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15 Email Marketing Best Practices: From Deliverability to Creative
Source: emarketingandcommerce.com
By: Sari Tamilio
Aug. 28th, 2009
"While the marketing world is "all atwitter" over social media, email marketing remains the workhorse of online marketing — highly engaging, highly profitable and growing, even in these challenging times.
As direct mail costs increase, marketers are shifting their budgets and expectations to the email channel. Executing email marketing well, however, isn't always a straightforward process. The rules of the email marketing game are complex, sometimes bewildering, and often subject to sudden and unanticipated changes, especially on the part of internet service providers (ISPs).
Seasoned email marketers, however, know that setting up a process of continuous review and measurement against industry benchmarks and their own previous performances helps keep their programs on track to generate optimal results."
The Power of the Cirlce
Yet two months after participating in a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip, Kleter, a financial analyst with Citibank, enrolled in a crash course on Judaism. She learned to read Hebrew and recently had a bat mitzvah at the age of 25. After discovering her faith, she says, she wanted to give back, to practice the mitzvah of tzedakah. But she didn’t have much to give and she didn’t want to go it alone.
So she joined Birthright NEXT’s Young Philanthropist Committee, a group of 20 Birthright alumni who each contributed $250 to a communal giving pot (previous YPC groups gave a minimum donation of $500, but the amount was lowered due to the tough economic climate). Birthright matched the combined $5,000, effectively leveraging the individual $250 contributions into a sizeable $10,000 donation.
Over the course of three months, the group met weekly at a conference room in Manhattan’s Diamond District. They learned how to evaluate grants and met with philanthropists like Charles Bronfman (“He’s a calm, little man who looks like everybody’s grandpa, but he’s unbelievably generous with the amount of money he gives away,” Kleter said). They were each responsible for researching a Jewish charity worthy of the group’s collective funds.
Cutting Donor Acquisition? Read This First.
"Abandoning acquisition can create catastrophic and lasting financial impacts in the form of depressed fundraising for yesrs to come. Don't be one of those organizations that scrapes by and survives the recession, only to go under a year or two afterward because it made destructive cuts to its acquisition lifeline."
The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
Earlier in the month I wrote a post called "Shattering the Myths of Nonprofit Management".
"...greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organizations than how they manage their own internal operations"
American In Israel

Kudos to our good friend Judge Neal Hendel and his wife Marcie on Neal's appointment to Israel's Supreme Court.
Jobs in Jewish Philanthropy - 8.23.2009
Source: www.philanthropy.com
- Israel and Jewish Peoplehood Commission: Program Officer
Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties(California) 8/11/2009
- Development Director
Seattle Jewish Community School(Washington) 7/27/2009
- Major Gifts Officer
Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation(Missouri) 8/4/2009
- Associate Director
Curriculum Initiative(New York) 8/4/2009
- National Development Director
The PJ Library, a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation(Massachusetts) 7/28/2009
- Director of Development
Confidential(New Jersey) 8/14/2009
- Development Director
Forward Association(New York) 7/28/2009
- National Development Director
Harold Grinspoon Foundation(Massachusetts) 8/14/2009
Treat Everyone Like a Goldfish
Gary V. the internet marketing guru and host of Wine Library TV on why you should treat your donors and customers like goldfish. Sounds fishy? Watch and learn from this 3 minute video to find out what he means.
Mission Vs. Everything Else
You don't have to be old to be a philanthropist
From Haaretz
"A 13-year-old from New York has decided to give $40,000 he received from his parents for his bar mitzvah to the children of Sderot. The municipality says the money will go to build a park with recreational facilities.
Although Sderot's municipal workers are currently on vacation, they turned up to thank the boy, Benjamin Sternklar Davis, at a festive reception.
Sternklar Davis, who has reached manhood according to age-old Jewish tradition, celebrated the event in the area that his gift will help transform to a park. In addition to the religious ceremony, the celebration featured young talents from Sderot performing on stage.
