Read. Write. Engage.
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 Fourth Quarter - Who Cares?
Fourth quarter activities for any nonprofit or business tend to be the big "final push" for funding to end on a strong note. With holiday shopping and generosity, the public is generally more giving or buying. Read. Write. Engage. will share a short series focusing on the demands and strategies separately for nonprofits and solopreneurs/authors. What Are the Stats? Is it really worth all the hype to pay particular attention to fourth quarter donations? Oh, yeah.
What Are Some Strategies?
Get to the Point If you'll notice, all of these strategies are long-term and relationship driven. BOOM! It doesn't get more basic than that. There are a variety of calendars available to nonprofits focusing on social media or campaign strategies, paid and free. Charity Engine offers a fabulous general timeline ahead of Giving Tuesday, the start of the giving season. Bloomerang and Neon One have nice general references for timing activities. The articles are from 2025 but the general timing is evergreen. While these guides are based on Giving Tuesday, the same rough schedule applies to any donation campaign you may consider running, including your end-of-year giving plan. Many recommend planning your year-end giving strategy over the summer. (all is not lost if you're just considering it) Engaging Networks provides a number of suggestions for your marketing options, language ideas for your messaging, and a variety of fundraising options to consider based on what may resonate with your audience. Your Turn! Are you planning a Giving Tuesday or end-of-year fundraising campaign? Any tips or tricks you've found useful to share with others? Let's lift each other with ways to get across the finish line to help our communities in service - leave a comment, Let's Chat, or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!
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 What's the Point of Digital Scheduling Tools? As many coffee chats or connections happen online these days, an online scheduling tool becomes very useful. You can rely on others having digital scheduling tools! I've been doing this for a few months now as I'm not thrilled with my current tool's set-up—possibly "user error"—but it's not doing quite what I need it to do. This post will review options currently available, benefits, and things to consider. What Are the Benefits
What Are the Challenges?
Features to Consider The features I look for are:
What Tools Should I Consider? Based on these needs, the following options came up. There are far more available, but these seemed the most cost effective and useful for the pricing.  Get to the Point
This is a highly technical, detail oriented post. The summary is digital scheduling tools are an important aspect of any business, be it solo, nonprofit, or larger. While you can rely on others to have a good tool set-up, that's not always the case There are many benefits. There are many tools available, many for free. (my favorite four-letter word!) It does generally take a bit of tech/digital know-how to get these systems set up well for your personal needs. Your Turn! Have you found a calendar scheduling tool that you like? Easy set-up? Love to hear! If you're considering setting up some tech tools for your nonprofit or business to increase your visibility but aren't sure where to start, Let's Chat or message me on LinkedIn or Substack!  Key Networking Strategy In these post-COVID days, many of us have become adept "zoomers" to do business online. It's expanded our network potential internationally. It offers a quick way to meet others from the comfort of home—safe space—in a pretty focused (short) time typically. Is This INSTEAD of In Person Networking? Nope! "Coffee chats" can be online and in person and there are benefits to both options. How Do We Find These Opportunities? Fortunately, there are many ways to discover and create opportunities. Many networking opportunities shared in these blog posts here, here, and here can easily lead to coffee chats. To save bouncing around blog posts, here's a round-up of ideas.
How Do I Set Up A Coffee Chat? These work whether they're in person or online conversations.
What Do I Even SAY? Ah, I can hear the panic now! No need - let's walk through some strategies to keep this painless for all involved. The best approach is a planned approach.
Get to the Point
Coffee chats are simply another marketing tool available to you. One on one networking may be less stressful for introverts than facing a group. These are a way to go more deeply into meeting someone without taking a ton of time out of your day. Setting up a chat can be as easy as getting out your calendar and planning to meet at a Panera or Starbucks. You can also go a bit more high tech and set up a calendar linking app to share for meeting set-up. And sometimes, "coffee chats" are simply that—an opportunity to get to know someone better. No more—and no less. Grab your coffee or tea and settle on the couch (figuratively) to chat for a few minutes. You're at the "getting to know you" phase of a relationship—not prepping a wedding or long-term engagement! Your Turn! Do you set aside time for coffee chats? Prefer in person, online, or both? Coffee or tea for you? (tea for me, please, with honey!) If you'd like to chat, I'd be thrilled to get to know you better! Shoot me an email or fill out the online contact form or message me on LinkedIn or Substack.  What Is A Community?
Excellent question as there are a variety of communities, in person and online. We're going to touch on both here. A "community" is basically a group or "tribe" of people with similar interests. This can refer to both your potential clients and your colleagues. This week, we'll focus on colleague communities. There may be potential clients in these communities! But they're less obviously your client market and typically not your purpose for joining. Why Consider Communities Many in my audience work solo or with the assistance of very few.
