Beyond the Basics

This post will share updated information from this post from a year ago based on my own experience and adding insight from a couple of resources. 

Are Newsletters Useful?
"Is it worth my time to create a newsletter?" - yes! Let's review some statistics.


​From this Stripo article, January 2026:

• Return on Investment: For every $1 spent on email marketing, $10-$36 is generated in sales and even as much as $50 for high performers.
• B2C (Business to Customer) conversion: 59% of consumers attribute purchases to email notices received. Sales due to emails account for roughly 11% of company eCommerce sales and, perhaps more importantly, engage customers after sales and increase brand loyalty. 

36Agency confirms many of these numbers and adds more:

• "Regularly connecting with customers, past customers, and leads builds loyalty and keeps your brand at the forefront of their minds. Personalized content boosts open and engagement rates by 26%,..."
• "Monthly newsletters establish a direct line of communication with your customers, keeping them up-to-date with essential information and developments. Unlike social media posts that can get lost in the noise, emails land directly in recipients’ inboxes. This directness ensures that your audience receives your updates without any extra steps, making it a reliable method of communication."
• Newsletters also enable you to gain feedback from customers through survey questions and email replies.

According to Media Beats: "Newsletters are among the few channels that you fully control. They offer data privacy, independence, and long-term customer retention. 88% of people read their emails daily, with 78% doing so before starting work. No other communication channel reaches users as reliably and consistently."

But What About AI?
Newsletters remain useful in this developing AI world—I suggest more than ever!

From The Current's February 11, 2026 post:

• Regulators in Europe and the UK are moving to curb Google's AI Overviews which are increasingly limiting traffic to websites. Proposals have included publishers being able to opt out of AI overviews to others taking legal action, filing antitrust complaints. 
• A repeated theme in sources including The Current post above and Creator's MBA encourages newsletters as one of few owned media options, enabling one to be seen in inboxes and even monetize through subscriptions or advertisement relationships. If AI summaries will reduce website traffic, email newsletters are the way to connect with customers. 

Media Beats identifies newsletters as a powerful tool to boost reach, trust, and revenue. 

Newsletter Options
There are a number of platforms to consider for your newsletter once you've determined your strategy and market. Many, including me, provide a newsletter on multiple channels, including all three listed below. Consider your audience for what your best strategy should be.

• LinkedIn: Newsletters on LinkedIn are a series of articles you identify at the beginning as a "newsletter," which becomes a series of articles going to your subscribers. It's recommended you defer creating a newsletter on this platform until you have at least 1,000 followers as the first edition goes to every connection you have so they can then subscribe to receive news. LinkedIn helpfully offers new connections to subscribe to your newsletter - an automatic feature. Portions are sent to subscriber email addresses and guided back to LinkedIn for the full post. The trick on these is you do not own nor can you see the addresses of each of your subscribers. 
• Substack: Newsletters on Substack are a series of articles initially created as a "newsletter," just like on LinkedIn. It takes longer to build a substantial subscriber list, but you can begin creating your newsletter immediately rather than hold until you reach a certain number to begin. These newsletters can be shared for free or monetized as monthly or annual subscriptions. Substack does have a fee on subscriptions you collect but not extreme. You can download and keep the email addresses of subscribers so they can become your forever property. Substack news goes to subscribers' feed and via email. 
• Direct email provider: You control, create, and select this service provider. A variety of options have been covered on this blog post from a year ago. Many provide a free version of their service to start.

Your Turn!
Do you have a newsletter? Do you offer it on one or more platforms?

I'd love to hear how it's going for you and I love to subscribe to newsletters! If you'd like to talk strategy or need a hand creating a newsletter, Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!

What's the Big Deal?

An author client asked for assistance to determine how to sell pdfs of stories - digital products - as frictionless as possible, preferably without the vendor asking for a customer's mailing address. 

Turns out, it's not as easy as you may think. 

There are a number of laws to consider, especially if you may have international sales, let alone considering different tax laws among 50 states of the US. (eeek!) 

Selling digital products adds yet another layer of complexity.

Keeping It Simple
This post will not go into heavy technical detail to set up your online store. I'm happy to assist you - Let's Chat! - but the intent of this post is to share a few points to ponder and a few resources available, aiming for the most simplicity to get my nonprofits, solopreneurs, and authors heading in the right direction.

