Here’s a sample: “It’s quite clear there isn’t any single reason why people give. My interviewing shows that in most cases, donors themselves can’t pinpoint their prime motivation. It is puzzling, complex, and often confluent. But one thing is certain. People do not give because organizations have needs, whether for renovation, equipment, or to overcome a deficit. In fact, donors run away from ‘needs.’ They hide from the institution that isn’t financially stable, opting instead for heroic, exciting programs.” 

Asking: A 59-Minute Guide to Everything Board Members, Volunteers, and Staff Must Know to Secure the Gift, Jerold Panas, published by Emerson & Church.

Emerson & Church publishes a couple dozen easy-to-read manuals that nonprofits should really read. Jerry Panas is one of the recognized pros, and this book shows why. A couple sample quotes:

"What I’ve discovered in all my years of fundraising is that it almost doesn’t matter how you ask. What’s important is that you ask. And that you do it with enthusiasm and commitment."
and
"People don’t give because your organization has needs. Your organization has the answer, the solution to problems and challenges. Don’t sell ‘needs’ – sell your answer, your response, your successful solutions."

New Review Seeing through a Donor’s Eyes: How to Make a Persuasive CASE for Everything from your Annual Drive to your Planned Giving Programs to your Capital Campaign, Tom Ahern, Emerson & Church Publishing, Medfield, MA, 2009.

Tom Ahern is a courageous guy. He’s written this wonderful, important, thorough, step-by-step guidebook to conceiving and writing arguably the most important document your nonprofit can have: a case statement. Then he starts Chapter 31, Reality Check, with the subhead: “A less-than-great case won’t kill your capital campaign.” And includes in the Appendix Steve Manzi’s Myth of the Campaign Case Statement Publication: “But you know what? Almost nobody really reads the Case Statement.”

Well, first of all Tom’s book shows you exactly how to get prospective donors to read your case statements. He covers everything from research and interviewing to organizing your thoughts. He tosses in emotions, headlines, and photos, too.

More important, for this strategician at least, is that Tom argues that every nonprofit needs to ask itself fundamental questions. He writes: “The mere act of writing a case helps you – forces you, really – to deeply investigate your organization’s impact on the world, so you can successfully explain that impact to donors and prospects.

“Having a current case for support on file is an act of good management. A case consolidates your messages for common reference by staff and board, putting every potential voice, writer, and advocate on the same page.”

I’d put it even more forcefully. Perhaps the number one problem I’ve seen in nonprofits is a lack of consensus why the organization exists and what it uniquely does. From a strategic point of view, everything you do emanates from that common understanding. It’s not a nicety. It’s an absolute.

Tom shows you how to make your case in writing. Start today.

The Mercifully Brief Real World Guide to Raising More Money with Newsletters than You Ever Thought Possible, Tom Ahern, published by Emerson & Church, 2005.

What can I say? Tom Ahern has been an important mentor to me and a cherished colleague for more than ten years. He’s taken a lot of the lessons he’s taught me and put them in this book for everyone else to see, too. (Disclosure: I commented on an early draft, so he gave me a generous acknowledgement. I’m so touched.)

Friend or no, this is a marvelous book of the common-sense variety. “Darn,” I always say after meeting with Tom, “I should’ve known that.” His focus is squarely on donors and how you can motivate them through newsletters. He outlines how to write for the four personality types: the expressive, the amiable, the skeptic, and the bottom liner. He also identifies the ‘fatal flaws’ that we newsletter writers often suffer from. (My personal failing is Fatal Flaw #5: Expecting People to Read Deep. You don’t, I don’t, so why should they?). He’s blunt and direct, and that’s refreshing.

"When your newsletter arrives, the first thing [donors] do is browse: skim a few headlines, look at the photos, maybe read a caption, to see if anything’s of interest. If nothing is, they put the newsletter aside, likely never to return. Which means, if you have nothing of interest in your ‘browser level’, you’ve wasted your time and money."

Hidden Gold: Monthly Giving, Harvey McKinnon, published by Bonus Books.

A nice concept simply put: get your donors to sign up for monthly giving. They’ll tend to give more and they never bother to stop. Not everyone will do it, maybe only 3-5 percent, but it’s worth asking.

"People keep giving because of one of the most powerful forces in human history -- inertia."

The Nonprofit Membership Toolkit, Ellis M.M. Robinson, published by Chardon Press Series.