Connect, Collaborate, and Serve Per this blog post, this philosophy is perfectly suited to community membership.
What Communities Are We Talking About? We'll share ideas related to each of my client types here. Nonprofits
There are a number of fabulous communities that may not neatly fit into my client profile niche but may be very useful depending on your business challenges.
Get to the Point I'm in a variety of communities for a myriad of reasons, each serving as resources for me to Connect, Collaborate, and Serve. I enjoy a mix of in person and online networking communities. Many of these communities live on apps such as Circle, Mighty, Skool, or Slack which you have access to once registering or signing up in some way. Some communities are free, others paid, and still others offer a mix of free and paid versions. You definitely get what you pay for, meaning if you're paying to be a member of a community, you're likely going to receive high value from the resources and the conversations inside. However, many offer a lot of connections and resources for free. I have a paid membership with a couple of communities for resources beyond their free level, but my focus tends to be free options. I find them extremely useful, for my business and frankly my well being. Being part of a community brings me great joy.
Your Turn! Are you in communities within your niche? Any recommendations or suggestions of communities you adore? Love to hear them - Let's Chat, leave a comment, or message me on LinkedIn or Substack!  Organic Growth I've had the amazing fortune to meet a couple of fabulous coaches who share my business philosophy and have helped me clarify words for it. Many thanks to Renee Hribar and Tracy Beavers for their inspiration! Never One for Hustle Culture I enjoy conversations - a lot - all day, every day. These conversations help me get to know people, their needs, their motivation, and how we may be able to assist each other. I'm not here to simply earn a buck. I'm here for the conversations, relationships, and to help you shine. Image: Lezlee Alexander with members of the City of Glendale Chamber of Commerce: Allison Diaz, Bud Zomok, and Elizabeth Hunt. Connect
"I am a Connector!" to quote a rally cry from my friend Renee! Apparently I'm not the only one as she's begun including brief introductions to fellow solopreneurs in her podcasts who all proclaim they are connectors before sharing their offer. I love being surrounded by Connectors! I've often noted if I could get paid to simply connect people, I'd be a happy gal! Someone recently suggested, "You'd be in Human Resources!" No, that's not it. But I do love to meet people to hear what they do and offer, suggest others who may support or collaborate with them, see how we may help each other, and share content that may be mutually useful. Any time I can connect someone with anyone else who may be helpful on their journey, it's a very happy day! Collaborate Beyond simply connecting with others is finding ways to collaborate and lift each other. "A rising tide lifts all boats," as it were. Collaboration can take many forms:
Collaborations begin with conversations. Serve I have always been in service professions and volunteer regularly in addition to paid work. My passion is finding ways to share the opportunity others bring to the world. "Serve" is a multi-faceted word with some misconceptions around it. Merriam-Webster offers a number of definitions for "serve" based on a variety of contexts for its use. For our discussion, I'm going with "to be of use." Serving has different connotations among my nonprofit, solopreneur, and author clients.
But I'm An Introvert! Not to worry—Connect, Collaborate, and Serve can absolutely still work for you. You simply may need to take a more measured approach to it. I'm a born introvert who learned to be extroverted, but it remains necessary to step back and recharge sometimes.
Get to the Point Connect, Collaborate, and Serve are the cornerstones of organic marketing growth and simply working with people! They each revolve around conversations, which is really the heart of the matter. Your Turn! What opportunities are you looking for to Connect, Collaborate, or Serve? Let's share ideas and resources to support each other! If you could use a thought partner or a strategy session, Let's Chat or message me on LinkedIn or Substack!  Know Thyself
I was just on a group webinar where the host had a large topic to cover with limited time. A few of the participants commented the session was far more than they had in mind and would catch the replay later. The presenter was very supportive of that option but forged on to maintain a replay that would be available for all later. One commenter haunts me. She noted she was in the process of a panic attack for the feeling of overwhelm and the firehose of information pouring at us. A few of us tried to reassure her, but the damage was done and our comments were not helping, only adding to her sense of panic. She finally did step away to regain her composure. I recall a similar incident recently with the same presenter when the topic was far more involved than I was prepared for in the moment. I simply stopped trying to keep up, took a few notes to remind myself of key points later, and caught the replay where I could start/stop the recording to proceed at my own pace. I had a better idea of what to expect in the presentation at that point to be prepared. Our Fast-Paced World Life moves fast—seemingly faster as we move forward. Mental health challenges abound. Anxiety and depression in adults is approximately 19% each (or 1 in 5) per the Center for Disease Control (CDC)—finally trending slightly less than initially post-COVID but still slightly above pre-COVID levels. Anyone reading this blog is on a journey to build—build a nonprofit, a business, or bring a book into the world. The ideas, opportunities, and decisions of what to do next or which direction to turn are seemingly constant. Mind boggling, really. Take A Step Back Consider these options when you feel the anxiety rise:
Time to Regroup Now that you've distanced from the moment, consider what happened and what led to that level of anxiety.
