Change the way you think about charities

If you work for a non-profit or you give to charity (or both) this recent "TED Talk" will change the way you think about the spending habits of charities (assuming you've thought about it...and you should!). As Dan Pallotta explains, the way we think about giving and charity maybe undermining the causes we love.

Ingredients for a great nonprofit website

What makes a website go from good to great? There is a lot of advice (or recipes) available but there are 5 main ingredients your website must have:

1) Credibility - information must be current, accurate, edited, and valuable.

2) Clarity  -  clearly communicate your organization's mission and have a clear call to action. Be clear about who you are and how others can be part of your vision.

3) History - briefly but concisely  explain where your organization came from, why it came into being and where it is going. This enhances the first two ingredients - credibility  and clarity.

4) Simplicity - allow users to easily find information they are looking for. There is no use in having tons of information on your site if users can't find it. This is especially true of the "donate" section of the website. Make it easy for people to give and to understand how their donation will be used.

5) Engaging elements - Looks do matter. Websites need to have images, colors and a layout that makes them interesting and easy to look at. This doesn't mean you can't have sad or graphic images just use them wisely and creatively. Know your audience, tell a story, present the issue, what you are doing about it, and how they can help. Pictures really are worth a thousand words.

Check out these other tips and inspiring examples.

What Makes a Website "Good?"

Non Profit Websites: 10 Keys to Success 

19 Best Non-Profit Websites (And Why They're Awesome)

31 Beautiful Nonprofit Websites

Helping Animals by Getting Humans to Say "Yes"

Advocating for animals almost always involves persuading others. Whether you are persuading individuals, companies or policy makers to do right by animals or persuading other advocates to join you in your crusade. How people are persuaded to say "Yes" or take a particular action or position is, as you might imagine, an incredibly large area of study.  Lucky for us the Influence at Work team have created an 11 minute short cut. 

This 11 minute YouTube video is breaks down the piles of "yes science" into 6 core principles:

1) Reciprocity

2) Scarcity 

3) Authority 

4) Consistency 

5) Liking 

6) Consensus. 

As you watch think about how you can apply these principles to your campaigns and daily interactions.   

If you want to learn more I also recommend the book "The Art of Woo. Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas."

I admit, I first picked up the book because of the cute pair of parakeets on the cover (which I am sure was a scientifically predictable reaction and book marketing strategy), but it was well worth the read. The book is also available in audio.