Robinson gets right to the point: membership dues and donations almost always accounts for four-fifths of a nonprofit’s support. If it doesn’t, you’re probably doing something wrong. The book has plenty of detailed approaches to recruiting members and some good research too, like how an organization gets most of its members:

• one-to-one contact with a leader or friend: 40-50%
• attending an event with a leader or friend: 15-30%
• telephone contact with a leader or friend: 15-25%
• personalized letter or e-mail: 10-20%
• doorbelling, canvassing: 10-15%
• display ad: one hundredth of one percent.
  
  

Raising $1,000 Gifts by Mail, Mal Warwick, published by Emerson & Church.

One of the icons of fundraising. Hard to believe you can solicit a $1,000 gift by mail, but he offers compelling evidence and advice. He identifies the specific direct mail techniques to reach out to your organization’s:

• previous high-rolling donors
• modest donors you know can give more
• prospects suggested by Board members and well-connected folks
• list brokers of donors with an unusual ability to give.

You can also get on Mal’s free e-mail subscription list. Go to www.malwarwick.com. (Don’t forget mine, too. StraightTalk e-Blasts is right here.)

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Word of Mouth

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers, by Seth Grodin, 1999, Simon & Schuster.

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman, Doubleday, 2008.

There is so much fantastic stuff in this book I hate to narrow down to a few examples:

• Why a Swiss town was willing to take nuclear waste UNTIL it was offered money to do so
• Why basketball players who are picked lower in the draft will have worse careers even if they have the same stats as better players
• Why people who think they are old have poorer hearing
• Why we think beautiful people are more engaging.
• Why most of us tend to go with the crowd.

The book is also a balm to us troublemakers out there. It warns that every discussion better have a naysayer – even if that person is totally wrong – or the final decision is almost guaranteed to be faulty.

In fact, the authors use the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to describe the four roles that appear in almost every group. See if you can find yourself:

1. The initiator (Ferris) who always wants to try something new
2. The blocker (Cameron) who always finds fault or a problem with the idea
3. The supporter, who always backs one side or the other
4. The observer, who doesn’t take sides but comments on the activity

The authors call a lot on psychological testing, but even paragraphs like the following go down easy, trust me:

“All of us have certain lenses, or constructs, that we use to sift through the endless flow of information we encounter. For example, when we meet new people we may judge them on whether they dress well or poorly, whether their shoes are polished or not, whether they seem to be liberal or conservative, whether they are religious or secular, hip or nerdy. These constructs are useful insofar as they help us to quickly assess a situation and form a temporary hypothesis about how to react. Forming initial opinions is one of the ways in which we try to make sense of the world given limited time or information. But we have to be careful not to rely too much on such pre-emptive judgments, as they can short-circuit a more nuanced evaluation. They can narrow our perceptions and make us more apt to get swayed by a hasty diagnosis.”

Run out and buy this book or at least borrow it from the library!

The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret: Building Your Business with Word-of-Mouth Marketing, by Ivan R. Misner, 1994, Bard & Stephen.

Okay, I reached into the ‘oldies’ bookshelf for this one, but it was worth it (and you can usually buy old books cheaper). I was on the prowl for books about WOM (word-of-mouth marketing), and this one works despite its age.

Assuming you’ve been convinced about the importance of WOM (if you haven’t, read my StraightTalk e-Blast #2: The Value of WOM, or Are You Making People Happy Enough to Say Nice Things About You?), Misner takes it a step further: Don’t wait around for good WOM to happen spontaneously, make it happen.

He writes, “The best word-of-mouth programs I’ve seen happen by design, not by accident or wishful thinking…Word of mouth can be planned and nurtured. Anyone, including business owners, entrepreneurs, sales representatives, staff employees, even individuals serving in a volunteer capacity in any field (!), can accomplish plenty with a well-structured and systematically executed word-of-mouth plan.”
My favorite of his easy-to-do suggestions? Join civic organizations and attend the meetings.

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing, by Harry Beckwith, published by Warner Books.

This book points out that selling services, as many nonprofits do, can be infinitely more difficult than selling a product, like a toaster. I guess I’m spoiled by writers who actually offer proofs of the lessons they offer. Beckwith doesn’t, just makes statement after statement in a Voice of God manner. Turns me right off.

