New Tools for Communication-Get your Message Top of Mind!
With more than 5,000 media messages presented to most of our donors and volunteers every day, we have lots of competition to get our messages in front of those we depend on for support. One of the best ways to communicate with members, volunteers and donors is through their mobile phone. Having a way to connect by SMS while still keeping your list “opt-in” allows you to deliver information to your volunteers, members and volunteers in a way that is instant, inexpensive and effective. It is important though that this is the “preferred” method and that people can choose all of the ways they want to communicate with them.
SMS stands for “short message service” or as we often refer to it “text messaging”
SMS allows you to aquire new contacts through “short code” texting. Try the texting “compassionbydesign” to 69302 to see how this works. You will notice the opportunity to “opt-out” is included as a part of this approach. If you offer information that is valuable to a donor or volunteer, such as an update about the services you are offering, a important community need or event updates, then you have just opened a new communication channel to a new donor or community member.
Add to this the now popular SMS voting method made popular by certain musical competitions that received tens of millions of contacts and you can move your donor acquisition approach from traditional forms such as paper mail or other congested or expensive forms to an inexpensive approach that will cost you about .05 cents per new donor. Add a community sponsor that wants to send out coupons and you can expand this opportunity even more.
SMS approaches work well with a number of demographics and are much easier to manage than many of the email and internet adword approaches. If you are working with youth or “early adopters” and young adults, then SMS approaches can work very well. For older citizens get a sponsorship by a local merchant to get best acceptance. This can be set up as a special coupon that acknowledges your organization as a part of the message. Since you include an “opt-out” method as a part of every message, you have the right to continue sending out information about your oragnization in the future.
Consider an SMS approach for these purposes:
- Event and Scheduling Updates
- Youth Groups
- Community Contests and Voting
- School and Sport Groups
- Community News
- Church Updates
- Urgent member information
- Missions support updates
Using a combined management tool that allows you to communicate through email, SMS and social media, your organization can keep members and donors up to date while you effectively manage contact information. Building new donor and support is made possible through SMS number aquisition.
Try this service by texting “compassionbydesign” to 69302 to see how the service works– you will be entered to win a free Grant Teams that Win book. Get a free trial account at http://www.impact-messages.com and read more about how this tool can help you win new donors and connect to your members and supporters.
Helping People Who are Out of Work
Top Tips for People Who Want to Get A Job Now!
By Elisabeth H. Sanders-Park
If you’re looking for work, you know the market is tough. But, every month people get jobs. Here are some tips to shorten your search.
Focus. If you don’t know what you want to do, the employer won’t either. Choose a job target, then craft your marketing tools to prove you can do the job. Your target should include what want to do (title) and where you want to do it (industry). Pursuing two different jobs? Develop separate campaigns to prove you meet the unique needs for each job.
Think like the employer. They decide who gets screened out and who gets hired, so consider how they make money, and what makes someone ideal for the job you want. There are six reasons you’ll get the job — ability, presentation, dependability, motivation, attitude, and network. Figure out what the employer needs in each area and prove you’ve got it. These are also the six reasons you’ll lose the job, so catch anything that could get you screened out and deal with it before the employer notices.
Get to a decision maker. 90%+ of us are screened out before the person with the power to say ‘yes’ enters the process. So, find a side door! 50%-70% of jobs are found through networking. Get an introduced by a current employee with a great reputation, volunteer, intern or go in as a customer and prove your passion and talent, attend a job fair, and reach out to family, friends and acquaintances. No matter how you search, your job is likely to come through contact with people, not paper (or computers!). Get prepared, and get out there!
None of this is rocket science, but the job search never has been. In the end, it’s more about what you do than what you know. Job seekers today need fresh ideas and inspiration to jump start their job search. We can help
Get the book! The 6 Reasons You’ll Get the Job will help whether you were recently laid off, are just beginning your career, or have a rocky work history and some explaining to do. Get it at a bookstore starting October 5th, join the tour, or pre-order today at Barnes & Noble.com
Meet the authors! In September and October 2010, we’re coming to a city near you to jump start your job search. Attend a half-day seminar based on The 6 Reasons You’ll Get the Job to learn how to get a job now and get a free copy of the book. Come to our employment networking event to make connections and get your book signed. Prizes will be given via the website and events. Details at www.the6reasons.com
What Should I be Doing About Grants?
How do I come up with a good grant plan?
For many of us grants are either a painful memory in which we recall a long weekend and late nights writing or just a good idea that we have never tried. What is a reasonable plan for getting my organization into the grant stream? When I used to play baseball, the coach had a saying. “If you don’t swing, you will never get a hit”. That is one of the basic rules of winning grants, you must participate to win. Are their some basic steps that I should take to move us forward? Can any of that be done without unreasonable amounts of effort?
