Helping You Raise More Money to Help More People
Welcome to the Nonprofit Answers Podcast where we answer your nonprofit marketing and fundraising questions. From acquiring new donors to nurturing long-term donor relationships, we’ve got the answers to your most pressing questions.
Hi, I’m Jeremy Reis, your Nonprofit Answers host. I’m the VP of Marketing at CRISTA Ministries, leading our direct response, radio, events, digital, and other fundraising initiatives. CRISTA is a family of five ministries including World Concern, an international relief and development organization. In my role, I face many of the same challenges you do and have to make decisions on how to raise the most funds, develop the deepest relationships, and market our organization with limited money, people and resources. In this podcast, I’ll answer your questions on nonprofit marketing and fundraising to help you raise the most money possible to help the most people you can.
Nonprofit Answers Episodes
Episode 016 – Effective Nonprofit Storytelling
Storytelling is the foundation of excellent nonprofit marketing. Jeremy is frequently asked, “how do I effectively tell our story?” In this special episode, Jeremy Reis explores effective nonprofit storytelling that produces results. You’ll learn the tips and tricks to writing great nonprofit stories that raise funds and builds relationships with your donors and stakeholders.
Episode 015 – How to Define a Major Partner Email Strategy
In this episode, Gary asks what, if anything, should we email major donors? Jeremy teaches you how to define a major partner email communication strategy and recommends which emails to send based on which segment the donor is in.
Episode 014 – How Do I Grow My Email List?
Growing your email list is an essential part of digital marketing for your nonprofit. You will be able to create a new source of donors through adding people who have an affinity for your cause. In this episode, Jeremy explores several ways you can add new names to your email list.
Episode 013 – How Do I Position the Donor as the Hero?
Your donor is the hero. This is one of the hardest concepts for nonprofit staff to accept. In this episode, Jeremy answers a question about how to position the donor as the hero in your nonprofit communications. Using examples, Jeremy teaches you how to write active copy that presents an appeal from the point of view of a donor.
Episode 012 – What is Retargeting?
Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is a technology to show ads to a warm audience. In this episode, Jeremy discusses what retargeting is, how it works, two different types of retargeting, and how your nonprofit organization can use retargeting to get more supporters and deepen your relationship with existing donors.
Episode 011 – How Often Should My Nonprofit Blog?
Blogging is not dead. Far from it. In today’s episode, Jeremy answers a question from a nonprofit executive about how much blogging is right for his organization. This executive is being told by his team to blog every day, but doesn’t understand why.
Episode 010 – How Do We Stop Fighting Internally Over Income Sourcing?
In this special edition of Nonprofit Answers, Jeremy is live at the Christian Leadership Alliance with a timely question. At the conference, a nonprofit leader asked Jeremy how to properly give internal credit for income without causing problems with attribution and to reduce internal fighting over “credit” for donations.
Episode 009 – How Should I Clean My Email List?
Do you have a lot of email addresses on your file that aren’t responding? Speaking from personal experience, Jeremy explains to Grant the steps to re-engage email subscribers and what to do if they continue to be unresponsive.
Episode 008 – How Do I Create a Sense of Urgency in My Appeals?
Creating a sense of urgency in your appeal messaging will help move readers to become donors. What if you have a difficult time creating a sense of urgency? In episode 8 of Nonprofit Answers, Rob asks a question about how to create urgency in his appeals for a women’s shelter.
Episode 007 – My Executive Director Keeps Editing Out Fundraising Best Practices
Do you have someone who edits out fundraising best practice from your appeals? Someone who doesn’t like the urgency, postscripts, hyphens, folksy language, or handwritten notes? Is your fundraising suffering because of it? In episode 7, Jeremy answers a question from Julia about how to handle an Executive Director who doesn’t understand fundraising and is undermining her efforts.
Episode 006 – Why Don’t My Emails Perform As Well As My Direct Mail?
Direct mail is not dead. Far from it, direct mail still performs well if you have a good strategy behind it. Many nonprofits are transitioning more investment into digital but aren’t seeing the return in email that they’ve seen in direct mail. Today, we’re going to talk through the five Cs of successful email appeals, then we have a question from Marcy about why her emails don’t perform as well as her direct mail does.
Episode 005 – What to Do With 25,000 Email Addresses a Partner Offered Us?
Karen’s organization has a partner who offered them a list of 25,000 email addresses. Her boss wants to just add them to their email service provider, but Karen doesn’t agree. In episode 5, Jeremy gives Karen advice as to how to answer her boss and what to do with the opportunity.