Useful Terminology

• Merchant of Record (MoR): According to this Stripe article from January 2026, "refers to the entity that is legally authorized and responsible for processing customer payments—including credit and debit card transactions and digital wallet transactions—for goods or services on behalf of a business. The MoR is liable for the financial, legal, and compliance aspects of transactions, and its work includes dealing with banks, card networks, and regulatory bodies. The MoR is an important actor in ecommerce transactions and can fundamentally shape the process and experience of online payments." Using a platform that will process sales for you, especially sale of digital items, in accordance with a myriad of tax laws, nationally and internationally, is well worth the trouble—your tax accountant will thank you!
• VAT (Value-Added Tax)/GST (Goods & Services Tax): Sales tax for European (VAT) and Australian (GST) customers. Taxes are based on the location of the buyer, not seller. 
• ISO 20022: Global payment standard (initiated in 2004) effective November 2026 where a minimum of city and country will be required for online transactions. Two forms of address verification will be needed - IP (computer) address that's identified behind the scenes and billing address. 
• PDF Stamp: deters people from sharing his stories for free by putting the buyer's email on every page. Lemon Squeezy, Dodo Payments, and Payhip, when enabled, these platforms automatically "burns" or watermarks the buyer's email address (and sometimes a transaction ID) onto the corner of every single page of the PDF upon download.

Online Sales Vendor Options

• Lemon Squeezy: A full-service MoR, they handle 100% of the taxes globally on your behalf. Apple Pay and Google Pay can be used making check-out frictionless for the buyer. Fees are 5% + $0.50 - reasonable. Has additional tools like newsletter creation options. 
• Dodo Payments: A full-service MoR, they handle 100% of the taxes globally as Lemon Squeezy does. Uses a pop-up overlay intended to make check-out as streamlined as possible. Fees are 4% + $0.40.
• Paddle: A full-service MoR, they handle 100% of the taxes globally as Lemon Squeezy and Dodo Payments. Offers a "contacts us" option if you'll be selling items under $10. Fees are 5% + $0.50.
• Gumroad: A full-service MoR, they sell digital products including memberships and courses. Create a website through their platform or connect it to your own website. Fees are rather steep - 10% + $0.50.
• Payhip: You can toggle off the billing address requirement for digital products. Does NOT handle US sales tax - not a full-service MoR. For the US, Canada, and Australia, they only calculate the tax; your client would still be responsible for registering with states and filing those taxes himself making it far more work. 5% fee and PayPal/Stripe fees apply. 
• Sellfy: Sell digital products, physical products, print on demand items, and subscriptions. Your store looks like a website, and you can connect your own domain to it. Email marketing and a few additional features are available. Fees $22/mo + PayPal or Stripe fees, whichever platform you connect. Does NOT handle US sales tax or VAT/GST - seller takes full responsibility for tax collection.

Thinking Ahead - Newsletter Building
Enable an Opt In button on your sales platform which will legally allow you to add name and email of your buyer to your email list. Just because you made a sale, does not give consent to receive ongoing communications, especially per European standards. 

Get to the Point
If you'll be doing online sales and are not a nonprofit (501c3's do not require tax collection if they have gone through the IRS approval process), you have a few things to consider.

• Who will be purchasing: customers in the US only or internationally potentially?
• What are you selling: physical products that may also require shipping or digital items? (this post focuses on digital items as a unique item) Many websites enable connecting Square, PayPal, or Stripe for payments, but you still need to consider taxes/VAT/GST and how you wish to handle that.
• Will you be handling taxes on sales or is it easier to use a platform that will handle it? Be sure to look for a system that will act as your Merchant of Record (MoR).
• Enable Apple Pay and Google Pay: This makes check-out a breeze for your buyers who use those systems.
• Be sure to add PDF Stamp language to digital items you're selling: Possible language - © 2026 [Name]. All rights reserved. No part of this publication (including text, plot, and arrangement) may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the author.
• Add an Opt In button to all sales: This will enable you to build a newsletter distribution list from buyers who are already your fan!

Your Turn
Have you done any digital sales and worked through this process? Love to hear your experience, what platform you selected, and why - Let's Chat! Or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!

Internal AND External Fraud Risk for Nonprofits

Nonprofits face the unique threat of scams, fraud, or theft—whatever you wish to call it—from both internal and external sources. This has the potential to be even more costly than scams faced by solopreneurs and authors as discussed in the linked blog posts. 

PBMares notes a median reported loss in 2024 of $76,000-$85,000 - egad! Bear in mind, "nonprofit" covers a range of organizations from those small enough to not have any salaried staff to large hospital chains for where such large numbers may come from. 

