A Walk in the Woods can Make you a Better...

What would inspire someone to be a better fundraiser/CEO/Salesperson, etc.?

How about a walk in the woods?

If you need to re-charge the old battery and get the creative & inspirational juices flowing then a long walk in nature is just what the doctor ordered.

The ocean, a river, a mountain, the desert, the forest whatever... just get out and get refreshed.. and return to work a better CEO/salesperson/designer/fundraiser!!

Here's the link to a post by Oren Kaufman over the Negev Writing Blog on this same topic called "Think Outside the Bus"

Here's another post by Jason Fried on the SVN blog from 37Signals that got me thinking...

A walk in the woods can make you a better designer Jason F. Oct 19

"This weekend I did a quick Q&A session at LessConf via video. Thanks to Allan from Less Everything for making it all work out.

One of the last questions went something like this: “What sort of things outside of design can make you a better designer? What else can inspire you to be a better designer?”

I’m glad someone asked because I’ve been meaning to talk/write about this for a while.

The answer: Nature. Spend some time outside. Take a walk in the woods. Stroll through a prairie. Visit the desert (especially the Sonoran). Climb a hill. Get down on your knees and look at the grass. Plant a garden. No space? Get some plants or flowers and put them on your desk. And if you’re lucky enough to live near botanical gardens, visit a few times a year during peak seasons.

What you’ll experience are ridiculously good designs. Millions of iterations are folded into what you see. Everything is the product of a million successful tries. The colors and shapes and structures and textures are manifestations of survival. If it’s alive it’s good design.

Then look closer. Check out the subtleties. It’s not just green, it’s a dozen shades of green. That red may be orange from a different angle. Then flip it over. There’s a whole new design lesson on the underside.

Explore the seasons. Spring is especially enlightening for designers. It’s redesign season. From brown and dead and woody to green and alive and soft. Colors burst through, new textures emerge. And it’s not just visual. It’s temporal too. Different things popping at different times and in different ways. Each design is an idea. And each one slightly better than last year.

How does this make you a better designer? For one, just spending time around so many things that work will positively influence your design thinking. Some people like surrounding themselves with beautiful objects, furniture, and art. A walk outside is a better value.

You’ll also begin building a deeper understanding and appreciation for subtlety. Nature can be loud, but it usually whispers. You’ll also sharpen your observational skills. Great designers are great observers. You’ll learn more about color than any color wheel or book can teach you. Lastly, you’ll clear your mind and fill it back up at the same time. Very few things can achieve a simultaneous refresh and refill.

Take a walk outside and look around."

Congratulations to.... us!

A hearty congrats and a big mazal tov to the Jewish Donor blog and all its contributors for reaching the 300 post mark!

With well over 10,000 page views and 15,000 clicks, the Jewish Donor Blog has really made some big strides since our first post back in January of 2008!

We would like to thank our loyal readers for giving us an audience for our blog posts and we would also like to wish you all many more years of continued reading of our blog!

Yoav Kaufman

Google co-founder Brin gives $1 million to HIAS

From: JPost.com and the JTA

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has given a $1 million gift to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin
Photo: AP [file]

HIAS was one of the groups that helped Brin's family when it fled the Soviet Union 30 years ago.

Brin, who is Jewish - as is Google co-founder Larry Page - apparently is ramping up his philanthropy. According to The New York Times, he has given several gifts to Jewish organizations that helped his family.

"I would have never had the kinds of opportunities I've had here in the Soviet Union, or even in Russia today," Brin told the Times in an interview. "I would like to see anyone be able to achieve their dreams, and that's what this organization does."

Full article here.

Top 10 Halachot of Jewish Charity Events

From: The Weekly Bang

By: bangitout.com

Top Ten Rules to Jewish Young Leadership Charity Events:

10. You have no idea what the charity actually does, so long as it has something to do with Israel, orphans or something with random Hebrew words in its title
9. No matter how religious or secular it is, you must wear your go-to first-date outfit
8. Your credit card statement will have a completely different title for the event charge
7. The planning committee listed on the invitation all secretly hate each other
6. There has to be older board members & weird religious married couples wandering aimlessly just staring and saying "So this is what the singles do?"
5. There's always some guy in a suit and tie who loves telling people he came "straight from work"
4. No one, including the charity staff, knows what the heck "casual chic" attire means
3. Cheap pick-up line: "Wanna buy a Raffle Ticket?"
2. Never in the history of fundraisers has anyone 1) listened to the speech 2) kept the dinner journal
1. All boozing, gambling, mixed dancing, wearing nothing are instantly kosher as long as you say the words "it's for Tzedaka"

Fundraising "Quote"

From : "Is the charitable giving cup half empty or half full?" By: ROBERT I. EVANS, AVRUM D. LAPIN AND STEPHEN DONSHIK - JPost.com 10.25.09

"Giving USA noted that 82% of all charitable giving came from individuals last year in the form of current and testamentary giving. Those whose perspectives on fund-raising have been limited, or who are inexperienced in reaching out for charitable support, focus their efforts almost entirely on foundations and overlook individual giving, the biggest pool of potential dollars."

NextMark Releases 3Q09 Data Card Quality Report

Negev Direct ranked 14th out of 64 list management companies with 100+ titles.

Average Data Card Score, 3rd Quarter
2009: 96.1

The Future of Fundraising

"The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here."

— From the "What This Blog is About" section of Jeff Brooks' new project,Future Fundraising Now

Book Review: "Fundraising Houseparty" How to Party With a Purpose and Raise Money for Your Cause

Today, I will be trying something new on the blog.

Today will be my first official book review!

