Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com outlines some best practices for nonprofit email newsletters and several quick fixes that can move your email newsletter to greatness; including writing powerful headlines and using an editorial calendar. She also discusses ways to convert your current print newsletter into an email newsletter. Check out the guide here.
10 Surprisingly Easy and Startlingly Effective Ways to Improve Your Nonprofit E-Newsletter
May 5th, 2009 by adminHello and Welcome.
May 1st, 2009 by adminHello all! Welcome to the new Design Action blog. Please visit often, for we will be updating this mini site with all kinds of resources related to activism, design, communications and multimedia. If you have a resource that really should be up here, please email us at info@designaction.org . Thank you for visiting and happy May Day!
The Basics of Email Metrics: Are Your Campaigns Working?
April 30th, 2009 by admin
Here’s a cool article written by Idealware, an organization that provides candid Consumer-Reports-style reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprofits. They explain how to use basic email metrics to understand how your constituents are reacting to your emails. They also talk through the data points needed to track email performance, the most common formulas for standard email metrics, what they can tell you, and how to use them to improve results. Check it out here:
http://www.idealware.org/articles/email_metrics.php
Positioning: 10 Tips to Set Your Organization Apart
April 29th, 2009 by admin
A guide written by Fenton Communications, a company that works with NGOs to help them with their campaign or organization framing and strategy. Their website has a bunch of resources related to messaging and framing; this one about the strategy of ‘positioning’ your organization to set it apart from the $1 million+ non-profits that exist in the U.S. today.
http://www.fenton.com/files/%20/IndustryGuide_TakeAPosition_ah10.pdf
Glossary of Design Terms
April 28th, 2009 by admin
Confused about all the jargon that come up during the design process? Here’s a nifty glossary of terms that can help you navigate mysterious designer language. If the word you’re looking for isn’t in here, send us an e-mail and we’ll add it to the list.
1color printing: Usually just black ink is used, but can also be one Pantone ink, and all the tints of that color. Cost-effective, and especially used on envelope printing.
2color printing : Usually black ink + one other Pantone ink, but can be two inks of any color. Cost-effective for many purposes. Usually used for logo and stationery design.
Color printing
April 28th, 2009 by admin
One of the first steps of the design process is determining how many colors you will be printing with (1-color, 2-color or 4-color). This is determined by the budget and what makes the most sense or gives a certain feeling for the piece we are designing. It used to be that 2-color printing was more cost-effective than 4-color printing, but now with digital imaging printing presses and with digital toner-based printing, the prices have come down, so that you can get the gamut of color choices.
1 & 2 Color Printing
Consists of one or two inks made of either just black and a Pantone ink, or just 1 or 2 Pantone inks. The Pantone Matching System has over 700 inks you can choose from, and ensures an exact match of color if you need a specific color for a logo.
4 Color (or Full Color) Printing
Uses Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inks to create the spectrum of color on the paper. This offers the most versatility when choosing the color palette as well as being able to print color photographs.
Often when printing a report, it is most cost-effective to print a 4-color cover and either 1 or 2 colors on the inside.
Quick and Easy Guide to Online Advocacy
April 28th, 2009 by admin
This guide, put together by Tactical Tech - an organization that works to advance the skills, tools and techniques of rights advocates, empowering them to utilize information and communications to help marginalized communities understand and affect progressive social, environmental and political change.
The guide offers ways to use social networking and web 2.0 tools to improve advocacy campaigns and aims to expose advocates to online services that are quick to use and easy to understand. It also provides descriptions of online services including social networking sites, image and video hosting services, and services that enhance an organizations web presence. Case studies, security concerns as well as the advantages and disadvantages of various web services are discussed, with the aim of improving advocates ability to conduct online advocacy campaigns. http://www.tacticaltech.org/onlineadvocacy
Cross-Posting on Different Social Networking Tools for Advocacy
April 28th, 2009 by admin
The guide was put together by DigiActive, An organization dedicated to helping grassroots activists around the world use digitaltechnology to increase their impact. The guide is an introduction on posting content on multiple platforms by using Twitter, Twitterfeed, and Facebook to help organizations promote their cause.
http://www.digiactive.org/2008/06/13/resource-what-should-youtube-do-for-activists/
What Should YouTube Do for Activists?
April 28th, 2009 by admin
A video put together by DigiActive, An organization dedicated to helping grassroots activists around the world use digitaltechnology to increase their impact. The video features an interview with Ramya Raghavan, the new Nonprofits and Activism Manager at YouTube.
http://www.digiactive.org/2008/06/13/resource-what-should-youtube-do-for-activists/
An Introduction to Twitter Activism
April 28th, 2009 by admin
The guide was put together by DigiActive, An organization dedicated to helping grassroots activists around the world use digitaltechnology to increase their impact. Following the recent protests in Moldova (April 2009), the value of Twitter as a tool for digital activism is more prominent than ever. Yet in addition to bringing greater awareness to that tool, the hype surrounding Moldova revealed misunderstanding of the value of of Twitter for activism and, even though the realists responded strongly, there was not a stand-alone resource which clearly defined how Twitter could be used by activists. Download the guide here: http://sergykalstudios.blogspot.com/2006/07/understanding-image-resolution.html