Internal Fraud
Examples noted can occur in any size organization. The PBMares article and Church Mutual Insurance are resources for this information.

• Corruption: Outright theft. "Theft" can be anything from swiping office supplies to products that would otherwise be sold to customers for personal use or, more often, resale. It can also include pocketing cash at events from gift shop or raffle ticket sales. 
• Billing fraud: This can include billing for a more expensive item.
• Check or payment tampering: The PBMares article shares a story of someone opening a bank account with the same name of the employer at a different bank and simply diverting checks to the personal account.
• Skimming: This includes overcharging and pocketing the extra.  

Red Flags
These are things to pay attention to with staff and volunteers:

• Living beyond their means
• Financial difficulties
• Extremely close relationships with vendors
• Defensiveness
• Bullying
• Unwilling to share duties

Detection

• Whistleblowers: anonymous online forms, email, or message tip lines
• Fraud awareness training
• Regular internal audits
• Management reviews
• More than one person as a system of checks and balances

​External Fraud
In this digital era, outdated security mechanisms, AI helping scammers sound very convincing, and trusting volunteers open the door to risk for nonprofits. Lack of documented policies about fraud or theft responses and what/how to share information with external agencies increase nonprofit risk according to the same PBMares article.

According to Nonprofits Insurance Alliance, ​"losses tied to voluntary transfer of funds are not covered under standard insurance terms." There are a number of examples shared on the post from those impacted by scammers. Information from Intermixit and Church Mutual Insurance are included in this list of scams as well. 

Types of scams

• Cyberattacks: Cautiously review who messages are actually from, not just who they say they're from (bogus email addresses or phone numbers). Opening attachments from unknown or fake sources can lead to malware incidents or ransomware that install harmful software on your system to lock it from your use with the intent of stealing information or funds, insisting you pay a ransom to regain your access. Back up your data off-site, install antivirus and software to detect threats. Staff/volunteer training are useful.
• Phishing: Emails, texts, or messages on your website's contact form "that appear to be from partners, lawyers, banks, contractors, common software vendors, or other nonprofit organizations" per Nonprofits Insurance Alliance. Another form of phishing is "from" a respected leader in the organization; Intermixit calls this Business Email Compromise. 
• Vendor fraud: Be careful of fraudulent invoices. 
• Charity fraud: Impersonating your nonprofit and soliciting donations in your name. Regularly monitor the internet for the name of your organization, make sure your donation page is secure, and ensure donors/the public know how to safely donate to you. 
• Grant scams: Verify, verify, verify. Be cautious of unsolicited grant offers, especially if they insist on payment from you up front, and research the grant source. 
• Check scams: You receive a (fake) check as a donation or grant with a refund then requested where the nonprofit loses funds by promptly trying to respond without asking enough questions. 

How to Protect Your Nonprofit
Per The National Bank of Indianapolis and Nonprofits Insurance Alliance:

• Verify donors and vendors: Contact the donor or vendor directly and do some research on websites and social media. 
• Wait for clearance: Be patient - banks take time. Don't issue a refund (or spend the funds!) until the check has cleared. If someone is demanding immediate responses, especially if money is involved, let the situation sit overnight and alert others. 
• Educate your team: Train about signs to look for, ask others for validation, and two-factor authorization of processes are useful.
• Consult with your bank: Your bank may have training and tools for your team to spot and mitigate scams.

Your Turn
This concludes our series about scams facing solopreneurs, authors, and nonprofits. Any hard lessons you've learned or heard from others? Love to hear to keep each other aware!

Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack to continue the conversation! 

What Is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

Let's start with a basic frame of reference. Bloomerang, a donor management system, offers this guidance.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is when volunteers/supporters take an active role to encourage friends and family to also support a favorite organization. Organizations recruit supporters to widen the reach by encouraging their network to participate in a fundraising activity or event. 

Crowdfunding campaigns are similar but different.

• Crowdfunding asks supporters to share the same brand campaign created by the nonprofit with their personal network.
• Peer-to-peer fundraising enables supporters to create their own personalized page for fundraising. These pages may be based in a template format but have aspects ready to add personal stories and content.