Get to the Point I wish for Peace for you—for anyone reading this now. I'm grateful you stumbled upon my words. Life is short. Live it well, with love, joy, and fulfillment, however your cup may be filled. Some of us live and love to be busy, but that's generally only with breaks from the pace. Learn your limits. Identify when you need breaks during a day, from activities, and even longer breaks for your peace and sanity. As the airlines remind us on pre-flight instructions, put the oxygen mask on yourself first so you can help others. Your Turn! How are you doing, friend? Feeling overwhelmed in your business or your day? What can you consider doing to re-center yourself? What works for you? Please share so we can learn from each other! Comment below or Let's Chat by email or on LinkedIn or Substack.  What Is An Email Service Provider? Let's make sure we start on the same page. If you're going to send emails to a "large" group of people, it's far easier to use an email service provider than simply sending by cc or bcc from your personal email. I had heard a few years ago that Google/Gmail limits the number of names you can have on a "to" line. On a search, apparently that's not accurate - they list no hard number limit. I've known many who seem to have issues with emails bouncing or never being delivered with a group of more than 50 which is surprisingly easy to hit for even small groups, and this has been the case for a number of years. It becomes more an issue of how the email providers communicate with each other, each having their own spam flags. Unfortunately, even using a paid email service provider is no guarantee you won't end up in someone's spam folder to never be seen. What Are the Benefits of Using An Email Service Provider?
Is It Necessary to Use An Email Service Provider? Nope! I'm beginning to see a trend of folks that I know have large email lists sending basic ol' text emails to thousands and tens of thousands of folks. No added graphics—just a chatty bit of news you'd send a friend.
Are Newsletters ONLY By Email? Nope! I touched on a couple of other ways to share a "newsletter" with others on this blog post, which includes LinkedIn and Substack. However—and this is a big however!—"rented land" is definitely a concern for how you communicate with your audience should the social platform go away or shut you down for whatever reason, whether legitimate or not. Unfortunately, there are far too many stories of creators being blocked from access to their account and stuck in limbo for some first-line AI agent before you get to a person for some resolution, if you get any response at all. YOU are given permission to use someone's personal email address to send them news. That does not rely on the whims of social media platforms and gives you a means of continued communication. So Which Email Service Provider Should I Use? This is a loaded question with a number of factors for you to consider:
Options Available This was a challenging topic to tackle as email service providers seem to change pricing regularly and new servers develop along the way. You're welcome to start with this list, but I suggest you do some additional searching including finding groups that may have useful input for you. I reviewed nine different platforms for this post. I'll link each to their pricing page and share my favorites of those listed. I'm going to focus on those with pricing for 500 or less contacts, much larger lists, and one very small option. The name of each service is hyperlinked to their pricing page.
 Get to the Point
I highly recommend investing in an email service provider for your nonprofit or business group emails or newsletters.
Your Turn! If you send email news to your customers or members, do you have a favorite email service provider? If so, who and what made you select that one? Here's to a community that lifts each other! Let's Chat or message me on LinkedIn or Substack!  What Is It? Koolay is an all-in-one management platform similar to Salesforce and Blackbaud. They handle everything from CMS (Customer Management Services) to website platform to donation pages, grant management, and events. I'll attach a screenshot sharing all Koolay has to offer. However, we'll be focusing on their grant platform today. If you have any questions, please reach out to Co-Founder and CTO Bulent Arslan on LinkedIn, Co-Founder and CEO Kerem Arslan on LinkedIn, or there is a contact form at the bottom of the Koolay website.  Let's Talk About Grants! This Kindful article describes the basics about grants for nonprofits. A grant is a donation given to an organization, often by a foundation, corporation, or government agency. There is typically an application process involved to introduce the organization to the donor. Grant organizations may have specific criteria for applicants. Funds may be for a specific project rather than general operating expenses. There are so many grant opportunities available in the US that nonprofits may consider paying for access to a grant database to search for the opportunities they may qualify for. It is possible to do general searches to discover qualifying grants, but it is rather time consuming. Where Does Koolay Fit in the Grant Process? Koolay has access to a large database of over 30,000 available US grants. They provide access to their grant database, powered by AI search assistance, and a way to track active grant applications. They provide this for two levels of nonprofit organizations - those under $1M in revenue and those over $1M.
