Blogo, ergo sum.
For a doctoral thesis, Frank C. Dickerson mined 1.5 million words of fundraising texts from 880 major American charities and subjected them to linguistic analysis. The patterns revealed by this "linguistic MRI" showed prose that tends to sound cold and detached, does not seek to create interpersonal involvement, and contains less narrative that either academic prose or official government documents. But other than that, what's the problem? You can read the executive summary or the entire study, The Way We Write Is All Wrong.
Photo Credit: Werner Popken
The Netwits ThinkTank has a useful post with four tips for Facebook success - including links to many examples of good nonprofit Facebook pages.
Summer's here and the time is right for reading on the beach. Here are a couple of selections for those who don't mind mixing busines
s with pleasure.
Motivated by seeing tons of bad emails from nonprofits, Network for Good has published a free e-book, The Nonprofit Email Marketing Guide:7 Steps to Better Email Fundraising & Communications. Download a free copy.Do you ever wonder if your special events are worth the effort? Terry Axelrod, fundraising guru extraordinaire, has written Missionizing Your Special Events: How to Build a System of Events That Engages Donors Who Will Stay with You for Life. Blogger Joanne Fritz at About.com has a glowing review.
Photo Credit: Bernd
Google has a tool called Optimizer that lets you try different variations of your webpage and measure which is most effective. A post at Frogloop blog explains the tool and also suggests ways to avoid the pitfalls of overtesting.
If you're having trouble reaching the younger generation, you may be interested in the syllabus for a new course called "Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era." Warning: keep tongue firmly in cheek.
Photo: Cocoarmani
Raising Money Online was the theme of a recent issue of the Nonprofit Blog Carnival. It's a one-click source for seven consultants' suggestions, and lots of other goodies to boot.
Good storytelling bridges the gap between the awesome enormity of societal problems and the "human scale" of changing one life, says writer Jonah Sachs. Blogger Joanne Fritz has a book review.
Photo:Silvia Saavedra
