I have a whole chapter on it coming up in a new book i am writing but just so you’ll get the principle and understand how big companies through the media manipulate us and our children here is a great movie by Jeremy Earp it is called – Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood and you can watch the trailer here:

Or the full version with subtitles here (its hosted outside of the USA so it can take a while to load):
Consuming Kids full version

The only way to change the situation is to change the media either through Serve.gov or through other global civil society organization that would unite to create such a change.

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One of the biggest advantages you have as a non profit organization is that you can get lots of traffic for free by applying to the Google Grants program.
If accepted you will receive up to $10k free advertising in Google adwords a month and in most cases for your relevant keywords that means a lot of money..

If you dont know how to use Google Adwords dont worry as I’ll be publishing a post with the basic principles that you need to know. But first thing apply to their program and start empowring your organization today.

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American politics and social culture is undergoing a huge change these days.
The days of the American super hero that saves the world alone are ending. A new era is here. An era of a leader and a government that admit their weaknesses and ask the people to join and help solve society’s problems.

A new hope has awaken to end the alienation between the state and the citizen. To change the politics to an instrument which any person can use in order to realize himself in his society.

The JibJab parody video of Barack Obama represents the old school thinking, the people who await the national hero to bail them out while the Michelle Obama video represents the new era that Obama brings, admitting that he cant do it alone and how much he needs all of us in order to create a true change. The new Serve.gov is a prof for the true intention of the new government.

Enjoy the videos:

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One of the first rules of non profit marketing that you must master is the law of empathy. People are moved and touched by people who resemble them and seem similar to them.

It doesnt matter if you aim at fund raising or recruting volunteers – you should always aspire to implement this rule.

For example if you want to promote a cause that relates to people – choose the figures you plan to use for the promotion wisely. They should be as similar as possible in age, gender, location etc. to the target audiance.

The same implies to fund raising – in your presentation make sure to use as many personal stories, names of places and other characteristics that imply to the audience that is supposed to donate to your organization.

On your website it implies to the videos you show, the articles you write, the writers that you choose to write for you, the success stories you plan to publish, the projects you wish to launch and so on.

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The strongest resource of a non profit is his people. You might not have a lot of money, and you might not be able to hire the most professional people in each position for your organization but you have your people!

The volunteers in a non profit organization are more important than costumers to a business, but because they dont create an income for us we sometime tend to forget about them. But if you’ll learn to use your website wisely you’ll find it easy to build, grow and maintain your volunteers database that will donate money or hours to your organization and will help you spread your agenda.

Think of yourself – what makes you feel closer to an idea to an organization?
The strongest thing is the effort and time you invested in it but no one starts there. We all begin to approach something by getting more information about it, to feel part of it and in the last stage to invest in it.

So what should you do?
You should supply information about your organization, making the person feel updated and on top of things.
You should create a sense of community and you should award the people that approach you with gratitude and a feeling of home.

How can you do that?
There is no better, cheaper and faster way than the web. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forums, a Youtube channel  are all great instruments but I’ll begin with the simplest and easiest step – building a list.
The idea is very simple:
* You create an optin form on your website (a form where a person enters his name and email)
* You offer free information for a person who signs up.
* You keep this person updated once a week or two weeks with more updated information.
* You make him/her feel part of something big with a lot of people.
* You show him/her that you appreciate people who invest time or money in your mutual cause.
* Give him/her chances to participate and add their input.

In no time you will see your list grows and more people coming forward suggesting to ho help and invest time.

Example:
UNT is an NGO who wishes to reduce violence in schools around the country. It got a website and it uses Aweber (my recommended and favorite email marketing and newsletters software. Aweber got videos that will guide you in building your list in no time) and offers the complete free shocking report about violence in schools facts and stories.

People subscribe to their list and get their report and every 2 weeks UNT sends them an updated about late violence stories, activites of the organization and people who contributed to their monthly project.
The last issue was about Sarah that dedicates 4 hours of her time every week to go to schools and recruit children to be the non violence watch in their school and to publish the names of children who acted wrong and those who acted good all around the school. In the newsletter they also got a button with a link to their site – offering you to see who is active in your area and to join their project.
If you’ll join you’ll receive a personal kit with everything you need in order to make a change in a school next to you.
UNT also arranges meetings in diffrent locations and collects money as a donation.
Its pretty simple to build your volunteers database – just do it and is you’ll have questions I’m here for you.

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What do you got that the big companies dont got? (feel free to add more points in the comments)

1. You got voluntaries – many human working hours that you dont need to pay for. And maybe even a big database.

2. You usually (depends what kind of NGO are you) got a good story, real people stories and thats the best entertaiment.

3. The internet becomes more and more social and thats good for you – the web becomes more about people and thats what you are about – people and people’s actions.

4. If you’ll do your work properlly the people will work for you, helping you spread your message and create awarnece.

5. You got the commercial companies who are longing to support non profit campaigns in order to help their brand.

What do you lack? (and again feel free to add more points in the comments)

1. Money & time (usually).

2. A dedicated internet marketing department to help you spread your massage.

3. Proffesional knowledge and desire. You wanted to support your cause and not to do internet marketing.

4. Money?

I obviously wrote the most common strengths and weaknesses – Now you should sit down and write your own list. Knowing what you got that others dont is the first step in building a marketing plan.

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I decided to write my first post for those of you who are about to start your online adventure as a non profit organization or an NGO. I thought I’ll share some experience about choosing the right non profit web hosting & domain name.

Non Profit Web Hosting

The most important thing to understand about hosting is that it should be in the country you target. If your audience live in Germany dont get your hosting in the US. Google gives priority in search results for sites that are hosted in the same contry that the person searching is located in.

another critical thing to understand about web hosting is that it should have strong servers and a good online support. A site that isnt available 99.9% of the time can loss some points in the eyes of Google and Google would probably be your main source of traffic.

If you have a good technichal team you can take any hosting you want but if you you aren’t that tech savvy its better to take a hosting with Fantastico which is an application that builds websites for you in less than 1 minute.

If people ask me I usually recommend Hostagator.com – they have a great support and Fantastico. If you it doesnt work for you or you dont know how to handle the Hostgator interface – just send me an email and I’ll be glad to help or contact their online support.

Choosing a domain name

If you are a big organization and you have a strong brand name or plan to build a strong brand name soon then it would be wise to get a domain with your brand name. You should get the .com as well as the .org. Most organizations assume that Com is only for companies and they get the org or the net but com is and always been the strongest extension.

If you dont have a strong brand and you dont have the money to build one soon – you should get your brand name domain but build your current site on a Com extension domain name that includes the main keywords that the people who donate you money or your voluntaries are searching for.

If you dont know how to determine what keywords would be best for you – see my post on keyword research.

There are many good domain companies, just stay away from GoDaddy since their support is very bad.

Dont linger too long – take an action and get your organization online and the sooner the better.

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