Tag Archives: Big Duck

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

You will get the best results from your email marketing campaigns if you segment your recipients, rather than sending the same messages to everyone.  Start simply here.  It’s also helpful to use audience personas to understand who you are communicating with.

Nonprofit superstar Beth Kanter has a new book coming out, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit.  If you’re in NYC, join the NYC 501 Tech Club on Oct. 11 to hear Beth and co-author KD Paine talk about how your organization can track its social media efforts.

As an update to my post on Blackbaud’s recent decision to retire Common Ground, listen to a recording of a town hall meeting which discussed many customer concerns.   Unfortunately, due to many products with similar names, distinguishing exactly which products are affected has been very confusing.  (Addendum 10-2-12 – Read this thoughtful post by ex-Blackbaud employee, Judi Sohn.)

Do you have a strategy for reaching baby boomers and seniors, two groups that are using social media in rising numbers?  This free webinar this week can help.  Also, here are some interesting statistics on the state of social media marketing and slides from a recent Big Duck presentation to help convince your nonprofit CEO that social networks aren’t just a passing fad.

Finally, if few of your posts on Twitter seem to get retweeted, try these tips.

How Well Do You Play With Others?

kids playing together by Max MayorovThis week, a friend of mine was invited for a group interview for a prospective job, but not simply to meet many staff members but where multiple candidates would be interviewed together.  While this seemed unusual, my guess is that the organization wanted to find out how well she would work with others – not only whether she had the skills to do the job.

Also this week, See3 Communications and Darim Online announced plans to merge, as detailed here.  Mergers aren’t that unusual, but I was intrigued by how Darim explained how it had consistently collaborated with other great nonprofit organizations such as Big Duck and Idealware to enable its supporters to succeed in digital communications before deciding to join with See3.

Many of us dread mergers, worrying about how it might affect our current job.  But nonprofits can do so much more by collaborating rather than by competing.  One way to get started is to explore Nonprofit Collaboration Resources at the Foundation Center.

Most of us have been in the situation of having a job fail not because we couldn’t do it, but because we didn’t work well with the existing team.  (This is why it’s so important to meet as many people as you can during the interview process.)  For nonprofits, it’s equally important to work together with other organizations with compatible missions.  After all, it’s really about serving our clients and furthering our cause;  that’s why we’re in nonprofit.

While my friend’s ‘group interview’ is a bit unorthodox, I hope she uses it as an opportunity to show how well she can ‘play with others.’  And good luck to Darim & See3!  I know people at both organizations and they’ve done great work for our community.

ePhilanthropy Highlights from eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, 501TechNYC Meeting

Attemded a webinar today highlighting the recently released 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study. authored by M&R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network.  Some interesting takeaways:

  • The average email open rate has ‘steadied’ at 14% (is this supposed to be good?) but some nonprofits get better results by segmentation, localization & personalization.
  • While mobile devices accounted for 15-20% of email opens, those who read email on phones are less likely to click thru and take action.  But it can also help if the email is formatted to look good on a small screen.  Here’s tips on how to do it.
  • The Red Cross demonstrated why segmentation doesn’t have to be difficult, identifying donors by monthly, institutional, emergency, lapsed and non-donors.
  • Monthly donors constantly outperformed other segments.  (For a great example of a nonprofit that realizes this, take a look at City Harvest Rescue Partners campaign that specifically asks for monthly gifts.)
  • While segmentation can improve email results, it will make even more of a difference if you prepare great content – as well as an engaging subject line.

Tonight I attended the monthly 501 Tech NYC get-together, which featured a capacity crowd at the NYC Foundation Center to hear takeaways from the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference.  Would you believe 10 presenters offered mini-versions of their event sessions?  Some highlights:

  • US Fund for Unicef‘s Porter Mason stressed the neglected art of AB testing – emails, web pages, social media posts and added that ‘coding links must become normal practice.’  Take a look at WhichTestWon to test your instincts on what works best.
  • Big Duck‘s Farra Trompeter (recently honored with a Community Award at the Nonprofit Tech Conference) offered an interesting flow chart approach to Is It Time to Rethink Your Website.  Important reminder – the work doesn’t end when your new website is rolled out, it’s an ongoing task.
  • Causevox‘s Rob Wu finished the evening with tips on how to tell compelling stories, e.g. don’t talk about your organization, talk about your cause and your supporters.  Also, get everyone involved – not only the marketing / communications folks.

If you weren’t able to attend today’s events, make sure you download the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study and follow our 501 Tech NYC group on Facebook to stay informed.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

Most nonprofits are on Facebook now, but fewer are using Twitter well.  Read these 24 Twitter best practices, and 8 nonprofit Twitter superstars who especially do it well, led by Charity:Water, which I highlighted in a recent post.  Also, don’t make these seven Twitter mistakes.

