Attended a very informative session yesterday by Katya Andresen of Network for Good on Cultivating Donors Online.  What was particularly helpful was her citing of specific nonprofit sites as examples of what she discussed, such as Make a Wish Foundation for overall fundraising expertise and MercyCorps as a model of how to recruit monthly donors.  Some major points covered:

• Organization home page should not be an ‘About Us’ page – it should be about ways to engage your constituents
• People give most frequently at year-end and in response to crises.  An appeal sent out between Christmas and New Years can be particularly effective
• It’s best to limit appeals for donations to 2-3 times / year.  However, there should be many more communications used to thank constituents and tell them how their contributions have made a difference (not asking for money)
• Three groups of people visit nonprofit web sites:
  • those ready to act now – make it very simple for someone to donate now
  • those interested, but not yet ready to take action – encourage email address submission (and explain why it will be in their interest to do so – most of us already get more email than we can handle)
  • those who just want information now but who may become donors later – make it easy to locate what they need
• Send out multiple version of email appeals to see what works
• Segment your database (an issue I’ve heard mentioned at many other seminars) – use simple criteria at first, such as who has attended certain types of events or who have been referred by specific sources
• Instead of organizing web site by departments of organization, organize by what types of information visitors are most often searching for
• ‘We need money’ isn’t enough of a message to attract donors
• Use Google Alerts and Technorati to keep current with what others are saying about your organization and main areas of focus and to find people who are passionate about your cause

Katya was cited in Fundraising Success Magazine for her expertise in online fundraising, and this presentation showed why.  I would highly recommend this session, which is being offered again next week.  Details on are at fundraising123.org