Inflight Briefing: 001

Delivered weekly, the Inflight Briefing is designed as a blueprint for the builder and inspiration for the curious. It's for the purposeful (that's you!) doing marketing for good.

001: There will be snacks

You know it’s a great tune when the high point in the song comes with the line, “There will be snacks.” Andrew Bird’s “Table and Chairs” is worth a listen if you enjoy wry folk/pop along with a more universally shared high regard for snacks. If you need to hear to believe that a self-respecting musician gets away with that line, you can also just skip to 3:10.

So how does this have anything to do with purposeful marketing? I’m so glad you asked …

Our Inflight Briefing will come with the essential, bite-sized information you need to take your marketing strategy from sputtering along to soaring. But more importantly, doing purposeful marketing is fun, so we’ll make this briefing feel like the most important part of the flight: the snacks.

Snackable snippets 

The Conversation

Donors may still be on the fence, but nonprofits are waking up to the reality that it’s not possible to scrimp on overhead and effectively make an impact. The sweet spot of overhead spending appears to be around 35%. Any more and donors have questions, but any less and talent goes elsewhere or things begin to get sloppy.

The Six Types of Working Genius

Patrick Lencioni, author of The Advantage, dropped his newest book Tuesday, September 27. Lencioni has written extensively on business culture and management, and this book offers ideas for leaders to help each team member excel in their role. He’s also a great speaker, and just a few years ago gave a talk at TED titled, “Are you an ideal team player?"

What the Fundraising 

Mallory Erickson brought in Gabriel Kram for her newest podcast titled, “True Self-Care: Tending to Community, Ancestry, and Our Nervous Systems.” Kram talks through what it means to live in a state of wholeness. He offers practical tips and analogies to help you do your life-changing work from a place of wholeness instead of anxiety, stress, and nervousness. Doing good should also feel good!

The Solar System

NASA and Google released a 3D, interactive guide of our solar system. Some may ask how this is connected to purposeful marketing, but we think that curiosity is one of the key traits that sets successful marketers apart.

Finding Happiness

Michael Norton has been researching the connection between happiness and money for years. And though this may not be surprising for those in the nonprofit sector, it comes as a real shock to most of the world: the happiest people share their wealth with others. The link will take you to a 2016 talk for the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), but he recently spoke on similar themes at the 2022 Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit (NIO). This is good news for fundraisers. You have a profound impact on your donor’s happiness!

Flight School

The inbox (where we are right now) ... it can feel overwhelming to break through the noise but this is still one of the most important digital mediums. On Oct. 19, Feathr is leading a free training session on end-of-year email performance. From benchmarks to guidance and inspiration, Noah Barnett, VP of marketing at Feathr, will equip you to set up high-performing email campaigns during this festive but anxiety-inducing time of year.

How to increase online donations

A 2021 Blackbaud Report found that online giving increased 42% over the previous three years, and in 2021, around 28% of donations made online came through a mobile device. There are a few things that nonprofits can do to capitalize on this trend, including simplifying communications, streamlining their online giving, and using the newest digital advertising technologies.

In the news

As Feathr's headquarters are in Gainesville, Florida, our hearts go out to all affected by Hurricane Ian. Rescue operations are still underway, but the rebuilding process will take years. Below are a few organizations that are doing tremendous work to help our fellow Floridians. We’re all in this together!

Direct Relief

American Red Cross

Salvation Army Florida

World Central Kitchen

Volunteer Florida

Something for your inspiration folder

I think a lot of us have one tucked away – a place where we store screenshots of ads, emails, or social posts we saw in the wild that inspired or delighted us. Here's just a few that caught our attention recently. 

charity: water's email uses the anniversary of their founding to share how they got started, what they've accomplished, and what their goals are for the future; and in typical fashion, they knocked this one out of the park.

The American Cancer Society's Instagram reel uses diverse women and terms of endearment as call to actions to get checked for #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth. Their use of #grabyourgirls is calling on the sisterhood of femininity to encourage each other to get screened.