On the other hand, the guy has impeccable credentials as an author and a branding expert, and much of what he has to say has become accepted beliefs in the marketing  profession and such bestsellers as Good to Great by Jim Collins and The World is Flat by  Thomas Friedman:

• no matter what else is true, you have to offer great service
• "every act is a marketing act," including the way the receptionist answers the phone to the look of your stationery
• "selling a service is selling a relationship"
• only do what you can be great at
• it’s all about the consumer. In a bad situation, "the prospect says 'me, me, me.' Unfortunately, so does the marketer."
• First and last impressions count disproportionately.

Marketing Without Advertising: Inspire Customers to Rave About Your Business and Create Lasting Success, by Michael Phillips & Salli Rasberry, published by Nolo Press, fourth edition.

These folks hate advertising, to the silly point that they say E.F. Hutton and Martha Stewart would have survived their scandals better were they not so well known. Hmmmm. They cite reports such as by Information Resources (www.infores.com) which claims, "There is no simple correspondence between advertising and higher sales. The relationship…is tenuous at best." They note that people responding to advertising tend to be disloyal, that dependence on advertising makes a business vulnerable to shifts in consumer taste, and that most people don’t trust advertising.

Moving on from their diatribe, they offer some alternatives. First and foremost is personal recommendations. Can’t beat the cost effectiveness (it’s free), and it works. They quote Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point:

"Think for a moment about the last expensive restaurant you went to, the last expensive  piece of clothing you bought and the last movie you saw. In how many of those cases was your decision…heavily influeced by the recommendation of a friend? There are plenty of advertising executives today who think that …word-of-mouth appeals have become the only kind of persuasion that most of us respond to anymore."

The authors include a good checklist for ensuring that your business is doing everything it should to earn the good opinions of your customers and others, such as up-to-date, quality products; clear and fair pricing  policies; business transparency; and a clean office.

Forget the section on marketing on the Internet, it’s outdated; but the book has some clever ideas on how to introduce yourself to new audiences and peer-based marketing. Also has a good recommended reading section whose books I’m tracking down for future review. Stay tuned!

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Brands and Positioning

The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier, published by New Riders, 2006.

A succinct book that makes it clear that your branding is chosen by the audience. Sample quotes:

"In the end, the brand is defined by individuals, not by companies, markets, or the so-called general public. When enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand. In other words, a brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is."
and
"A friend of mine once observed that the only thing worse than the fear of death is the 'fear of stupid'."

Don’t Think of An Elephant, George Lakoff, published by Chelsea Green Publishing.

I wasn’t quite sure how to classify this little gem about promoting progressive politics. Lakoff refers a lot to "framing", which could be seen as another word for branding or positioning, so I’ve put it under Marketing. Make your own judgment.

Lakoff has harsh words for progressives who can be rather arrogant about their beliefs. Here’s an example: "Progressives tend to talk about programs. But programs are not what most Americans want to know about. Most Americans want to know what you stand for, whether your values are their values, what your principles are."

Despite its polemics, the book belongs here because it reminds us we need to connect with our audiences with all our communications, and the right wing traditionally does a much better job of it.

Positioning: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace, Al Ries & Jack Trout, published by McGraw Hill, 2001.

This is the more complex version of "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing," see below. It’s got more information, and it’s newer, but I didn’t like it as much. I did like the research finding that people can’t generally remember more than seven of anything, so you need to get your organization, product, or service, into one of the two or three most memorable. The authors ask: can you name all the seven dwarfs, the seven wonders of the world, the seven danger signs of cancer, or seven of the ten commandments. Provocative, no?

22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk, Al Ries & Jack Trout, published by Harper Business, 1993.

This is a simple summary of more complex presentations these ad execs have written elsewhere. The nugget I extracted from a fairly easy-to-read volume was the key directive to distinguish your organization from all others, by being first, by being the only, by getting into people’s hearts.

"The three largest-selling Japanese imported cars in America are Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. Most marketing people think the battle between the three brands is based on quality, styling, horsepower, and price. Not true. It’s what people think about a Honda, a Toyota or a Nissan that determines which brand will win."

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The Web

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug, published by New Riders Publishing.

This is a fantastic book on several levels. It tells you everything you need to know about creating an intuitive, powerful website. And it’s a fantastic read, like the best website you’ve ever surfed. Krug, who also performs well, practices what he preaches. He also engages the web aficionado in other ways, if you choose. Sign up for his e-mails and you’ll have regular communications what he’s up to, including the ability to review his ‘upgrades’ of the book.

This is a 'must have' book, whether you design your own sites or you have it done for you.

Sample statements:

"After all, usability really just means making sure that something works well; that a person of average (or even below average) ability and experience can use the thing – whether it’s a Web site, a fighter jet, or a revolving door – for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated."

