ColoradoGives.org

By Angela Bevacqua, Community First Foundation Our most popular Colorado Gives Day webinars are the ones where seasoned nonprofits share their experiences and success stories. Our latest webinar, Creative Marketing: How Three Nonprofits Met Their Goals on Colorado Gives Day , features organizations with very different missions but a common thread: creativity and thoughtful planning. If you missed it live, watch the 75 min. recording for inspiration and smart, practical advice. Here is a highlight of top tips courtesy of Autumn Bjugstad with The Greenway Foundation , Dan Hanley with Urban Peak , and Nancy Shane with Walking Mountains Science Center . 1. Stand out from the crowd Tell or show how your nonprofit is different. Personalize the Colorado Gives Day message.Do your social media groundwork 2. Build a social media following well in advance of Colorado Gives Day Make a social media plan and have fun with it.  3. Don’t be afraid to tap into your creative si...

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation After a collective sigh of relief that our ColoradoGives profiles are done (yes, we prepare one, too), it’s onward to more fun things! Now is when many of you will start implementing your marketing plan for Colorado Gives Day. Use This Pre-Made Ad For starters, revisit the Planning Timeline we created to help you prepare month by month. We also encourage you to make friends with the Nonprofit Toolkit where you’ll find key messages , logos , pre-made ads , educational recordings and a lot more. A great refresher would be to watch the following series of short Colorado Gives Day videos: The Key Facts Show this 2+ minute video to volunteers, staff and anyone who needs a basic introduction to Colorado Gives Day. Marketing - Best Practices This 6.5 minute video is a MUST for anyone responsible for CO Gives Day marketing communications and development. The Nonprofit Toolkit This video outl...

Last week we were very fortunate to have Emily Davis --a nonprofit consultant, speaker and trainer--teach a webinar on social media for nonprofits participating in Colorado Gives Day. Emily penned the book Fundraising and the Next Generation and specializes in multi-generational family philanthropy. If you were unable to listen to the webinar live, we encourage you to listen to the recording and view the slides . Below, Emily shares three of the ten social media tips discussed in her webinar. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Emily Davis, President of Emily Davis Consulting There are plenty of nonprofits out there that have mastered the social media world – leveraging all the right tools, telling their story, and raising funds through the Internet. Then there are those who are slowly chugging along looking for good reasons and ways to start to use social media more effectively. It’s not all about jumping into every soc...

It happens; we have all done it: forgotten milk in the fridge that goes bad, expires. If you had milk that was expiring on 6.15.2014, would you continue to drink it on 8.20.2014? You could but it would probably be pretty gross; thus no longer serving its original purpose of being healthy and delicious. As a person who always found the concept of the “renew by” date on the Secretary of State (SOS) Certificate of Registration  for charities and fundraisers a little confusing, it helps me to compare it to this concept of milk expiring. Think of the “ renew by ” date on your Certificate of Registration as an expiration date . If you had milk that expired on 6.15.2014, you would make sure that you bought more milk with an expiration date later than that. Your organization’s SOS Certificate of Registration is pretty similar. If your “renew by” date expired on 6.15.2014, as long as you file an extension with the Secretary of State’s office before then and the “renew by” date on...

By Dana Rinderknecht, Director of Online Giving, Community First Foundation For several years now, I have been telling people the stories of what we hear from donors. But honestly, it is anecdotal only. We all know that I am not going to hear stories from all of our donors – as much as I would welcome that. We decided to find out what our donors thought of our messaging and, more importantly, why they donated on Colorado Gives Day . Segmenting out donors who gave to ten or more nonprofits last year on Colorado Gives Day, we sent them ten questions to better understand their experience with the day. For me, the best question was, “If you plan to give again on Colorado Gives Day this year, do you expect to donate to different nonprofits?” The answers validated for me why I truly love this program and what I do every day. From those who responded, we heard that  39% expect to give to different nonprofits this year . The reasons included the fact that we keep add...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation Every year I get my Dad the same thing for Father’s Day: stuff to grill with, a silly card, a DVD, a book…and even though he’s always grateful, this year I want to go above and beyond. Maybe it’s because I have a toddler now and empathize with the joy and frustration of being a parent. Maybe it’s because I think he’s awesome and want him to know that. Maybe there isn’t an enlightening reason, perhaps I just want to. Regardless of the reason, I’m excited that ColoradoGives.org has a couple of great options to use not only on Father’s Day but for any special occasion during the year (birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations): Giving eCards:  our eCards allow you to give the gift that keeps on giving. Giving eCards are electronic gift cards you can purchase on ColoradoGives.org and email to people. The recipient (Dad in this case) can redeem the eCard by donating to any nonprofit(s) featured on ColoradoGi...

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator, Community First Foundation It’s that time of year again; time to begin the seemingly intimidating task of updating your organization’s profile on ColoradoGives.org. At this point, you may feel as though the task will only be complete when pigs can fly, but I assure you it can be done with relative ease. Here are a few helpful tips to get you started: Most important tip? Procrastination is not your friend here. Although it’s easy to get caught up in the fires of everyday nonprofit life, avoid the day-before binge rush, stress and challenges of waiting until the last minute. Spending even 30 minutes a week on the “easy” stuff is better than spending frantic hours on everything. Get out of the office . We all know how easily distractions can get in the way of getting the large projects done. Do yourself a favor and take this project out of the office (even once a month or every two months). Grab your computer and head to your favorite cof...