If you’re trying to figure out how to use content curation to benefit your cause, Beth Kanter offers this great primer as well as Content and Curation for Nonprofits on Scoop.It!  New tools such as Storify and Paper.li also offer interesting ways to consolidate great content.  (But make sure you take the time to digest content you are curating.)

Not hearing as much lately about Google Plus even though it’s now open to the public, yet I keep receiving connection notices from people I don’t recognize.  Strange.

There’s no magic bullet for how to succeed in the nonprofit sector, but thanks to Big Duck and the Taproot Foundation for offering these suggestions.

Were you able to attend the recent Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits or the Convio Summit?  Here’s some ways on how to live tweet from an event from M&R (but make sure you participate in the live discussion – some of my best insights are from Q&A that takes place at events)  Also, Frogloop offers these takeaways on What Your Nonprofit Needs to Know.

If you missed last week’s chat with Andy Goodman on story telling, you can still get the recording from Nten.  Unfortunately, Andy reminded us that many nonprofits are ‘great at what we do, but not good in talking about it.’

Finally, if you’re spending a bit too much time on social media, here’s an important reminder from Jocelyn Harmon – put your most important relationships first.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

If you missed this week’s Social Media for Nonprofits NYC event, you can get a great summary from Big Duck’s Farra Trompeter, who presented a great step by step tutorial on implementing Multi-Channel Campaigns.  (More session slides from this and past events are available here.)  See also Kivi Leroux Miller’s post highlighting Convio’s recently released Multi-Channel Marketing Report.

Coming up with strong content is the key behind any online strategy.  As I and many of my nonprofit colleagues around the country do, I try to find the most worthwhile posts to share with my followers.  Beth Kanter explains that Content Creation is Listening and Engaging, then followed up with this look at Scoop.It as a way to organize your content.

How can you make your website more ‘social’?  Debra Askanase explains how and gives several examples of nonprofits that are doing this well, and will follow up with a Nten webinar next month.

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen says you must focus on essential content when writing for mobile platforms.  If you’re new to email marketing, learn about Email Marketing 2.0, then learn how segmentation can help you to get better results.

Finally, if you’re trying to find a format to send to your management to summarize social media and results of other online activity, Beth offers this guest post highlighting the Smithsonian Institution’s in-house dashboard, then suggests using a small pilot project to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media.

 

Why Everyone is in Communications

If you’ve followed my blog for awhile, you’re probably familiar with my theme that if you work for a nonprofit, you should be involved with fundraising, even if you don’t work in Development.  In my work with nonprofits for over ten years, I’ve helped to raise money online by project managing online campaigns and have worked directly with many fundraisers.  Although I’ve usually focused on technology, in my latest gig I’ve been part of a Communications group.

This week’s post by Big Duck on Embedding Communicators in Your Nonprofit explains how the role of Communications has changed as many more staff members are now speaking publicly about their organizations in blogs and in social media platforms.  So while Communications may still be considered the ‘official’ voice for channels such as the organization’s main web site, press releases, enewsletters, annual reports etc., there are many more opportunities for staff to spread the word about their nonprofit’s work. Rather than something that needs to be ‘controlled,’ this should be viewed as an opportunity to increase an organization’s outreach.

This trend also points to the importance of developing a social media policy, which I mentioned in this post earlier this year, so nonprofit staff have guidelines on how to talk about their nonprofit both online and off.

I’ve noticed that the most successful nonprofits often have environments where staff routinely collaborate, regardless of what department they work in.  This is especially important when implementing online initiatives, which require the participation of technology, communications and development staff.  It’s no surprise that this is most easily done in smaller nonprofits, such as Charity:Water, which I recently profiled, and Harlem Academy, which this week won the main prize at the New York Times Company 2011 Nonprofit Excellence Awards.   (Congrats also to City Harvest and Sanctuary for Families who were also recognized, as well as semi-finalists City Parks Foundation, Heart of Brooklyn and NYC Outward Bound.)

Recommendation – don’t think that only Development raises funds and only Communications represents your organization to the public.  It may have been that way in the past, but not today.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

When developing a Facebook strategy, remember that your constituents don’t just want to hear about your organization.  Andrea Barry explains how she adapted Idealware’s strategy to appeal to supporters’ desire to ‘be social.’

Planning a new website?  Beaconfire reminds us to pay attention to content early, and to incorporate content into the wireframes.  Techsoup also provides this overview into the redesign process. Big Duck suggests we put someone in charge of content creation.  (Here’s my recent post on developing a content strategy.)

This week, I launched a new campaign for my organization through a combination of email marketing, website and social media strategies.  It takes a lot of coordination, but you can’t just rely on one channel to get the word out.  Read more tips on integrated marketing from Convio and EMC.

How often are you sending bulk emails?  Hopefully you have some type of communications calendar.   And don’t forget to review the statistics after your email goes out.  Is your audience actually taking the action you are encouraging them to do?  See also these ideas for email marketing to seniors.

Today is Mother’s Day.  In addition to showing your mother how much you love her, also post her picture to support a new campaign to demonstrate that our parents want to protect Medicare benefits not only for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren.

