Creating presentations that connect: About one in five working adults would rather do taxes, go to the dentist, or work on a Saturday than sit through one more PowerPoint presentation. So reports a study commissioned by SlideRocket to gauge public perception of presentation software. Although the results are comical—nearly 30 percent of respondents say they’ve sneaked out of at least one PowerPoint presentation and 32 percent say they’ve fallen asleep—the findings illustrate a serious point. The once innovative teaching tool appears to have over stayed its welcome. Sans a new approach, your message likely isn’t connecting with your audience.
Stop doing these things: A list of “career-limiting habits,” uncovered in a survey of managers, could just as well be labeled “gift-limiting habits.” You’re as likely to annoy donors with the following bad behavior as you are your employer.
- Unreliability
- “It’s not my job”
- Procrastination
- Resistance to change
- Negative attitude
Seconds please, with an email address on the side: Consider the following snippets from Donor Stewardship: Making Virtual Friends for Life. I encourage you to download and read the white paper for more tips like these:
- Donors who have entrusted you with an email address have an average donor value that can be 150 percent higher than donors who don’t provide their address.
- Donors who make a second gift in their first year (preferably within the first 100 days) are TWICE as likely to make a gift in their second year.
- This means they will renew in Year Two at DOUBLE the average retention rate for first year donors – 56% vs. 28%.
No one wins the blame game: According to the BoardSource Nonprofit Governance Index 2010:
- 26% of chief executives said that they don’t have the right board members to effectively oversee and govern their organization.
- Boards are given only a C+ by chief executives for strategic planning and thinking, and, on average, only 34 percent of board meetings are devoted to issues of strategy and policy.
- Roughly one-third of chief executives and board members feel that their board’s orientation process is ineffective and does not get members up-to-speed quickly.
My suggestion – Boards and CEOs need to stop pointing fingers and start working together to strengthen nonprofit leadership.