Now Tweeting ...

First, a quick reminder that there's still a few days left to enter the 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards. Each year I'm pleased to help promote this fun approach to encourage and recognize great marketing by our nonprofit community. This year - for the first time - organizations can enter a tagline for their program (product or service), fundraising campaign and/or special event, in addition to their organizational tagline. But hurry, the entry deadline is July 28 - See http://bit.ly/cQjUsw to enter now.

Since my posting here a couple of weeks ago, taking a nonprofit to task for "over-tweeting," it has come to my attention that I am not "practicing what I preach" or modeling proper twitter behavior or, frankly, even tweeting at all from an account associated with my consulting practice. I've been on Twitter for a few years with a personal account, but I've kept that separate from my professional life.

Well, that is being corrected. I have opened a second twitter account - #NonprofitKenG - for professional purposes. I will be tweeting about nonprofit issues, news, and ideas, as well as linking back to this blog when new posts are added.

To see if I follow through on my own tweeting advice, simply go to twitter.com/NonprofitKenG and click on the "Follow" button.

Getting Nonprofit Job Classifications Right

I've spent some time this morning and earlier this week in phone consultation with a for-profit company, and it's been great. No, I haven't turned away from the nonprofit sector. I'm still fully busy serving as an Interim Executive Director for one agency, and squeezing in some retreat facilitation and training when I can.

But this for-profit came to me with a problem that has bugged me for many years, and I'll bet you've had the same frustration. When you've gone to the major, general interest job sites (Monster, Career Builder, etc.) have you ever looked at the classifications for nonprofit jobs and said to yourself, "They just don't get it."?

Well, this company is putting together a new, better job search engine, and is really trying to get the nonprofit jobs right. It gave me a chance to think about how we describe ourselves and our positions in the nonprofit world.

Do you consider yourself an advocate first, and the area of your advocacy second? Or do you consider yourself an environmentalist, or a human services person first, and advocacy second? What about for fundraisers? Are you a committed to your issue are first, or could you raise money for any cause? Is the answer different based on your job function? I'd be interested in reading your comments on this.

Hopefully, soon, they will complete their project and launch the site, and I'll be able to give them a plug here. I know I'm looking forward to seeing the end results.

A plug I can give now is to Nancy Schwartz, of the Getting Attention blog. Nancy is a nonprofit communications and PR expert who annually compiles the Nonprofit Tagline Report. This year's report was just released and is available for download by clicking this link: www.gettingattention.org. In the report you'll learn "How to Build Your Nonprofit's Brand in Eight Words or Less..."

• The 10 Have-Tos for Successful Taglines. Put your nonprofit marketing into high gear.
• The 7 Deadly Sins. Examples of what not to do.
• What Makes a Winning Tagline. Winners of the 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Awards.
• Over 2,500 Nonprofit Tagline Examples. Put them to work for tagline brainstorming.

Enjoy the report, and thanks for reading!

One Week Left to Tagline Victory!

Yes, you have one more week to enter your nonprofit organization's tagline into the 2009 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards. Yes, the tagline awards! Nancy Schwartz of the Getting Attention blog hosts these online awards each year to recognize the best taglines as means of motivating nonprofits to focus on the basics (e.g. powerful, distinctive, succinct messaging) in their marketing efforts.

A strong tagline does double-duty -- working to extend your organization's name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base. It's one of your most basic, and effective, marketing tools, but the 2008 GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations don't have a tagline or rate theirs as performing poorly.

Take 3 minutes now to enter your nonprofit's tagline here (http://is.gd/19skW). All entrants will receive a free copy of the fully-updated 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Report in late 2009. It's the only complete guide to building your org's brand in 8 words or less -- filled with how-tos, don't-dos and models.

The deadline for entry is July 31 - just over a week from now - so put this on your to-do list for today! (And be sure to follow the selection process on Twitter, too).

A winning dozen

The Getting Attention blog of nonprofit marketing guru Nancy Schwartz has today released its list of twelve "Exceptional Tagline Honorees."

Earlier this year, Nancy asked for "great tagline" nominations and received over 1,000 submissions. After 62 finalists were carefully selected, the 12 award winners were chosen by 3,062 nonprofit professionals who voted in an online poll.

The entire list of submitted taglines, details on finalists and award winners, and additional survey findings will be featured in The Nonprofit Tagline Report, to be published in September.

The awards, which Nancy expects to be conferred annually, represent the best taglines in all nonprofit sectors. Check out this year's winners circle at the Getting Attention blog and see how your tagline compares. What's that? You don't have a tagline?!? Then you better see Nancy...

What's your tagline?

Does your nonprofit have a tagline? Most small organizations that I'm aware of don't, and have never even considered the need for one.

Nancy Schwartz, of the Getting Attention nonprofit marketing blog, believes taglines are essential ingredients to success. According to Nancy:

In today's competitive marketing (including fundraising, of course) environment, nonprofit taglines must be strong enough to get attention and provoke questions.

Effective taglines complement an org's name, convey the unique value its delivers to its community and differentiates it from the competition? (Americorps' "Getting Things Done" is a great example of a tagline that works on all three fronts.)

But more often, nonprofit taglines are vague, ambiguous, over-reaching, too abstract or simply non-existent.

Unfortunately, there’s little available guidance for organizations striving to strengthen their taglines. That's why I'm making a special effort in 2008 to help nonprofit orgs craft better taglines.

You can help Nancy with her research project on nonprofit taglines by taking this short online survey (click here).