July 2009 Entries
We have been focusing a lot on social media this week so hopefully you have gained insight into these varying opportunities. To wrap things up, let’s pull this back to the bigger perspective and look at some of the over-arching thoughts.
1) Jump in. Now.—It is a pretty simple idea, but not enough people are catching on to this. The organizations that have had the most success with social media have been those that joined early and kept moving forward. Heather Mansfield, a blogger for Change.org, notes that “early adopters […] now more than three years later […] are recognized leaders...
posted @ Friday, July 31, 2009 1:20 PM |
By now, almost all nonprofits have seen funds drop, even as the need for their organizations' services increases. As charities are forced to make hard decisions, they may be tempted to cut their fundraising staff. However, as Giving USA’s data shows, “strong philanthropic relationships sustain giving even when donors’ assets decline.” While every organization has its unique set of circumstances, charities should carefully consider fundraising’s role and its part in keeping the organization going.
Here are a few strategies that may assist nonprofits in their fundraising endeavors:
Build an individual giving program. Studies show that 75% of all donations come from individuals....
posted @ Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:10 PM |
How people give is continuing to change rapidly. This next set of givers is being referred to as “Web 2.0 donors”. Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of web design and development. The Web 2.0 users value communication and networking. It is not a change in the Internet, but how it is being used. It is a huge change, and nonprofits need to know now how to reach this set of users.
Most nonprofits understand that social media is one of the important tools to reach this new audience. However, it is necessary to understand the people you are trying...
posted @ Wednesday, July 29, 2009 9:50 AM |
Twitter is growing which means there are many new users. It can be a very effective tool to reach groups, provide fundraising connections, and promote your organization with basic training. In order to help nonprofit organizations use Twitter, Nonprofit 2.0 has published a list of tips for first-time nonprofit users.
1) “Authenticity before marketing. Have personality. Build community.”
This first tip is absolutely critical. Twitter is not just a way of presenting a wealth of information. How you present your thoughts, links, information (etc.) provides people with a look at your personality. The traditional “marketing and development” ideas do not apply...
posted @ Monday, July 27, 2009 11:19 AM |
There are dozens of tools for social media – it seems like I hear of a new one every day. With all the options, it can be overwhelming when trying to decide what options to choose. Below are ten tools and strategies that Allyson Kapin, the editor of Care2’s blog for nonprofit professionals, suggests:
RSS Feeds – When you add an RSS feed to the blog and news sections of your website, people can subscribe to stay updated on your latest news. Google Feedburner gives visitors the option to subscribe via RSS or email.
...
posted @ Friday, July 24, 2009 3:46 PM |
Many nonprofits are looking for major gifts, so it is important to understand how wealthy donors approach online giving. The Chronicle of Philanthropy released a study at the end of March where nearly 3,500 donors were surveyed about their giving habits. The major finding of this survey showed that “charities are turning off some of their biggest donors—people who give $1,000 or more[.]”
“Most charities are not paying attention,” says Mark Rovner, president of a fundraising consulting company, “The people responsible for larger gifts need to start taking the Internet much more seriously than they have.”
The survey polled donors who made...
posted @ Thursday, July 23, 2009 9:56 AM |
Psychology and the words associated with it often convey a sense of hazy, mystical hocus-pocus. However, there is much to be learned from psychology when relating with donors and encouraging them to take action.
1) “Frame an action as preventing a loss”
People are more motivated to take action when they are preventing something from being taken away as opposed to receiving something of equal value. (For example, people will put more effort into saving $1 than they will into attempting to gain $1.) So, instead of writing, “Help ensure our children have a better future,” say, “Don’t let them take away...
posted @ Wednesday, July 22, 2009 3:30 PM |
Nonprofits are doing well in involving their boards and finding major gifts, but overall there is room for major improvement.
Adrian Sargeant, a professor of fundraising at the Center of Philanthropy at Indiana University says, “There is a whole range of things we’ve done very badly and it’s masked because people in the U.S. are very generous and getting more generous.”
Retaining donors, online giving, securing pledges, and knowing donors are some of charities weaknesses, according to Sargeant. In order to improve fundraising, charities need to focus on their donors and what matters to them rather than being caught up in finding...
posted @ Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:04 AM |
In order to maintain fundraising, nonprofits need to be continually learning. In this post, we want to help you review some important topics.
Through our blog’s history, there have been a variety of posts that people have found to be the most helpful so we want to give you the chance to review, refresh, and re-learn.
1) Online giving—With this growing sector, you need to understand some of the basic statistics and background. We wrote a post titled Statistics on Online Giving: “Convio, Sea Change Strategies, and Edge Research just released the results of their national research study on the trends of...
posted @ Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:55 AM |
I’m breaking from our normal blog postings today. While following social media is important (and I find it fascinating), and understanding the economy is a good thing, I’m going to give you a glimpse into the Christian Foundation Grants world.
I arrived at work a few minutes early today and claimed my second favorite parking spot (this spot stays shady until the afternoon sun has the audacity to move the shadows to the other side of the street). It was rather cloudy this morning, but it was a nice break from the metal-liquidizing humidity we’ve had recently.
Once inside the building,...
posted @ Tuesday, July 14, 2009 3:13 PM |
“Nonprofits could raise a lot more money if they paid closer attention to retaining their best givers over the long term, “ Todd Cohen writes.
Paying attention to your best givers involves many different actions. Adrian Sargeant, a professor at the Center of Philanthropy, says that “the single-most-important factor in determining whether givers continue to give to a particular charity is how the charity’s fundraising staff treats them.”
The organizations that stand out are the ones that go above and beyond the call to treat their donors well. There is an intrinsic need within people to be cared for, and when organizations...
posted @ Monday, July 13, 2009 10:41 AM |
You’ve all opened e-newsletters that were so long and boring that your hand cramped and your eyes glazed over before you even reached the middle of the email. You don’t want your organization to join the ranks of those who consistently have their newsletters deleted or even worse, their email provider frozen because of excessive spam reports. With that in mind, here are some tips about the length and frequency of e-newsletters.
Most nonprofit e-newsletters are too long, especially those whose organizations have just switched from print to electronic formats. In general, people do not scroll very far. They skim...
posted @ Friday, July 10, 2009 1:45 PM |
When you begin writing a grant proposal, one of the most important things you need to consider is who is reading your proposal. Tom Ahern, author of How to Write Fundraising Materials That Raise More Money, defines the four basic personality types you will encounter as amiable, expressive, skeptical, and bottom-liner.
Ahern suggests some of the best ways to appeal to these types:
Amiable—this side of people responds to faces and their stories. There is the desire to nurture and help people.
- Include photos of faces in your letters (whether these are of the person signing the letter or candid shots...
posted @ Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:04 AM |
A lot has been said about the growth of social media. However, many organizations are finding it difficult to pin down the best fundraising strategies using these tools. Facebook’s Causes application has 26 million active users, but charities are finding it hard to find much fundraising support from these users. With Twitter quickly becoming the social media of choice for organizations, people are wanting to see results.
Because Twitter is still new and being developed, charities need to employ various strategies. Twitter offers various options such as “Tweetsgiving”, which is a Twitter option for charitable causes. Twollars and Tweet4Good are also...
posted @ Monday, July 06, 2009 9:23 AM |