A strong grant effort includes many of the things that are found in a good baseball swing:
The appropriate stance- in baseball, a batter comes to the plate ready to swing and has the basic gear required and is included because he or she is on the roster. If you are a ministry or a non-profit then you are on the roster, and with a little training, you will have the equipment that you need to play the game. The stance for ministries and non-profits requires that they orient themselves in the right direction by knowing which pitches to swing for, and which grants are appropriate. The opposite is often true, groups swinging backwards because they have not done the basic research to find out where to swing. A good stance allows the batter to develop a rhythm that maximizes body strength. That is what grants should be for your organization, a routine that allows you to flex appropriate muscles over and over. It should feel natural if you are doing it right.
A concentrated effort- every batter knows when it is time to go to the plate. Hitting, just like running and fielding is a concentrated and focused effort. Batters bat when their turn comes. They focus on this and do it with intention and concentration. They don’t bat all the time, but it is a part of the rhythm of the game. If you don’t swing the grant bat, you are only playing one part of the game, and it will be much harder to score.
Overcoming fear- Not so switch sports, but when I used to take tennis lessons, the instructor discovered that I was afraid of being hit. Being the good teacher that he was, he decided to teach me a lesson and began to hit me over and over with served tennis balls. While I wouldn’t recommend the practice, the same is true in baseball and grants. Getting up to swing away means that you have to overcome your fear of failure. Yes you might miss…in fact you are going to miss. But will you continue to swing until you get it right?
Practice- My graduate school grant writing professors had a wise approach to grant writing. He believed, and I experienced the reality that practice does bring about improvement. If you want to get good at writing and winning grants, you have to practice. The more the write, and get feedback from colleagues and grant makers, the stronger you will get in your ability to knock it out of the park.
Home runs are good- having won my own share of grants, which now reach into the tens of millions of dollars, I must admit that hitting home runs with grants is really a lot of fun. There is nothing like that first, second and twentieth grant win to bring a smile to your face and to the face of your team mates. In my short baseball career, hitting home runs required a lot of strikes and singles along the way. And it goes like that. Hit some and miss some, but if you keep at it, you will see that ball fly over left field fence. You and your team will all benefit as well as the people you are working to serve.
<–Learn more about grant writing on a conference call this Thursday afternoon, July 16th at 5:00 p.m. Select schedule to the left to join the call.
Seven Non-Profit Options for Churches
We may think, “its to Non-Profit or Not…”
but we really have a choice between a variety of structures. Its like going to the bakery and thinking only about just one kind of cookie. I went on Father’s day to a special pie shop in Leesburg, VA and discovered something that I had never heard of before: Texas Cake. it was a piece of cake with about 3 inches of pure fudge on top. My heart thanks me that I didn’t get any. I discovered that church choices about how we operate as non-profits are pretty unique too, in fact there are at least seven different options.
THERE ARE SEVEN OPTIONS FOR CHURCH NON-PROFIT ACTIVITY
The most common choice that most church leaders are aware of is a secondary non-profit 501c3 corporation. But there are at least 6 other structures that can be adopted depending upon the specific focus and needs of the church. There are some important issues with a standard 501c3 that you need to be aware of as you consider which of the seven types you might be best for your church. In addition to the three primary reasons that churches form NPO’s (Risk, Resource and Rapport), you will need to consider which of these three items goes to the top of your list. Are you primarily seeking to avoid risk, or like me are you ready to run head-long into danger for the Kingdom (as long as you have a good suite of amour)?
The right pick from these seven will determine how well you do in each of the three categories. And all the choices are not equal when they stand side by side. Approaching this as an informed leader will allow you to make an informed choice and to bypass the “build it and they will come” myth. If you are primarily loyal to the structure that you create or you don’t understand the choices, you can easily easily end up serving a new structure in the same way that you serve the old structure.
Structures need to serve purpose and support growth and life.
While it is true that some plants can’t grow without a supportive structure, there is nothing wrong with germinating some seeds before you install the trellis. But you do need to know what you want the plant to do when it grows up. Your knowledge of your options will help you to make timing, resource, leadership and ministry choices that will help you to maximize what develops out of your community efforts. I know that some people swear by those upside down tomato plant stands, but even if they produce great tomatoes, they look kind of funny. If you are going to take the first step outside the box and create a secondary community ministry structure like a non-profit, then you will want to be intentional about the type and understand its costs, risk and rewards. That is why they grow tomatoes upside down isn’t it, for the fruit?
Join our discussion of these seven options on a webinar lead by David Mills. We will evaluate and understand these choices for ministry purposes and share a comprehensive overview of the options and their impacts upon ministry. Next webinar is June 24th at 3 p.m. EST. Click schedule on the tab to the left, pick non-profit for churches, and then webinar, and schedule a spot to learn more.