Our Hottest Reads in 2018

| GS INSIGHTS

I have to admit it was fun going back through our blog posts of 2018 looking for those that were the most popular and re-reading them to see why they attracted so much attention!

I’d like to share with you our hottest GS Insights blog posts in 2018.

Our five most popular blog posts came from a variety of authors – some are GrantStation staff and some are guest writers. Here is the countdown and a short summary of each post.

Number Five was written by our very own Diana Holder. Diana works with our International Charitable Giving Database and writes the monthly International Insider newsletter. Her most popular blog post was Tracking Unicorns: In Search of the High Level Donor. This post talked about understanding the giving landscape, and how to research potential major donors. It was an insightful, and obviously well received post that you might want to read if you missed it!

I wrote Number Four, which was a post about the importance of debriefing if you submitted a proposal but did not receive the award. It was called You Worked So Hard – But Didn’t Get the Award. This post covered, in some depth, how to review an unsuccessful request, and steps to help you make the next proposal request better. The second half of that blog post fell within the top ten but didn’t quite make the top five. You can read it here.

Number Three was Top Eight Recommendations on How to Handle Rejection Letters written by a guest author, Jarrett Ransom. Jarrett is a self-professed “Nonprofit Nerd.” She and her company, The Rayvan Group, have been working exclusively with nonprofit organizations since 2009. Jarrett’s commitment to helping nonprofits build sustainable business models is apparent in this article. There are eight, easy to follow recommendations. It is a quick read with lots of good tips!

The Top Five Ways to Appreciate your Donors took the Number Two spot. This post was written by Terry Axelrod. Terry is the founder and CEO of Benevon, and she has more than 40 years experience in the nonprofit field. Terry cuts right to the chase with five ways to say “thank you.” 

And our Number One top read was written by GrantStation’s President, Ellen Mowrer, A Reflection on Appreciation. Ellen works with both clients and the GrantStation team in program adoption and management. In addition, she is responsible for marketing, finances, human resources, and The State of Grantseeking ™ Survey and Reports. Her post was heavily read – with lots of emails coming in from GrantStation’s partners and Members. It was the perfect way to end 2018, and move forward into 2019.

And here are a few blog posts that weren’t as heavily read but perhaps should have been!

Jill Cochran wrote a blog post called Let’s Be Social: Moving Beyond Facebook, which was read by many but didn’t quite make the top five. Jill assists in all facets of GrantStation’s internal and external marketing programs. She earned a Social Marketing Certification and maintains our social media accounts, so she knows what she’s talking about. This is a clever article full of good information. Jill also wrote Tools for the Thrifty Nonprofit: Easy Graphic Design with Canva, which just missed the top five!

We hope you all enjoyed, and learned a lot, from our blog posts in 2018.

We have a whole raft of new subjects, new guest writers, and more in store for you in 2019!