Types of Peer-to-Peer Campaigns
Per the same Bloomerang article:

• Rolling: no time limit and no set deadline
• Time-based: can last several days or weeks, often tied to an event
• Giving Days: 24-hour duration, associated with specific giving occasions (e.g Giving Tuesday, World Hunger Day)

Starting Your Peer-to-Peer Campaign

• Determine your goals
  • Types of goals: possibly raise funds, increase brand awareness, increase social media following
  • Break down the finances: If you're aiming for $20,000 for your project, how many volunteers will you need to realistically consider achieving a portion of that goal? (if you aim for at least $400 per person, you're going to need to enlist the assistance of 50 supporters to contact their network)
• Choose a fundraising platform: There are many out there.
  • Large full-management platforms: Bloomerang, Neon One, OneCause
  • Donation landing pages: GoFundMe, GiveButter, NEDDIE, and Chuffed as examples
  • Variety of fundraising platforms available and features to look for per Bloomerang and Kindful
• Recruit your volunteers and supporters: 
  • Be realistic: Each individual can generally only raise so many funds from friends and family. Set achievable goals for your nonprofit and your team of volunteers. Give everyone a chance to succeed on your behalf!
  • Individual contact: Personalize your request. It makes a difference in volunteer assistance.
• Support your team: Provide the tools to succeed. You'll want a selection of images for your team to personalize their message—maybe share a link to a Canva design they can personalize. Host a training session to answer questions, provide answers to questions their network may have, provide key words/phrases and an initial set of stories volunteers can draw from to inspire their personal stories. 
• Celebrate your achievements: Shout-out everyone you can for whatever reason you can come up with! Keep the enthusiasm high and encouraging. 
• Thank your team of supporters: Thanks are always appreciated, especially during and immediately after your event, but even long after your event. Share how their efforts continue to make a difference and your gratitude. Thank your team leaders and new donors.
• Track campaign data: Follow the numbers - keep an eye on what worked, what didn't, and ways to approach this project next time.

Campaign Styles
Peer-to-peer campaigns can take a variety of forms.

• Online: Heavily based on social media channels, virtual-a-thons
• A-thon style: Read-a-thon, Cook-a-thon, Walk-a-thon, and more
• Matching gift drive
• Wedding or birthday drives: Facebook has a great platform for this from a list of approved nonprofits. It's not hard to get your nonprofit added to the list. 
• Golf tournaments
• Variety of ideas from Bloomerang

Is It Worth It?
Many say yes. People give to people - friends support friends. There's an element of peer pressure to peer-to-peer campaigns that does fuel donations. According to Kindsight, this style of fundraising has continued to grow since 2023. 

This type of fundraising is currently appealing to the Millenials and Gen Z crowd which value flexibility and the ability to align with their identity and values. Mobile-first platforms, speedy downloads and website access, clear donation button options, and easy payment methods are key to success according to GoFundMe. 

GoFundMe tempers the excitement with news that dollar amounts are declining on Facebook and, while a-thons may draw a crowd, the amount raised is declining. GoFundMe also indicates peer-to-peer campaigns are evolving into more community fundraising where volunteers/donors take on campaign activities more actively. ·      

​Supporters want to help you reach your fundraising goals, but they’re not always sure what to do next, when to share, or how to succeed. Providing coaching and ongoing support is one of the most critical elements of a successful community fundraising strategy.

Get to the Point
Peer-to-peer and crowdfunding fundraising options are great tools for any nonprofit organization. However, they take time to plan and prepare for. 

• Decide on your goals.
• Decide the type of campaign or fundraiser you will create.
• Decide on your timing - when to start and how long to last.
• If your goal is a dollar amount, how many volunteers/sponsors/team captains will you need to raise how much in what time to achieve your goal? Depending on your faithful group, $500 may realistically be the most to hope any team attempts to raise as friends will likely give small amounts that build. 
• Decide on a donation platform and build it with your template or initial landing page. Make sure your platform offers the option for others to create their own donation page to personalize. 
• Create a training plan and materials your team can use in the campaign on your behalf.
• Find folks willing to support your campaign plan by sharing the news with their network. If you have a really big goal, you're going to need a lot of people to share the news. 
• Be prepared to be active and involved with your team throughout the campaign to inspire, thank, and cheer for each other. This is time consuming!
• Be ready with your end-of-campaign thank you's for your team and donors, welcoming newly discovered supporters to your organization.
• Make time and ensure you have a plan to review the data after the campaign to learn what went well and ways to improve next time.

Have You Tried Peer-to-Peer or Crowdfunding Campaigns?
How have they gone? Love to hear your successes and challenges so we can learn and grow together! Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn!

Where Do You Begin?

Anything discussing AI (Artificial Intelligence) can be quickly overwhelming. It's so BIG - where do you even start? Do I even want to deal with AI personally, let alone for my nonprofit? How safe is it, especially when we're talking about donors and our organizational data? What about those "hallucinations" you hear about? Is it already too late to start? 

