Getting Started on the New Platform (2024)
Join The Community Foundation of South Puget Sound and Mightycause for an onboarding training session to familiarize yourself with the new platform! In this webinar, we will cover this year's event basics, how to register, and provide a platform dashboard walkthrough to help you familiarize yourself with your organization profile. The workshop will be about one hour long. Content usually lasts around 45 minutes, with 10-15 minutes for questions afterward.
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Fundraising Tools & Strategy (2024)
Join us for our second training with Mightycause. This training will help you get acquainted with the platform's fundraising tools. We will cover peer-to-peer fundraising, matching grants, giving Wednesdays, the bonus fund, what donations count towards Give Local and the bons fund, the opportunities tool, and more! The workshop will be about one hour long. Content usually lasts around 45 minutes, with 10-15 minutes for questions afterward.
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Storytelling for Give Local (2023)
Presenter: Daisha Versaw (she/her)
Storytelling is right at the heart of Give Local. Together, our Lewis, Mason, and Thurston County nonprofits hold countless hope-filled stories—the kind of stories we’re all longing to hear. Bringing so many of these stories together and inviting the community to learn about and be part of them is what makes the platform a source of joy that people look forward to each year.
Telling your organization’s story in a way that connects, inspires, and sparks action is essential to your Give Local campaign. Because storytelling is part of our wiring as humans, you already have what it takes to tell a great story, and you don’t have to do it alone! In fact, storytelling can be a lot more fun when it’s done in community.
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Asset-Based Storytelling (2022)
Presenter: Elaine Vradenburgh (she/her) of Window Seat Media
How might we frame our nonprofit storytelling to focus on the assets of the people we serve? What does nonprofit storytelling look like when we decenter our organization in favor of showing cooperation across sectors? In this workshop, we’ll explore storytelling frameworks that emphasize context, assets, and collective action over stories of personal experience. Participants will leave with tools and a template to craft and share stories of collective experience to ignite social change.
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Nonprofit Storytelling: Production Basics (2021)
Presenter: Elaine Vradenburgh (she/her) of Window Seat Media
Do you want to make a fundraising video for Give Local (or other campaigns) but you don’t know how to get started? In this workshop, we will walk you through visual storytelling best practices – from principals of project design to considering what’s needed to work with a production company or do it yourself to attending to the power dynamics and ethics of telling other peoples’ stories. Participants will walk away with a solid process and ethical compass to guide them through their process.
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Nonprofit Storytelling: Moving Beyond Curated Storytelling, Part 1 (2021)
Presenter: Elaine Vradenburgh (she/her) of Window Seat Media
Our success as fundraisers depends to a large degree on our ability to tell compelling stories – about the need in the community, about the impact of our work, and about the future we are striving to create. Whose stories are we telling to write that narrative? What are our practices for telling those stories? What power dynamics are at play? This two-part workshop series provides an overview of nonprofit storytelling conventions and a do-it-yourself template to try.
In Part 1 of Moving Beyond Curated Storytelling, Elaine discusses storytelling conventions, explores best practices to help guide us in building an ethical storytelling practice, and workshops a simple template to try for Give Local. This series aims to increase media literacy, help organizations connect their work with a larger theme or guiding question(s), and offer tools and templates for do-it-yourself storytelling.
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Nonprofit Storytelling: Moving Beyond Curated Storytelling, Part 2 (2021)*
Presenter: Elaine Vradenburgh (she/her) of Window Seat Media
Our success as fundraisers depends to a large degree on our ability to tell compelling stories – about the need in the community, about the impact of our work, and about the future we are striving to create. Whose stories are we telling to write that narrative? What are our practices for telling those stories? What power dynamics are at play? This two-part workshop series provides an overview of nonprofit storytelling conventions and a do-it-yourself template to try.
In Part 2 of Moving Beyond Curated Storytelling, participants will bring their stories (complete or works-in-progress) from "Moving Beyond Curated Storytelling, Part 1" workshop for feedback, advice and technical help. This series aims to increase media literacy, help organizations connect their work with a larger theme or guiding question(s), and offer tools and templates for do-it-yourself storytelling.
*Due to technical difficulties, parts of the records are missing or may experience a lag time.
Story Gathering: Best Practices for Fundraising Campaigns (2020)
Presenter: Elaine Vradenburgh (she/her) from Window Seat Media
During this hands-on workshop presented by Elaine Vradenburgh from Window Seat Media, we discussed storytelling conventions and considered some common pitfalls that cause unintended harm to the communities we serve. Participants were presented with practical tools to gather stories on a tight budget, apply concepts to their own storytelling work, and walked away with best practices that guide an ethical and impactful storytelling practice.
Sharing Stories: Activating Our Stories and Campaigns on Social Media (2020)
Presenter: Danielle Ruse (she/they) of Window Seat Media
In this online workshop, presented by Danielle Ruse of Window Seat Media, we focused on building a marketing strategy to share your stories across multiple platforms and channels (including Facebook and direct mail). Participants left the workshop with a clear social media communications management plan and goals to engage their audience before, during, and beyond Give Local.