To be precise, I have read other fundraising books and posted on the blog with material from those books, but I've never done an official book review.

My hope is that fundraising book reviews will be something our readers enjoy, and we can continue this as an ongoing segment, with new fundraising books being reviewed on a regular basis.

If you have a fundraising related book you would like me to review you can contact me directly by email - yoav (at) negevdirect.com - or just leave me a comment on the blog with a way to reach you.

First of all, my sincere apology to Morrie for taking so long to get his book read and reviewed here on our blog. With the recent arrival of my second daughter and the direct mail holiday season just behind us, my schedule has been very full.

Ok, so on to the book...

Morrie Warshawski, author of "Fundraising Houseparty" writes a compelling, short and descriptive book on how to best run a fresh idea in fundraising... the houseparty.

The premise of the book is that housepartys are a fun and effective way to reach and garner donations from the people who care about you and your cause the most.

"Individual donors account for 87% of all donations for all non-profit endeavors - and most of these individuals are not people of tremendous wealth, but rather middle class citizens without a lot of disposable income."

In short - most of our friends and their friends make up the core donors to the nonprofits that are doing such a great amount of good for our communities and the greater world.

When asked to fundraise many people will counter with this: 'I'm too hesitant to ask or just don't know how to ask for donations'

'Fundraising Houseparty' offers a very palatable solution:

"One pleasant and powerful way to overcome the fear of asking is the fundraising houseparty."

A houseparty can be a fun and effective way of networking, just plain socializing and raising funds all wrapped into one!

So what is a houseparty? Warshawski breaks the houseparty down into six essential and simple steps...

"Elements of a fundraising houseparty":

- People receive an invitation to come to a party at a private home

-The invitation makes it clear that the evening will be a fundraising event.

- Participants arrive and are served some refreshments.

- Participants sit through a brief presentation.

- The Host or Peer - someone articulate, enthusiastic and respected by participants - stands up and asks everyone to make a contribution.

The book goes into detail about each individual step and what's involved in implementing each step to make your party a success.

I won't go into detail on each step here, but if your curiosity has been sparked, I encourage you to check out the link from amazon.com where you can buy a new or Kindle edition of the book and have it shipped to your home or office for a very reasonable price.

Amazon link to buy the book by clicking here.

Some other take away points from the book:

"(The) Number one lesson I learned from the 'Houseparty': Put a pledge card and a pen in everyone's hand before beginning your presentation!"

"It is a mistake to have 'the ask' made by an expert on the subject, one of your close friends or anyone else who is not a peer of the group. The most effective ask will come when peers ask their own peers for support."

"Is there a downside this type of fundraising? Yes - it is labor intesive."

"...it is possible to lose money if you spend too much on refreshments entertainment, equipment rental or supplies, and/or printing invitations."

"The houseparty does not replace or supplant other things you could or should be doing (e.g. direct mail, grant writing, one-on-one solicitations)."

The book does a great job of explaining what it takes to pull of a successful fundraising party.

If you and the organization you support is looking for a fresh new way to reach donors and you haven't tried the houseparty yet, I recommend reading Warchawski's book and giving it a go.

It's a quick read of only 58 pages (and some of those are sample invites).

Book Reviewed by: Yoav Kaufman

Chag Simchat Torah Samayach!

Bloggers Must Disclose Payments for Reviews

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 5, 2009

Filed at 2:48 p.m. ET

"The Federal Trade Commission will try to regulate blogging for the first time, requiring writers on the Web to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.

The FTC said Monday its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final Web guidelines, which had been expected. Violating the rules, which take effect Dec. 1, could bring fines up to $11,000 per violation. Bloggers or advertisers also could face injunctions and be ordered to reimburse consumers for financial losses stemming from inappropriate product reviews.

The commission stopped short of specifying how bloggers must disclose conflicts of interest. Rich Cleland, assistant director of the FTC's advertising practices division, said the disclosure must be ''clear and conspicuous,'' no matter what form it will take."

Full article by clicking here

Original Intent

From: Tablet Magazine 10.2.09

By: SAMUEL D. GRUBER

"A student sukkah project harks back to architecture’s dawn"

"Nationwide, the Sukkot holiday and the sukkah building type are undergoing something of a renaissance. Just as tent imagery captured the imagination of Jews building suburban synagogues in the 1960s, reflecting their continuing exodus from the “old neighborhoods,” so the simple form, temporary nature, and domestic setting of the humble sukkah strikes a sympathetic chord in the today’s enviro-friendly moment. The modest domestic and social rituals of Sukkot are especially appealing after the solemnity of the Days of Awe. The transition is a natural one: on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, synagogue-goers read of Jonah sitting in his sukkah overlooking Nineveh, and tradition calls for construction of the sukkah to begin the day after Yom Kippur."

Full article by clicking here

No Time for Facebook and Twitter?

From the Wall Street Journal - Small Business Column - Oct 1st 2009

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

Entrepreneurs Hire Consultants to Promote Business on Social-Media Sites, but the Extra Cost Is Big Question.

"Sylvester Chisom began paying a consultant last summer to blog on Twitter, post status updates on Facebook and run marketing campaigns on both sites for his auto-detailing business.

He thinks the service, which costs $450 a month, is worth it. "It's just better having somebody else dedicated to thinking of stuff to put up," says Mr. Chisom, co-owner of Showroom Shine Express Detailing LLC in St. Louis.

Some small-business owners, overwhelmed by the time commitment required of marketing their products and services via social media, are hiring consultants to lend a hand. But the price of such support can vary widely based on the extent of work involved, and many entrepreneurs with already meager resources for marketing and advertising may be need to think carefully before taking on the extra cost."

Full article here