"I think my wife put her finger on the essence of [web design] better than any statistic I’ve seen:"If something is hard to use, I just don’t use it as much"

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Direct Mail

Direct Mail Copy that Sells!, Herschell Gordon Lewis, published by Prentice Hall, 1984.

Yes, some of the rules of direct mail have changed since Lewis first wrote this book 20 years ago, but the fundamentals are deliciously the same. Though his official topic is direct mail, his rules about content and what motivates people to act is universal, whether you’re giving a speech, designing an ad, or writing for a newsletter.

I love the clear examples, too. Imagine you’re selling strong binoculars, he suggests. Don’t write "you can see really far away with these," but "You can look a sparrow straight in the eye from 250 feet and you can see it blink."

His 4th Law of Advertising is worth the price alone: Tell the reader or viewer what to do. Subtlety doesn’t work.

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Writing, Presenting, and Facilitating

The Art of the Book Proposal: From Focused Idea to Finished Proposal, by Eric Maisel, 2004, Penguin.

This book may have no place on this list, but I was just so impressed (and not a little daunted) that I thought I’d share. If you have a nonfiction book anywhere in you, this guy is going to tease it out of you with a thousand different exercises and logical steps. He certainly doesn’t promise it will be easy to publish. Given a low success rate, “The journey from idea to completed book is among the most arduous on earth…It is hard work because thinking is hard work, and writing is about thinking.”

A successful author himself, he lays out every stage, from battling writer’s block to building your argument with a publisher that you’ve got a bestseller just waiting to break free. Assuming he’s right, you’ll work a lot harder than I’ve been planning to for the book that’s rattling around my noggin on communications planning, but now I know what it will take. Maybe next year…

Facilitation Made Easy: Practical Tips to Improve Meetings and Workshops, by Esther Cameron, 3rd Edition, Kogan Page US 2006.

This handbook for internal and external facilitators starts out slowly but quickly gathers steam. Lots and lots of common sense: how a workshop differs from a presentation; the facilitator’s role; planning a workshop; the psychology of groups; and much, much more. Beware though: Ms. Cameron is British, so lots of the words are misspelled, like colour and behaviour.

Presentations Plus, by David A. Peoples, published by John Wiley & Sons, 1992.

An ‘oldie but goody’ about how to give a presentation, written before the deadly days of PowerPoint. The basics are still valuable, from why you should do presentations (people will spend 26% more for a product they’ve seen presented), to comparing types of presentations (people standing and using visual aids far outperform people sitting without visual aids), and lots and lots of techniques. The most common mistakes in presentations?

• poor first impression
• no objectives to the presentation
• dully, dry, and boring
• the speaker is frozen in one spot
• weak eye contact
• poor facial expressions
• no humor
• poor preparation
• no audience involvement
• no enthusiam or conviction on the part of the presenter
• poor visual aids
• a weak closing

The author tells you how to fix all the above. Curious advice: design the closing first, then the opening. Use Yale University’s 12 most persuasive words: you, money, save, new, results, easy, health, safety, love, discovery, proven, and guarantee.

The author doesn’t seem to have updated this book since 1996, so you’ll have to get it at the library (where I found it) or through Amazon. I’m buying a copy!

Beyond Bullet Points, Cliff Atkinson, published by Microsoft Publishers, 2005.

Bless his soul, Atkinson is on a mission to revolutionize the way we all do PowerPoint presentations, and we should be grateful. Bullet points, he points out clearly, are for the lazy who just like to read their notes off the screen. Instead we should be telling a dramatic story – with a beginning, middle, and end – with each show. A slide should feature a single headline that moves the story along with a related graphic that will stay in the viewer’s mind. Save the wordy stuff for a ‘notes outline’ that you hand out to the audience.

Unfortunately, while the book gives you the technical stuff Atkinson suggests, you’re much, much better off seeing him in action during one of his many trips around the country. He demonstrates better than he writes. Check out his website, too, at www.sociablemedia.com.

The Copywriter’s Handbook, Robert W. Bly, published by Henry Holt & Co.

This is a great book by a great pro. This is where all the basic lessons are explained: knowing who you’re writing to, the art of the headline, the great motivators (guilt, salvation, greed, fear, happiness), the message on the envelope, and lots more. For example:

"In direct mail you have five seconds to capture someone’s attention. Use a great opening – with an offer, an announcement, a story, flattery, or a question."

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