Marketing with Purpose

When we completed the 2020 donor survey for CoMoGives, we found that 35% of our respondants had NO IDEA what a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign is!  So I've asked RagTag staffer and successful peer-to-peer fundraiser Stacie Pottinger to explain what it means and share what makes her peer-to-peer campaigns so successful:  https://mayecreate.com/blog/multi-color-hair--personalizing-peer-to-peer-fun...

Those of you who have been hanging out with me for a while have probably met Jamie Freidrichs before. Because Jamie is a great resource of mine. She tells it how it is and I love that about her. She and I sometimes have slightly differing opinions because I'm a marketer, and she's a fundraiser… but at our core, we feel the same way about a lot of things. And so we felt like we would have a semi th...

I started this business at 25 in a teeny-tiny apartment with no air conditioning with not much more than peanut butter and a computer to my name, so I know a thing or two about achieving big goals with limited resources!  Today, I am going to give a part pep talk and some advice, all from the heart, about how you can do the same. To view this podcast on our website, head on over here:  https://may...

I interviewed two special guests recently: Jan Meese with the Columbia Audubon Society and Jacky Gingrich - treasurer of The Wardrobe. Both ladies did an amazing job of running year-end giving campaigns for their nonprofit organizations and reaching their goals through ComoGives. So I invited these two to share their stories about how they ran their campaigns. They don’t have huge organizations wi...

The wise and knowledgeable John Baker, Executive director of the Community Foundation of Central Missouri, joins me as we review the data collected from our 900+ participant yearly CoMoGives donor survey. We share what we learned from the survey and what keeps donors returning to support our community's annual year end giving campaign, CoMoGives. For a fully-formatted version of this podcast, head...

My special expert guest, Bruce bishop, is a professional drone videographer and owner of Big Muddy Motion. The suggestions he's going to share with you will apply to any type of video excursion, even if you're just shooting video with your iphone. Because remember folks - we all start where we are. You may not be able to have a professional videographer right now but that doesn't mean you don't ne...

Building an events section can seem intimidating and well, it is and it isn’t. It’s not life or death, but if you get it wrong, small children may cry. (I’ll honor you with that story later.) Anyway- If you are revamping your event section, you don't like how it works right now, or you're updating your whole website, you’re in the right place.  Because I’m going to dissect it for you today. For a...

You used to be able to pop up a photo and a few words and you were good to go. Now social media is becoming a more integrated part of sales and marketing, forcing a good social media manager to wear a variety of hats. So, which traits are the most important ones for a good social media manager to have?  Sit down - I'll tell you! For a fully-formtted article version of this episode, head over to ou...

When I first started my business, I began as a designer/developer and it never occurred to me that I would have to sell anything until a year later when my business partner left. I was not comfortable talking about money. It made me feel yucky.  I hear those same words from nonprofit volunteers, executive directors and development professionals. So I was really excited when Danielle Locke of Lock...

Google Ads Grants are not magic but they are still pretty stinking awesome. For those who don't already know what a Google Ad Grant is, this is your lucky day. I’m here with Grant Hensel, CEO of Nonprofit Megaphone, who is going to tell you all about what a Google Grant is (yes, Grant is here to talk about grants… the irony is not lost on me). He also explains who is a good candidate for a Google...

Dang, I wish everyone had Google Analytics installed on their websites; it lets you see how people are using your site - for free. I install it on every site we build. Clients get reports. I’m filled with joy by sharing all this amazing data and you know what they say to me? “That’s pretty Monica, but I have no clue what any of it means.” So that, my friends, is what I’m unearthing today - how to...

I was so excited when Annette with PedNet Coalition agreed to tell me all her secrets to success for their continually successful annual year end giving campaign. What I didn't know is how much I was going to learn about so many things beyond just how they plan and promote their year end giving. She also shared how they switched to a paid membership and rolled that into their year end campaign, as...