Social Media for Social Good

This week I had the pleasure of listening to a panel of social media experts at the Foundation Center’s Social Media for Social Good event.  Speakers included Renee Alexander from US Fund for Unicef, Julia C. Smith from Idealist, Farra Trompeter from Big Duck and Nten‘s Amy Sample Ward, preceded by a presentation by Small Act‘s Casey Golden.

As might be expected during an event on social media, there was an active stream on Twitter, which you can review with the #SM4SG hashtag.  Below are some highlights:

  • Mentioned several times this week and also by Danielle Brigida who recently spoke at the NYC 501 Tech Club, social media involves a lot of trial and error and experimentation.  Often you will have to try different tactics before you find what will work best with your audience.   Don’t be afraid to fail.
  • Engagement = stimulating a conversation and encouraging constituents to take action on issues.
  • Developing a social media policy for your organization will help guide your staff how to speak about your nonprofit online – look at the social media governance policy database and the social media policy generator for help.
  • Your social media policy should be a fluid, living document that is reviewed with staff and updated regularly, not in a book that is stored on a shelf.
  • On Twitter, in addition to sharing ideas from others you find worthwhile, make sure to include your own ideas too – the best Twitter streams have a mix of links, no links and original content.  See this example of a Twitter engagement formula.
  • If your management is still uncertain whether social media is worth the effort, show what your competitors are doing online to engage and build their constituent base.

Want more resources?  For a step by step process on how to use social media, download Idealware’s Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide.  For more guidance on developing a social media policy – Big Duck’s Measuring Your Impact and Creating Policies for Social Media.  And for general tips on Twitter, read Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book

Social media is sexy, but don’t forget the online basics: make sure your website and email marketing program is in place.  Social media works best when part of an overall communications strategy that includes any way you connect with your constituents, whether online or offline.  Focus not only on your organization’s programs, but on the issues which your organization (and constituents) is most focused on.

Thanks to the Foundation Center’s Vanessa Schnaidt for moderating the discussion and to social media guru Jereme Bivins (who manages the Foundation Center’s Twitter stream) for planning this event.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

I’ve long advocated using web based applications, but are we ready for a cloud operating system?  Here’s a first look at Google’s Chrome OS, planned for release next summer.  (Why not just focus on Android, which is already in wide usage on the mobile platform?)

Need help in planning a social media and online engagement strategy?  Here’s a great overview of what’s involved, thanks to Big Duck‘s Farra Trompeter.  For example, pick the channels where you have the time and resources to participate (you can’t be everywhere).

Will you join me at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in March in DC?  For a preview of some issues we’ll be discussing, Nten summarizes the best of nonprofit technology in 2010.

In social media, a key principle is to listen first.  Janet Fouts recently offered a terrific webinar on Streamlining Your Social Media Workflow , and offers this useful list of listening tools.

Only two weeks left to get out your year-end appeals.  Here’s why you need to act now, and some last minute advice, more tips on making the ask and best practices for year-end fundraising.

While this is a busy time for fundraisers, I hope you still find time to celebrate the upcoming holidays.

Report from NYC 501 Tech Club Meeting on Brandraising

At this week’s monthly NYC 501 Tech Club meeting, Sarah Durham of Big Duck offered highlights from her recently published Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications.  Here’s a few tidbits to encourage you to buy the book and to attend the upcoming Nten webinar series which begins next week:

  • Nonprofits communicate for fundraising, programs and advocacy
  • Positioning is the differentiating idea you strive to get across to target audiences
  • Personality is the feeling you want people to associate with your organization
  • Big Duck’s Brandraising strategy suggests a consistent approach to developing materials, strategies and campaigns for your organization  (best done after you have completed a strategic planning initiative)

What’s the best way to get management buy-in (for this and other types of projects)?   Take small steps, don’t push your agenda, and show how your organization’s competitors are already implementing the strategies you are advocating.

Does a Brandraising campaign would stifle staff who are accustomed to doing things in their own way?   According to Sarah, making available templates and consistent communications materials actually makes it easier for staff to do their job since they don’t have to keep recreating the basics and can apply their creativity in other ways.

How can an organization devise an approach to appeal to many diverse audiences?  Sarah recommended that a nonprofit must be willing to differentiate itself;  an approach that tries to appeal to all will ultimately fail (similar to why it’s so important to use segmentation when developing email marketing campaigns).

How can you tell when a Brandraising strategy has been successful?  When an organization’s messaging is more cohesive and staff can more easily communicate key ideas to new and existing constituents.

My favorite remark from the evening: how consultants often repeat what staff have told management all along, but the organization only pays attention when the recommendations come from a consultant.  I’ve been on both sides of the fence, and have had this experience.  The lesson for nonprofit management – ask your own people for advice before you spend money on an outside resource.   Not only will you save money, but you’ll show your staff that you value their opinions.