"I felt bad during the war for the children of Sderot who had to go to school and come back with the constant thought they could be hit by a Qassam rocket at any given second," the boy said...."
Jewish media strategy for dealing with a down economy
Source: Jpost.com 8.11.09 Author: ZACK COLMAN "If the newspaper industry is undergoing economic natural selection, then Jewish newspapers might be the most fit for survival. Operating in the niche market of one of the most highly educated demographics, Jewish news products could be poised to stay in print form the longest, said Rob Eshman, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. While he said there was a lot of depressing news surrounding the Jewish press, it was not suffering like other sectors of journalism. "I do think it's a very tough time, but it's a time where if you can figure out the model you will survive," he said. "You're reaching the most incredible, literate, active, involved demographic, that really needs a way to communicate." Another factor aiding Jewish newspapers was that Jews tended to form large communities, giving such newspapers a solid and stable readership, said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst for the Poynter Institute. The Jewish Journal's print version is available for free, with its Web site being the driving force of its readership, receiving some 300,000 unique visitors per month. But Eshman and others said Internet advertisement revenue alone couldn't be relied upon because the rates were significantly lower than print. Heeb, the New York-based magazine that started in 2001, charges $1,960 per month for a banner advertisement on its Web site. A one-time placement in its print form, however, yields a minimum $900 for a 1/6 page advertisement, while a 1⁄2 page advertisement - the fifth largest of its seven sizes - brings in $2,000."
Weinberg Foundation announces donation levels
Weinberg Foundation announces donation levels: The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation announced that it would give out more than $200 million over the next two years, including some $21 million in new grants over that time period.
The Baltimore-based foundation, which traditionally gives more money to Jewish causes than any other foundation, also announced that starting Aug. 3 it again would be accepting letters of inquiry from grant seekers who have not previously received money from the foundation. A freeze on such requests had been put in place last Novemeber.
But the foundation's giving is still down, as its assets have shrunk 25 percent, according to its president, Rachel Monroe. Last year, Weinberg gave out $106 million. Over the next two years it will average $100 million. If the foundation had stayed on the growth pace it set before the recession, its assets would have been worth $2.5 billion and it would have given out $125 million in 2009. Over the next two years it will have only $21 million available for new grantees. The other $179 million is designated for pre-existing multi-year grants. The foundation said it would honor all pre-existing grants.
Source: The Fundermentalist JTA Blog
Do You Know a Jewish Community Hero?

"This is our community’s opportunity to shine a national spotlight on the unsung, whether their work impacts five people or 5,000. Over the next three months, anyone across North America can go online, submit nominations and vote for the candidates they believe best embody the spirit of the award. We’ll honor five finalists this November at our General Assembly in Washington, D.C. Of the five finalists, one will be named the Jewish Community Hero of the Year."
Sephardim Move To Restructure Charities
Source: The The New York Jewish Week Online. 8.4.09 by Adam Dickter Assistant Managing Editor In the wake of criminal financial allegations at the top of the Syrian Jewish community’s leadership, the larger Sephardic community is working to reform the way its charities operate, demanding more transparency and oversight, The Jewish Week has learned. In a series of conference calls and meetings in recent days, Sephardic lay leaders and rabbis have proposed stringent measures that would discourage the widespread practice of individual rabbis holding sole control over discretionary charitable funds, and call for routine audits of charities, sources told The Jewish Week.
At the same time, an international network of 800 donors to Jewish charities — including major family foundations — is considering barring grants to nonprofits that use a federal tax law loophole for religious organizations to avoid filing full financial disclosures.
“We are considering recommending to our members that they demand a higher level of accountability for religious organizations before making grants,” said Mark Charendoff, president of the Jewish Funders Network. “Our community has an obligation to exceed the standards that the government is imposing specifically in the areas of transparency and governance.”
The proposal is a direct result of last week’s allegations that five rabbis misused charitable funds to launder questionable cash, he said.
Three of the 17 people charged last week with money laundering, in a sweeping federal roundup that included 27 other people, are highly respected Sephardic leaders.