RJ Huebert runs 5K’s.  But strapping on his running shoes is just part of his gig… he started his 5K races as a money making venture and now manages 3 race brands that bring in over a thousand participants every year. With so many 5K fundraisers out there I wanted his opinion on how you could set your 5K apart from others and leverage it to raise more money for your organization. So I asked and he...

I won’t say the homepage is the most important page on a nonprofit’s website. I think it jockeys for importance with the Donate page, because that darn thing is pretty prime.  The home page is, however, almost always the most visited and viewed page on a website.  It often ranks for more terms. It's usually shown more in search results. The only exception is a website with an active and well-traff...

Join me and special expert guest Julia Campbell, speaker, nonprofit consultant and author of Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits, as we talk about how you can turn Instagram into one of the more powerful tools in your social media arsenal. For a fully-formatted article version of this episode, head over to our website:  https://mayecreate.com/podcast/building-your-instagram-aud...

Website scams are actually quite common.  We were in our weekly meeting this morning and realized that more than one of us had clients who were dealing with fraudulent claims last week so we thought now would be as good of time as any to educate our listeners about common spam schemes and how to steer clear of them. For a fully-formatted article version of this episode, head over to our website: ...

Building a website is like  building a house; You draw up plans and review them before you ever start building--because it’s a lot easier to move the kitchen on paper than it is once the house is built! But not everyone is an experienced architect. So, for those of you who are building your first website, or are thinking about redoing what you have, here's the Nonprofit Website Checklist... so you...

We can all learn a thing or two from people with autism and their families. Each person sees the world differently. And by experiencing it from another's point of view you can better communicate and serve others. In celebration of Autism Awareness Month, I talk with Myles Hinkel and Katie Lentz of  The Thompson Foundation for Autism about how they help people with autism and their families to adap...

In our Website Planning series, we geek out over each aspect of a nonprofit websites. In this first episode we tackle the  10 crucial questions you need to ask when planning on  building a new website! For a fully-formatted article version of this episode, head over to our website:  https://mayecreate.com/blog/10-questions-to-ask-when-building-a-new-website-website-planning-series-part-1/

This article is not one of those “what you should be posting about on social media” bits.   I am going to explain how I use social media as a business owner, a salesperson, and as a representative of my company to connect with people in a similar way to how I would be connecting with people at a fundraising event.   For a fully-formatted article version of this episode, head over to our website: ...

Are the tools you're using to fundraise for your organization actually helping or just holding you back? I interview Sara Mayer of Sara Mayer Consulting about how to patch the tools holding your organization together with duct tape and swap them out for the types of systems you need to boost productivity and make fundraising easier. For a fully-formatted article version of this episode, head over...

About a year and a half ago the Missouri United Methodist Foundation (MUMF) began hosting educational webinars to deepen their relationship with their audience. Today it's still going strong and growing.  I interview David Atkins and Laura Murphy to learn how they do it and how it's working. For a fully-formatted article version of this episode, head over to our website:  https://mayecreate.com/bl...

In aerial, you can learn one technique, one move, one principle, and use it to create much more complicated, unique, and interesting moves, without having to learn anything new. One technique can produce endless variations. We marketers often feel the pressure to work harder and keep doing new things in order to meet people. I’m here to tell you - You don’t have to do that. You can recycle your ex...

If you have a blog, you know how much time you invest and that it can be a lot of work. You probably also know that if you're going to put that much work into something, it is absolutely imperative you know whether or not it's working. The last thing you want to do is pour hours and hours into making a blog you feel is going to connect with people, and then it just falls flat. I go full data ninja...

Join me as I dig in and debrief the awesomeness and lessons learned from CoMoGives 2020, our community's $1.6M year-end online giving campaign with John Baker, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Central Missouri and Erika Payne, MayeCreate Project Manager. For a fully-formatted article version of this podcast, head over to our website:  https://mayecreate.com/blog/1-6m-online-giving...