Get to the Point! This is a HUGE opportunity for small to midsized nonprofits with under $1M in revenue to be able to search for grants in a centralized location that's current and maintained! Add to that a keyword database and AI search plus writing assistance and tracking mechanism all in one--for free!—I'm shouting this one from the rooftops with gratitude! Bulent Arslan has shared: "In just one month, we've welcomed 120 nonprofits onto our free GrantHub Lite plan, and we're adding 3–5 new organizations every day." In 2024, grant funding from philanthropic foundations accounted for $109.81 billion according to Giving USA's 2025 Annual Report. They note this is an increase of 2.4%. All this to say, grant funding is a critical piece in nonprofit fundraising. How Do I Sign Up? Head to the Koolay website. There are a few Get Started buttons on the website, from the top right corner to clicking Grants to select which level you qualify for. If you have any questions, please reach out to Co-Founder and CTO Bulent Arslan on LinkedIn, Co-Founder and CEO Kerem Arslan on LinkedIn, or there is a contact form at the bottom of the Koolay website. Your Turn! Fellow nonprofiteers--are grants part of your fundraising plan? How have your efforts gone? Would this service be of use to you or others you know? Please feel free to share the news by sharing this post! I'd be happy to share additional information if useful--Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack to message!  What IS a Podcast?
Let's start with the basics and not make assumptions "everyone" knows what a podcast is. Per a basic Gemini search: "A podcast is a digital audio or video program made for on-demand listening, like a personal radio show you can play anytime. It comes from the words 'iPod' and 'broadcast'." (note: the word origin is news to me!) Podcast Lingo
How Popular Are Podcasts? Let's look at some statistics straight from Podcast Statistics for 2026:
How Hard Is It? Let's look at this from both sides of the matter. What Does It Take to Host a Podcast? Surprisingly little in its most basic form, however, this is a very basic list. To do this well in the competitive market, I suggest referring to this Buzzsprout post for a more complete yet focused reference to get started. It also offers some great gut checks to determine if you're really ready for the commitment.
What Does It Take to Be a Guest on a Podcast? If committing to a regular schedule as a host or the decision of solo vs guest format is too much, there's a lot to be gained from being a guest on podcasts! Is Being a Guest Worth the Effort for My Business? Statistics on Omniscent confirm that's a resounding yes! A couple of stand-out stats:
You will get much further with "warm" pitches when possible. Connect with a podcaster for a program you regularly listen to that's related to your client market. You'll be better able to highlight the benefit you have to offer the host and audience. Per Podchasher related to 2026:
Also from Podchaser:
Where Do I Find Podcasts? If you haven't discovered podcasts, there are free and monthly fee services that curate shows featuring a variety of topics.
Get to the Point Podcasts are an amazing tool in your marketing tool kit! You'll get noticed as a host and as a guest. I will note if you decide to host a podcast, it takes a commitment to your audience and yourself to maintain a schedule. It may also come with a financial cost for equipment, streaming services, and editing or recording tools to really sound good. Hosting should not be taken lightly! Some podcasters connect with a service such as Buy Me A Coffee or Patreon to offset production expenses, especially if they have monthly subscription fees for recording and editing tools. I heartily recommend jumping at any opportunity to, at a minimum, be engaged on LinkedIn and Substack in podcast or live audiences to be seen with active interest. There is often an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise with helpful comments. You can become a "regular" with some shows and develop friendships, strengthen bonds with connections, and continue to make new connections. Once you get some comfort at that level, consider reaching out to hosts of your favorite podcasts that would also appeal to your potential clients. Your Turn! Have you hosted a podcast or LinkedIn/Substack events? Are you still doing it? Love to hear your suggestions to get started or why you may have stopped! Have you been a guest on podcasts or LinkedIn/Substack events? Are you looking for those opportunities? Let's help each other get connected, as hosts or guests! Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!  Panic in the Streets! Headlines blare:
Step AWAY from the Doom & Gloom! Marketing basics are truly timeless and aren't going anywhere. If you're hoping for an easy way out of doing the marketing work by betting hard on AI, I predict a long wait. Your Mama was right—there's no easy way around work. Oh, sure—AI has its advantages, don't get me wrong.
Don't Despair! In spite of all that, the basic marketing tools remain useful.
Birth of the Internet—Take 2! Remember when the internet and the world wide web was a new and shiny thing in about 1990? It was going to change everything! It did—but it expanded our capabilities. It didn't replace them. AI is heading in a similar direction. There is a lot of talent expansion happening right now, maximizing our capabilities to do more faster. There are likely bumpy days ahead, don't get me wrong. But there is very definitely still a place for the basics of marketing. Classic Marketing Isn't Going Anywhere What would I call "classic marketing":
Is Blogging Useful? Blog posts give you amazing material for visibility across all of your channels! Thanks to Nonprofit Tech for Good for sharing these blog statistics.
Your Turn! How do you approach your marketing? What are you using as your core source of visibility? I'd love to hear! Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack to message! If you'd like to consider working together, we start by looking at where you're marketing plan is and where you'd like to be to see if we're a good fit. We focus on what is manageable for your time and energy. Click any of the links above to start!  |
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