Our free newsletter—The Duck Pond—offers tips, tools, case studies, and other resources that help you communicate more effectively. If you’d like these pearls of wisdom delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe now. The feature articles from our most recent Duck Ponds are below, if you’d like dig a little deeper right now.
What exactly are key messages, anyway?
Define your overarching story with a fluid, flexible, foundational document.
Key messages are curious nuts to crack. They're a bit conceptual and require a serious step out of the trenches to see the bigger story of your nonprofit. Plus, confusion often abounds about what key messages are and how you might use them.
Here’s a definition that we Ducks use from time to time:
Key Messages:
Turn 2011 trends into 2012 resolutions
Ah, the new year! Time to look ahead, set aspirational goals, and view the world with renewed optimism. While we Ducks are loath to make predictions (Ducks generally prefer to live fully in the moment), we’ve observed a few trends in 2011 that will likely affect your nonprofit’s communications in 2012, if they haven’t already.
’Tis always the season for raising money
Are you feeling the magic of year-end fundraising? From the letters and emails your organization is sending out to the requests pouring into your own inbox, solicitations are everywhere. This should come as no surprise given that 73% of contributions come from individuals (Giving USA) and that a third of all online giving occurs in December (Network for Good).
Ch-ch-ch-changes! Five tips for managing updates to your communications
Change is hard. And we don’t just mean big, societal, eradicate-poverty-and-hunger kind of change. Making changes to your organization’s communications is difficult, too.
Even seemingly small changes (like creating a new brochure) and positive changes (like developing a new brand that will help your nonprofit raise money and visibility more effectively) can be tricky and frustrating.
Once upon a Design: Introducing Visual Storytelling
photo: jennie Zed
Let me tell you a story. No, better. Let me show you one.
The pre-game show to your year-end appeal.
Six tips to get your campaign rolling
There's no time like an August heat wave to start up your year-end campaign planning.
No, we're not just being overachievers. When we do year-end campaigns for our clients, the many pieces we're weaving together—overarching concept, direct mail, email series or messages, splash page, donation landing page, and more—require that we begin now. Or at least now-ish.