​There are seemingly more questions than answers. You are not alone. 

The suggestions presented here are aimed at a basic start as surveys suggest nonprofits aren't using AI at all yet. Many tools nonprofits use or purchase have AI embedded in them. Those are topics for another day along with more advanced organization use of AI.

​Is it really worth it?
If I were writing this 6 months ago, I'd have likely said "It depends." Now I offer "Yes - with caution and training."

My nonprofit focus has always been the little guy—small nonprofits, from just getting started to finally able to afford salaried staff. This is my area of expertise. Mid-sized and larger nonprofits have been our front runners testing out AI in nonprofits and blazing trails for the nonprofit world. Even so, studies indicate while many think AI may be valuable, it's not really as heavily used in nonprofits as you may think. This recent study indicates AI is not in high use for fundraising. This survey reflects how little AI is being used in general in nonprofits at this time. 

How Do We Start?
This article by Wendy Clow offers some great ideas and a beautiful graphic for 10 steps. For the small nonprofits I assist, this is still more advanced than many are ready for. We're going to dial it back even further. For as little as AI is being utilized in nonprofits, these suggestions may be a practical path forward no matter the size of your organization. 

• Education: Learn about AI and the variety of things it can do. Start personally with your own life and uses. Hopefully more than one in your nonprofit are interested so you can share ideas to benefit your organization. Consider ways it may be useful in your nonprofit starting in small ways. There are loads of free education resources available to guide your AI literacy. I highly recommend The Artificial Intelligence Show podcast, emails, and free webinars offered by SmarterX. Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft also all offer free education in how to use their AI tools. 
• Create AI Policy: Now that you're familiar with AI and the potential for what can be done with it, your team should set some guardrails and guidelines about what's acceptable in your organization. While AI can do a lot, your nonprofit holds sensitive information about your donors, volunteers, and board members. While it's easy to wave a hand and think "it's all public knowledge anyhow" - it's not.
  • How much access will you give AI to your files? (I suggest it's very limited to a shareable file and not your full computer.)
  • Consider tools or software you may purchase, the information needed to do what you need, and their AI policies. Sharing personal information is a huge legal concern.
  • How much will your team be able to use the nonprofit AI for their personal use, and how much might they inject into the organization's system? What's acceptable and what are hard no's? 
  • Find templates: There's no reason to reinvent the wheel on this one. Do searches for a version you like that's adaptable for your organization. Community IT Innovation offers one with nonprofits in mind. 
• Identify 2-3 easy use cases: How might AI make your nonprofit time faster, better, or more efficient? Look for the easy wins to start. 
  • AI as note taker: This may make your Recording Secretary's job easier to build minutes. AI may even create a draft of your minutes using past minutes as examples. (note I said draft - human review before posting is always recommended) There are AI tools that are free or cheap, possibly built right into your smart phone, that can record conversations that can be shared with the team. (with permission, of course)
  • AI to create emails: Emails can be time intensive, especially if you feel like you're repeating yourself. You will still want some way to personalize messages before you hit "send." Your nonprofit may also need to put into words or policy what your "brand voice" is to create consistency between people in the organization, let alone to train an AI tool. 
  • AI as a thought partner: Generative AI can help you flesh out fundraising ideas, organization strategy, or event planning with generally more details in less time than you would do on your own. These chats have results more advanced than the basic "search" option but not as in depth as research assistant level. This is often very conversational by typing or voice.
  • Research assistant
    • NotebookLM: This Google tool lets you upload docs, pdfs (including entire books/manuscripts), videos, audio, slides, websites, and more to help you learn about topics with a variety of outputs - quizzes, "podcast" with two voices "interviewing" each other about the topic, and more. This is specialized in using only the materials you provide as its source material, reducing "hallucinations."
    • Deep Research: Another Google tool using Google Gemini (Google's AI system) in "Deep Research" mode. (you can select different search modes depending on your project needs) Deep thinking can use your prompts, or ask it to interview you to create a best prompt to go deep into any topic. This often returns pages of content and sources on the order of a major analytic paper. While significant content is created, it is then up to the human to confirm and validate the information and sources returned. This is often a barrier for users with big ideas but short on time to vet the information before running forward with it.

Have You Used AI in Your Nonprofit?
Love to hear how you're incorporating AI into your nonprofit or what's holding you back! Let's Chat or find me on LinkedIn or Substack!