other day the conversation turned to their growth plans. The client softly explained that their growth plans were pretty conservative considering the economy and how much their board of directors enjoyed their dividend checks. We both chuckled knowing that growth needs to be funded by profit and would cut [...]
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Posted in banking, branding, community, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor engagement, follower, fundraising, leader, marketing, network, social marketing, social network, spur communications on Jul 29th, 2010
I used to skydive. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend it. It’s fun. So when my son told me he and his friends were going skydiving I was O.K. with it. I checked out the airport and club behind his back just to make sure it was fine. After all I am his dad. [...]
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Posted in donor, donor engagement, fundraising, individualized marketing, network, non profit, nonprofit, personalized marketing, social branding, social marketing, social media, social network on Jul 28th, 2010
I get asked this question a lot. When I talk with a community benefit organization about their marketing for fundraising, probably 4 out of 10 times I’m asked whether everything they send out should include a fundraising ask. In my opinion, the answer is quite simple — no.
Your donors and prospects are valuable but different [...]
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Posted in banking, community, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor engagement, financial services, follower, fundraising, individualized marketing, investment, lifecycle, marketing, network, non profit, personalized marketing, social marketing, social media, social network, twitter on Jul 27th, 2010
Frontline associates are often the most frequent point of human contact provided by an organization. I’m talking about folks like the teller at your bank and the undergrad working the alumni association telethon. They’re the tip of the spear, yet they are also among the least empowered in the organization. Their roles are viewed as [...]
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Frequent readers of SPURspectives know that I often write about issues related to investment or philanthropy — two seemingly disparate, yet related subjects. Spur Communications contends that investing and philanthropy are related from a marketing standpoint by sharing similar psychological motivators. Inspiring someone to invest in ensuring they have a better future is a short [...]
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Over the last several years the economy has taken an alarming toll on the community benefit sector. For many organizations and foundations income is down 20% to 40% and sometimes more. No business can contract that much without suffering tremendous pain. While the markets have shown signs of rebounding over the last several weeks, other [...]
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Posted in SPURspectives, Uncategorized, banking, branding, community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor, donor engagement, economic recession, financial services, follower, fundraising, insurance, investment, marketing, marketing innovation, network, non profit, nonprofit, social branding, social marketing, social media, social network, spur communications, web on Feb 24th, 2010
Each of us is intimately aware of how we are being impacted by the current financial crisis. However, it is the younger millennial generation that deserves closer examination, as their response to the situation will have the furthest reaching impact on our future. The financial crisis is having a greater impact on the saving, investing, [...]
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Posted in SPURspectives, branding, community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer engagement, customer interaction, donor, donor engagement, follower, fundraising, marketing, network, non profit, nonprofit, social branding, social marketing, social media, spur communications on Feb 18th, 2010
I had an epiphany the other day. Needless to say, that doesn’t happen to me very often. This one happened while I was attending a Habitat for Humanity build. If you are a regular reader of SPURspectives, you know that I work with Habitat fairly frequently. But this last time held a surprise. When I [...]
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Posted in SPURspectives, branding, community, consumer behavior, consumer engagement, consumer perception, customer interaction, donor, donor engagement, follower, fundraising, leader, marketing, network, non profit, nonprofit, social marketing, social media, social network, spur communications, twitter on Feb 16th, 2010
I know of a small college that was just bumping along. It wasn’t getting bigger or smaller. It just existed — the poor stepchild of the big school down the road. Then the small school hired a new leader. The new leader was a dynamic fundraiser and high profile public figure. The school grew and [...]
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Posted in SPURspectives, Uncategorized, community, donor, donor engagement, economic recession, fundraising, kansas city, leader, lifecycle, marketing, marketing budget, network, non profit, nonprofit, spur communications on Feb 10th, 2010
Around the corner from my house is a lovely pre-Civil War era house, the Alexander Majors house. It’s a historic landmark in Kansas City. Alexander Majors helped open the west by leading the first wagon train from Westport (Kansas City) to Santa Fe and then made a fortune along the Santa Fe and California trails. [...]
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