Breaking Through the Noise & Elevating Champions: A Social Media Marketing 101 Workshop (2023)
Presenter: Natasha Ashenhurst (she/her) & Megan Petersen (she/her) of Mosaic Marketing Studio
Do you lead your communications strategy in a small or medium-sized nonprofit with limited resources and time constraints? This workshop is designed to help you, the everyday communication all-star, lead your team to triumph and ensure that Give Local donors see your story page. During this one-hour webinar, Mosaic Marketing Studio will help you learn about:
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Making the Most of Give Local (2022)
Presenter: Ariel Glassman (she/her) of Common Great
Want to make the absolute most of Give Local for your nonprofit organization? Join fundraising consultant, giving day expert, and Common Great founder Ariel Glassman to learn more about elevating your Give Local strategy, leveraging technology to raise more, cutting through the noise with great donor communications, and more!
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Utilizing PR & Media Relations to Reach Your Audience and Boost Donations (2021)
Presenter: Erika Taylor Montgomery (she/her) of Three Girls Media
Please join The Community Foundation and Three Girls Media, Inc. for an informative workshop on Utilizing PR & Media Relations To Reach Your Audience And Boost Donations. CEO Erika Taylor Montgomery will discuss tips, tricks and strategies for media pitching, putting together a media list and determining which outlets are the best fit for your business’s media needs. She will help you understand the difference between a pitch and a press release, and prepare you to use publications’ lead times to your advantage. In addition, Erika will explain the benefits of electronic press kits and how they can help you package your organization to get the kind of media coverage you desire. Finally, a Q&A portion at the end of the presentation will ensure that any remaining questions are answered.
View Presentation | Watch Recording | Listen to Audio | Read Closed Captions | South Puget Sound media outlet list
Building a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy and Online Presence for Your Non-Profit Organization (2021)*
Presenter: Erika Taylor Montgomery (she/her) of Three Girls Media
Please join The Community Foundation and Three Girls Media, Inc. for an informative workshop on Building A Comprehensive Marketing Strategy And Online Presence For Your Non-Profit Organization. CEO Erika Taylor Montgomery will help you evaluate a landing page to determine its most important points and provide your organization with a robust online presence. In addition, Erika will explain aspects of a marketing strategy, including social media, content marketing, advertising, sponsorships, and more. You will learn how to put this information into motion and build a strategy for your non-profit. Finally, a Q&A portion at the end of the presentation will clarify any questions that remain.
*Due to technical difficulties, the final 20 minutes (approximately) of this workshop were not recorded.
View Presentation | Watch Recording | Listen to Audio | Read Closed Captions | Content Guideline | Social Media Post Lifespan
Creating an Effective Content Marketing Strategy (2020)
Presenter: Erika Taylor Montgomery (she/her) of Three Girls Media
During this workshop, CEO Erika Taylor Montgomery discussed tips, tricks, and strategies for creating a content marketing strategy, including explaining the best types of content for nonprofit organizations, how often to post content, free or low-cost tools for content marketing, and more. Additionally, Erika will shared monthly and weekly guides for content creation to help keep nonprofit organizations on the right track.
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How to Create Compelling Social Media Graphics: An introduction to Canva (2020)
Presenter: Erika Taylor Montgomery (she/her) of Three Girls Media
CEO of Three Girls Media, Erika Taylor Montgomery, discusses getting started with Canva, a free tool for photo editing, graphic building and other content creation. Additionally, Erika walked participants through creating a brand kit for their organization and creating their first graphic, as well as sharing graphic design best practices.
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Year-Round Donor Engagement, An Ongoing Cycle (2020)
Presenter: Rebecca Zanatta (she/her) of The Ostara Group
Now more than ever, our nonprofit organizations need to focus on year-round donor engagement (including virtual best practices). In this session, presenter Rebecca Zanatta spoke about donor lifecycles and how to plan and connect them to the most important needs of your organization’s mission. This training presented a broad and holistic approach to creating and executing engagement strategies for donors that maximize stewardship and cultivation efforts.
The Top 10 Organic Social Media Strategies (2020)
Presenter: Erika Taylor Montgomery (she/her) of Three Girls Media
Three Girls Media CEO Erika Taylor Montgomery, discusses the most effective social media strategies for non-profits and how to use your resources to the fullest during this engaging session. Additionally, Erika went over each of the major social media platforms and discussed pros and cons of each, helping you decide which will serve your organization the best. Finally, a Q&A portion at the end of the presentation provided answers to many lingering questions.
View Presentation | Watch Recording | Listen to Audio | Social Media Post Lifespan
Give Local: How to Make the Most of This Opportunity (2020)
Presenter: Rebecca Zanatta (she/her) of The Ostara Group
Partner and Senior Strategist at The Ostara Group Rebecca Zanatta led a conversation and breakout room activities via Zoom on how to make the most of your Give Local participation for your community, organization, and donors. Participants were given key strategies for making the most of Give Local and leveraging it as a digital strategy connected to the rest of your annual development plan.