Tag Archives: Fundraising Day

Highlights from Fundraising Day 2012

Fundraising Day NYC 2012Friday, Jun. 8 I had the pleasure of attending AFP’s Fundraising Day in NYC.  Some takeaways – especially interesting points are in italics:

Session – Demystifying Fundraising Website Redesign

Before you get started:
  • who are your visitors?  what are they looking for?
  • how will project be shared between departments? make sure to involve development
  • do you need board support?
  • how will you accommodate mobile website visitors?
  • what CMS will you use?  (to facilitate content updates by non-technical staff)
Picking a vendor / consultant:
  • Get at least 3 proposals to your RFP.
  • Ask who you will be working with during the redesign and have them included in the vendor’s presentation.
  • Has vendor taken time to research your organization’s current website and mission?
  • Does vendor have resources and availability to meet your time requirements?
During Redesign:
  • Allow for at least six months after you decide on a vendor
  • Make sure you build a site architecture
  • Send out wireframes first in black and white so stakeholders don’t only focus on color choices
  • Consider SEO (search engine optimization) in mind when creating content and make sure keywords are in content, links, headers etc. – NOT just in metadata
  • Beware of ‘feature creep’

Session – Rapid Fire Tips and Trends on Web, Tech and Social Media

  • Target Facebook Ads to those who already ‘like’ your Facebook page
  • Coordinate your campaigns across channels and ‘tell them what you told them’ in another channel, e.g. referencing a direct mail in an email follow-up
  • Don’t assume that emails will be viewed with images - most email packages have a default of ‘off’ so you must have a message that can be understood w/o images
  • Post public thank you messages to recognize donors and to encourage online giving
  • Relate your campaign to current news / events whenever possible
  • Offer a choice for reduced email frequency in place of full opt out
  • Consider email trigger campaigns based on donor behavior, e.g. send an appeal shortly before someone usually gives

Lessons From Charity:Water

At Friday’s Fundraising Day in NYC, I had the pleasure of learning online strategy from the nonprofit that has probably done it best in recent years.  In only five years of existence, Charity:Water has used a combination of compelling content and innovative outreach strategies to build a dedicated constituent base.  Digital Director Paull Young described their approach:

  • ask supporters to ‘give up their birthdays,’ offering a great ‘experience’ in return
  • focus on ‘sharing great content,’ not on asking for money
  • ‘uncomfortable transparency’ about exactly how donations are used
  • we ‘make the campaigner the hero,’ not the organization
  • goal is to have a ten year relationship with constituents
  • 100% reliance on social media / online – no direct mail
  • exceptional video – take a look at Water Changes Everything

After his session, I congratulated Paull on his success and asked whether some of Charity:Water’s techniques could work in a larger, less nimble nonprofit.  He pointed out that he had worked primarily with larger organizations before joining Charity:Water, then added that any nonprofit could do well by paying close attention to its culture and by ‘getting people with the right skills on staff.’  In our country where the availability of clean drinking water is usually taken for granted, it’s also impressive how this organization has developed such a huge following in such a short time.

As I also heard from several speakers during the event, you get the best results by developing the relationship with constituents first before making any ask.  And as Charity:Water has demonstrated, it’s critical to stay in touch to show supporters specifically how their contributions have helped the cause.

If you weren’t able to attend the event, several session handouts are available here.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

Social media expert Beth Kanter summarizes recent studies on how to increase Facebook engagement – it’s also a great way to find out what issues your constituents are most interested in.  Beth also outlines how to set SMART social media objectives.

To better understand how multichannel marketing works, read the recent DonorCentrics report and these write-ups from Frogloop, NonprofitTimes, The Agitator and Katya Andresen.  One step in the right direction – make sure your marketing/communications and fundraising are planning campaigns together.

How much resources should your nonprofit devote to a Twitter strategy?  Here’s Pew Internet‘s latest update on who’s using Twitter.  And in addition to having a Facebook like button on your website, you can add a Twitter follow button also.  Here’s also advice on the best days/times to tweet.

If you’re using integrated software like Convio, what stops you from using the tool most effectively?  Recent options like @ConvioHelp and live chat can be helpful, but my experience shows that issues with product usability often get in the way also.  My suggestion – make sure you take the time to train your staff on an ongoing basis.

Idealware also offers its own guideline on how to allocate your time between website, email and online outreach.

Attending Fundraising Day in New York this week?  If so, please look for me there.

