About Faith-Behind-Bars-and-Beyond

Constant Contact has been a big help for years for the non-profit organization for which I'm the webmaster and de facto communications officer.  Constant Contact enables us to send a variety of email messages on different topics to different lists of email addresses, and combinations of lists.  Email messages and contact data are easy to manage! ... View more

Strongly agree with JulieL34!   It is very frustrating to be deep in Constant Contact working, have the timeout kick us out, then have to navigate all the way back to where we were working.   The Constant Contact software KNOWS WHERE WE ARE at all times.  As a retired professional programmer, I assure you that it is TRIVIAL to save the state of our session when we are forcibly evicted! ... View more

Thank you for your reply, Nick.   As you know, Nick, the time limitation is imposed by Constant Contact, not Facebook.  Constant Contact imposes an additional fee when it helps facilitate Facebook ads, therefor it is Constant Contact's responsability to improve its product.  Otherwise Constant Contact adds no value.  We can simply use facebook directly for ads for any duration that we would like, from one day up to many weeks. ... View more

Constant Contact does require a learning curve, and there are some things that simply don't make sense from a professional programmer's point of view.   In the long run, the features available make Constant Contact worthwhile. ... View more

The ads which are better are the ads which work for you.  Eliminate as many variables as possible and test the same amount of $$$ on each provider.   There are many ways to determine where your website traffic is coming from.  Are you interested in Page Views, Clicks, or sales?   Google and Bing are both your friends.  Each will help you with analytics!   Good luck. ... View more

Thank you for the opportunity to review your newsletter.  You are going to find what follows harsh.  Stop reading now if you are easily hurt.   First impressions are extremely important, therefor you are receiving my first impressions first.   There is a gap in the word "February".  Not professional.   Beginning the first sentence in the first paragraph is the first-person pronoun "I".  Not a good start.  As a selfish, random reader, I don't care about how you liked watching something.  Beginning "You ...." is much better.  That puts the reader's focus on them, not you.  "... our Annual Fundraising Gala ... our organization ...." is slightly better, but still doesn't emphasize the reader.  "Your" may be better.   Oops.  The second sentence also begins with "I".  You've gotten the point by now, so I'll move on.   The second paragraph (about 2011) could have used more details about some of the people whom Nourish Now served at the shelter.  No, definitely not their names!  Making the recipients of the donations more human and deserving would help.  Kudos for the link to Panera!  That kind of mention helps donors feel good about their donationsm and is an incentive for more donations.   The third paragraph mentions a "refrigerated reefer van".  Unless you're supplying pot, the "reefer" portion is redundant.  "Reefer" in your context means "refrigerated".  A minor quibble: It is unclear whether the truck is also refrigerated.   The sentence which begins "This amazing ...." is far too long, and contains some problems.  "... as well as the hire of ..." is ungramatical.  The phrase "... needs of each of over 500 ..." needs serious editing.  By the time I got to the sentence beginning "Tickets and ...", I'd lost track of what the tickets were for.   The rest of the third paragraph also needs more emphasis on "your generiousity", "Thanks to your donations, ....", etc.   The Oxford comma is one style of punctuation.  Each editor / style guide decides whether to use the Oxford comma or not.   Oh, oh.  The paragraph beginning "Please join ..." has "... join together ...."  How else would we join?  Seperately?   "Buy Tickets" is not the best label for the call-to-action button.  Think about people's motivation to buy: Having fun, supporting a good cause, winning money (one assumes), helping to donate a specific piece of equipment, etc.   And, while we're at it, white text on thse background colors (the graphic looks like a corn cob) is hard to read.  (Squinting help you determine whether text is easy to read.)   That's all I can critique now because of time limitations.  Good luck! ... View more