According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the country’s 400 most successful fundraising organizations expect to raise a median of 9 percent less in 2009 than 2008. That means that half will do even worse, and the picture isn’t expected to improve in 2010. Given this grim reality, nonprofit organizations need messages that stick in the [...]
Author Archives: Joshua Malbin Magnificent Publications Inc.
Taking Your Site on the Road
October 7, 2009In his current Alertbox, Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen asks the same question most of us ask: How fast can we get what we want? His observations have some interesting implications for the future of mobility. 1 Second When the computer takes more than 0.1 second but less than 1 second to respond to your [...]
More Money for Your Meeting Time
September 27, 2009Our friends in Canada The Conference Publishers are celebrating their 25th anniversary. Canadians seem to go to greater lengths than Americans to record their deliberations for future reference. As meeting coverage professionals, we endorse this approach, but possibly for different reasons. In observance of their 25th , The Conference Publishers held a focus group among [...]
You Want Me To Do What, Exactly?
September 19, 2009We received an e-mail the other day that illustrates how organizations can write more effective solicitations. It asks us to support a new credit reporting system, a genuinely worthy cause. All it needs is a more worthy message, one the average reader can understand. We have some suggestions. The release currently begins: The Political and [...]
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Does PowerPoint Make You Stupid?
August 6, 2009We’ve alluded in the past to Edward Tufte’s screed against The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. To summarize, he argues that PowerPoint forces presenters to dumb down their arguments to bullet points, eliminating logical structure in favor of lists where everything carries the same weight, and to severely limit the amount of information the audience receives [...]
Good Nonprofit Websites: A Low-Key Example
July 10, 2009Recently we’ve discussed several ways nonprofits can improve their Web communications to increase online donations. Specifically, they should feature individuals’ stories and make sure to put clear explanations of their missions, goals, objectives, and works prominently on their home pages. We’ve also examined one strong example, Mercy Corps. Frankly, though, Mercy Corps’ Website is so [...]
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Got Connectivity?
June 27, 2009We reported recently on ways for organizations to attract and engage visitors to their sites, based on studies managed by Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. There’s more. First, Pew’s studies document the speed with which the Internet is going mobile. In 2000, fewer than half of American adults owned [...]
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How People Weave through the Web
June 23, 2009Lee Rainie, a pioneer in Internet research, talked to a select group of Washington, D.C. Web managers recently about what the Pew Internet and American Life Project has learned over the past decade. Naturally, everyone wanted to know how to snag and hold visitors to their sites-and he told them.But first, he reminded them what [...]
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Content Marketing's Bumper Crop
May 20, 2009Credit for pioneering content marketing generally goes to Deere & Company, which launched its magazine The Furrow in 1896. Over 100 years later, The Furrow is still one of the very best in the field, with a circulation of over 1.5 million worldwide, six editors, and nine regional editions in the United States (three in [...]
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