Spring Cleaning: Newsletters

Your newsletter is a great communications tool for your organization. But is it really making an impact? How can you be sure that people aren't just throwing it away without reading it? And how can you make it better?

1. Ask the Donors
This is the time to survey your donors. Make it short and simple, but ask them what they think of the newsletter. Don't be vague with your questions, but instead ask very precise, direct questions that will garner a good response.

2. Change it Up
Sometimes people have a format and a style of a newsletter and they keep it that way for years. Consider changing it around, both from a design perspective and a content perspective. Do you always write about the same things? Do you always write in the same way? (ie. technical, colloquial, etc). Mix it up and see if that sparks interest.

2. Add Stories
If your newsletter doesn't have stories from your clients, please add them! They are a great way to make that connection between donor and client and encourage donors to give a bit more.

3. Add Interviews
Interview your board and staff and share those interviews in the newsletter. People give to people, not to organizations and this is your chance to showcase that!

4. Give Donors a Voice
Consider including a survey or a comment card that would allow donors to express what they are feeling, whether it's about this particular issue of the newsletter or your organization in general.

5. Fix Formatting
Don't try to squeeze as much content as you can into the pages. This makes it very hard to read and bulky. Instead, adjust your story lengths to fit the page. If you have a story that is just too good but you can't fit it, put the full story up on your website and tell people to read more there.

6. Be Critical
Don't just glance at your newsletter once and say it's fine. Take the time to look at it from the donor's perspective and see what needs to be changed or updated. If you make it fresh, the donors will be more engaged and interested.

7. Get Outside Opinions
You may pass it around to everyone if your office who can look at it and think it's fine, but someone with no connection to your organization may have a different view. Getting an outside opinion will give you a new perspective. So grab that friend who doesn't know that much about your organization and give her the newsletter.

Have fun Spring Cleaning and good luck!

Stay tuned tomorrow: Spring Cleaning your Brochure

Newsletter Content

It can be difficult when you are putting together a newsletter to decide what content works and what doesn’t. It’s important to approach it from the mind of the donor. Think about what they want to read and what would inspire them to donate.

Here are a few tips:

1. Feature real people.
Facts and figures can only take you so far. Tell stories about your clients or better yet, let them have a voice of their own. And remember to include staff, board and volunteers.

2. Share your successes.
Don’t be afraid to share what you have accomplished. If you are proud of it, your donors should be too.

3. Be uplifting.
A newsletter has so much more impact when you focus on the positive. You can still highlight the need, but overall, position your newsletter in a positive way.

4. Keep it short.
Keep each article short and easy to read. Longe3r articles may disinterest some readers as well as clutter the page.

5. Make sure you have a soft ask.
What is a soft ask? A soft ask is when you don’t ask for a donation outright. The opposite is called a hard ask. An example of this is direct mail. In your newsletter, even though you aren’t asking for money outright, inspire so that people will donate anyway.

A newsletter is a great addition to a communications plan and will help continue your donors interest in the organization.

More Stuff: Receive a copy of the monthly newsletter by emailing: lindsey@lindseypatten.com

Setting Up A Non-profit Newsletter Pt 2

Setting Up a Newsletter Part 2

The last post was about the message you wanted to send, this is going to focus on design and style.

When looking at possible designs for your newsletter, you need to ask yourself:

1. Does the design enhance your message or hurt it?

While it's nice to have a shiny newsletter, the more flash you add to the newsletter, the more the message gets lost. It's good to have a sharp, clean newsletter that conveys the exact meaning you want it to.

2. Does the design reflect your brand?

It's important that your newsletter be cohesive and fit with the rest of your communication tools. It should have a similar look and feel to your website, brochure, etc and definately feature your logo and slogan.

3. Is the content laid out in a simple, easy to read manner?

Your newsletter should have text that is easy to read. Keep in mind fonts, size, colour and more. A good way to test this is by giving your newsletter to someone who hasn't seen it before and hearing their thoughts.

All of these things should help your newsletter be effective.

Setting Up a Non-profit Newsletter Part 1

Setting Up a Newsletter Part 1

I'm in the process of setting up a newsletter to accompany my website and this blog and wanted to share my process. I'm the type of person whose brain is usually on step five before I start step one. But there are many things to consider before setting up a newsletter.

1. Who are you intending the newsletter for?

It's great if all your friends and family sign up, but if the newsletter isn't reaching your target audience. For instance, this newsletter is geared towards small businesses and non-profit organizations. And while I did send out emails to family and friends in case they knew of anyone who needed it, the more targeted email will be to my target audience.

2. What do you want the newsletter to do for you?

A newsletter can do many things for you. It can get people to sign up for things, visit your website and more. Make sure that you are aware of what you want your newsletter to do and make sure the functionality is there. So if you want people to visit your blog, make sure you have a link to your blog.

3. How are distributing your newsletter?

Email or print? Either way, make sure that you have a database set up that is conscise and correct. You need to ensure that people's data is correct as well as secure.

4. What's your message?

What do you want to say in this newsletter? Sit and brainstorm ideas on a pad. And not just ideas for one issue, but for multiple issues to come. You want to make sure that everything is consistent. How many articles? How long should it be? These are important things that you must decide before setting it up.

*check tommorrow for part 2 of Setting Up a Newsletter