Don Akchin

GLAD TIDINGS: Why You Love What You Do Feeling a case of burnout creeping up on you? Try this antidote: a post from the Fieldstone Alliance on 25 random things that make the nonprofit sector great. See? It still beats driving a cab!

Okay, we’re in a recession. So what? We’ve lived through them before. Somehow the world keeps turning. Meanwhile, people who depend on us need us more than ever, and many people want to help. So cheer up, roll up your sleeves, and look at the bright side: At least we have a President who speaks in complete sentences.

Nancy Schwartz, nonprofit marketing consultant and blogger, is making a special effort to help nonprofits create better taglines – not the vague, ambiguous, over-reaching kind such as “We Do Good Stuff for People” – but the kind that really complement your organization’s name, convey the value you deliver, and distinguish you from competitors. To help her do work that may help you, it would be great if you could take a couple minutes to complete this short survey. You can request a copy of the results too.

Here are items of interest collected during the late summer, and shared even though past their expiration dates: Fellow marketing communications blogger Kivi Leroux Miller offers wise advice on the power of stories to communicate ideas and emotion. Idealist.com launches Common Ground, a resource for job seekers and HR mavens. A fascinating case study of a nonprofit that used a viral marketing campaign to build a new donor base. 107 Dirty Words that will bounce your email into the Spam pile Links to the above are here. But wait, there’s more: Facebook adds a feature that makes it easier for nonprofits to promote their causes. Also, links to some primers for newbies. You have 8 seconds to make a good impression on your landing page; tips for making the most of them. Message planning is an often-neglected first step to communicating; some tips. And if you’ve run out of things

These are short bits, with links to primary sources. I should be doing these monthly but I’ve fallen behind a bit. A marketing study confirms: The most effective fund-raising appeals target the heart, not the head. A free Web tool scores the emotional appeal of your headline. A website redesign, informed by reader preferences, makes huge difference in online fundraising results. Download a free handbook on using mobile phones for fundraising. Point: you can improve readability of email newsletters.Counterpoint: Don’t waste your time.Details Great moments in advocacy communication: The “Click It or Ticket” seatbelt campaign signs up the perfect celebrity spokesman: New Jersey Gov. John Corzine. U.S. House members take the Food Stamp Challenge, living on $21 of groceries for a week. Seattle commuters greeted by life-size photographic cutouts of homeless children holding hand-made signs saying “Don’t Just Look Away.” Research firm conducts study of what really works in online

After 23 years of living in a three-story old Victorian, my fellow empty-nester and I seized the opportunity to move to a smaller but comfortable co-op apartment. When the home moves, so does the home office, but not without difficulties. I won’t recite the whole tale, chapter and verse. Suffice to say that it took five days to get a working telephone jack installed properly in the right room, four days to restore a DSL connection and 14 days to get a cell phone that functions inside the building. During this transition period, I spent about six hours on the telephone with automated answering systems, three hours on hold, two hours talking to pleasant but poorly informed “tech” people in India and The Philippines, an hour on the telephone with Americans, and three hours talking to the four telephone company employees who were dispatched to my home. I also had