Notes from Fundraising Day, ePhilanthropy Symposium

I joined over 2000 colleagues who help nonprofits raise money at Fundraising Day last week.  Some takeaways:

Mark Rovner offered these tips:

  1. Ask When the Time is Right – when your organization / cause is in the news
  2. Avoid the Constant Ask
  3. Synchronize Your Channels – direct mail, email, web site
  4. Avoid ‘Soft Asks’
  5. Ask for Feedback – surveys, online focus groups
  6. Finish the Story, Close the Loop – don’t ask again after donation before informing how past donation was used
  7. Don’t Ask for the Wrong Amount – know what levels your donors have previously gave
  8. Recognize Cross Channel Behavior – many will donate online after receiving direct mail
  9. Make Sure You Thank More Than You Ask
  10. Test – Find Out For Yourself

Tom Gaffny demonstrated the value of asking for a specific amount for a specific purpose, rather than simply requesting a ‘general donation.’

A day later, I attended the ePhilanthropy Social Networking Symposium, where we debated the value of social networking tools to nonprofits.  Some highlights:

Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud‘s Director of Internet Solutions suggested that we ‘experiment first, plan later’ to make sure our organizations are represented in these new web environments.  He suggested a POST approach:

  • People - who are you targeting?
  • Objectives - what do you want to achieve?
  • Strategy - what will it look like when you’re done?
  • Technology - what tools will you use?

Philip King of Artez Interactive suggested the value of recruiting fundraisers instead of donors, and suggested that the ‘from’ line in an email will often be more important than the ‘subject’ line;  i.e. people give because of their relationship with people, not necessarily because they support the cause.  He also discussed the ‘game changing idea’ of Kiva, where people can donate without going through a nonprofit organization;  Oxfam Direct has also used this technique successfully.

To keep up with latest trends, many speakers mentioned the value of following sites such as Beth Kanter’s blog.

Tips for Online Success

  1. After sending out email blasts, are you reviewing reports to learn how many of them were actually opened and what links were clicked?  See the recently released eNonprofit Benchmarks Study
  2. Have you tried ‘microsites’ – a separate page focused on a specific event or campaign with an strong call to action – see NothingButNets.
  3. Have you created an organization presence on social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace?   See this blog posting on Best Practices for Non-Profits Using Web 2.0 and Idealware’s Should Your Organization Use Social Networking Sites.
  4. Have you looked at Barack Obama’s web site, which has changed the landscape for online fundraising and engagement?
  5. Do you get ideas from other nonprofit organizations that have done especially well in raising money online?  According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy (June 12 issue), these five organizations have raised more than 10% of their revenues online: Heifer International (28 percent), Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (27 percent),Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund (21 percent), National Multiple Sclerosis Society (15 percent), and Make-a-Wish Foundation (10 percent).
  6. Do you participate in groups, both online and off, to share success (and failure) stories?  People in Nten are always willing to help.  Don’t forget about for profit groups – I recently discovered the Internet Strategy Forum, which discusses many of the online strategy challenges that we also deal with in nonprofit.
  7. Are you too busy to leave the office occasionally for a conference, such as this week’s Fundraising Day and Social Networking Symposium in New York?  If so, you’re missing the opportunity to learn from our colleagues.

Report from Fundraising Day NYC

I joined over 1800 at last week’s Fundraising Day, sponsored by the Association of Development Professionals.   I focused on sessions covering online fundraising;  highlights are below:

  • Many nonprofits are clearly still struggling to coordinate offline and online strategies.  Per Sheeraz Haji, President of Convio, only a handful of their clients are doing this well.  Steve Birnbaum of Jacobson Consulting suggested that the challenges are often not technical but organizational, e.g. getting people to talk to each other.
  • Online fundraising continues to increase dramatically, but overall it’s still less than 1% of total fundraising revenues.  (Some large nonprofit organizations are doing much better than this, however.)
  • Harry Lynch and Paul Habig of SankyNet offered a variety of techniques to accelerate online revenues – their presentation is available online.
  • Tim Lash of International Rescue Committee offered tips on eadvocacy, and also suggested a simple three step approach currently in use by SaveDarfur.org
    1. sign a petition
    2. tell a friend
    3. donate
  • A panel with representatives of Convio, Beaconfire Consulting & Carnegie Hall reiterated the need for synchronization of offline / online efforts, as well as how to make a site visitor ‘known’ by offering multiple reasons to submit an email address.  ASPCA is particularly good at doing this.
  • Using peer to peer fundraising was also suggested since supporters will often prefer to use their own web pages for fundraising rather than an organization’s page created solely for an event or other fundraising initiative.