Does anyone really slow down in the summer any more? Well, I hope you get that chance and, just in case, here are some great books that you might want to tackle. They're not novels, but they might help you get ahead with your marketing and fundraising, come fall.
The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause, Kivi Leroux Miller.
Miller's experience with hundreds of small nonprofits with one-person-marketing shops led her to write this instructive basic guide to marketing for people who have to do it all. This book is so incredibly useful, from building a basic marketing plan to how to use social media effectively on a small budget, that I wish I could simply reprint it all here.
Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications, Sarah Durham.
This book is the clearest blueprint I've seen lately to rationally building your brand and implementing it. It is "branding in a box." If you do one thing about your organization's brand this year, make it reading this book. Once you do that, you'll be so excited to have a step-by-step plan that you're bound to start creating a better brand.
The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting With Social Media to Drive Change, Beth Kanter and Allison Fine.
There has been a lot written and said about social media in recent years. So much that it can all seem overwhelming. The Networked Nonprofit organizes the cloud of information about social media into a clear-eyed view of what social media can do for your organization and how to go about achieving its benefits.
The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems, Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin.
I found this book to be extraordinary. The positive deviancy idea is a fresh solution for the aid community and maybe even for business. I found the case studies in the book riveting, from the Vietnam experience to alleviating the terrible infant mortality rate in Pakistan to changing the belief systems that allow female circumcision in Egypt.
Add your favorite books to this list in the comments. If we can't read them all this summer, there's always later.
Photo by David DeLossy/Getty Images
Comments
The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer and Small Change by Michael Edwards are quick and really good reads.
The Switch by the Chip and Dan Heath is a MUST read.
I agree that Brandraising is terrific. Reading Networked Nonprofit now. Have Kivi’s book as well. Great list.
Wonderful suggestions! I’ve read and reviewed Singer’s book and I’ll get my hands on the other one for sure. Thanks!
Thank you for reminding me of The Switch, Nancy. It is a terrific book with loads of great ideas for nonprofiteers.
The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz (New York Times Bestseller) is an incredible book that looks at the hands on understanding of global poverty and powerful new ways of tackling it. It is, as it says, a “call to action that challenges us to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink our engagement with the world”.
Please also see my summer nonprofit reading list at http://bit.ly/dxbJ5O, which includes some of the books you’ve mentioned.