Social Media & Online Giving

5 Favorite Fundraising Resources

Jessica High — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:48:22 GMT

idealware.org/You have heard lots of fundraising advice from us, but what about our personal favorite resources? Here is a list of 5 resources that we love:

1) iDonate-- This giving tool is revolutionizing fundraising for ministries. By converting non-cash donations into funds for ministries, it is an essential tool. Check out this short video which explains why it is so powerful.

2) The Treasure House-- Similar to Facebook profiles, the Treasure House provides ministry profiles that you can easily search through in order to share resources, find ways to serve, and learn who is in your area.

3) The Give Away-- The Chronicle of Philanthropy runs this blog where they post news about how people and foundations are donating. Use this resource to stay up to date so you can write the best proposals according to foundations' standards.

4) Media for Ministry-- This site offers easy videos for ministries to learn how to get set up on social media and to use it effectively.

5) Idealware-- Through this resource, ministries can learn how to manage and select the best software to operate technology effectively.

Live Simply.

Jackie Jones — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:54:21 GMT

I don’t know about you but there’s a lot of noise in my life. Not long ago, I sought to eliminate much of the advertisement related email in my inbox. I set out faithfully to unsubscribe to everything I could.

    I’m not sure what happened. My email multiplied. So much for simplicity. Particularly in this day and age, the idea of simplicity is a foreign one. This week I attended a breakout session at a conference called Soul Care for leaders. One statement particularly stood out:

    Our iPhones, iPads and constant exposure to technology is killing our souls.

Think about it. How often do those silly things buzz? How often do we delay answering? How often do I set it aside?

    Socrates said it like this: “How many things are there which I do not want?” William Law said it this way: “If you attempt to talk with a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognize what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world.”

    Indeed, I suspect that we all might say that our souls are dying for just a little bit of quiet so that we might reflect on what is true and meaningful.

--William High is the President of the National Christian Foundation Heartland. He may be reached at whigh@nationalchristian.com.

Ten Tips to Make Your Website Work for Your Donors

Bill High — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:24:17 GMT

The online world is here to stay for ministries. For that reason, it’s a good time to evaluate your website from a donor’s perspective. Here are 10 tips:

1. Be concise. Most donors are scanners. Big blocks of text scare people off. Use bullet points and small paragraphs.

2. Use pictures. Show the story. Don’t just tell it with text. Pictures produce emotions, and let your readers “feel” your mission.

3. Highlight your vision, mission and key objectives. Make sure that people know where you are going, how you are going to get there and your 3-5 mission critical activities.

4. State the problem clearly. Make sure that your donors know what problem you are trying to solve. Make sure your solution is clear as well.

5. Have a “donate” button. It’s imperative that you give people a way to help. Include cash, credit card and non cash giving options. See www.idonate.com as one non cash service option.

6. Make giving easy. No more than 2 clicks away to the donate page.

7. Give something away. The best bet: give away information. Maybe you can give away a white paper. Give them a reason to visit your site because of timely, relevant and shareable content.

8. Provide contact information for board and staff. People want to know who is involved with your organization.

9. Keep it current. Enough said.

10. Optimize your site so people can find it. Make your site easy to find with search engine optimization. SEO work doesn’t have to be costly. Use a provider from elance.com for instance.

--William F. High is the President/General Counsel of the Servant Christian Community Foundation (www.servantchristian.com). Servant’s mission is to inspire, teach and facilitate revolutionary biblical generosity. He may be reached at whigh@servantchristian.com.

Non-Cash Gifts Projected to Increase in 2010

Bill High — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:42:00 GMT

The September 9, 2010 edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that non cash donations are expected to rise as a form of year end giving.

Some of the recovery in the stock market means that some donors have appreciated stock—unlike two years ago when many only had losses. Appreciated stock is a better gift than cash because a donor can give the stock at a fair market value deduction price—assuming they’ve held the stock more than one year. Equally significant, when gifting appreciated stock, the donor pays no capital gains.

On the other hand, many donors face liquidity issues. They want to give but simply have less available cash. Some wise donors are looking at giving non cash items. These gifts include but are not limited to things like cars, trucks, boats, commercial real estate, raw ground, farm ground, rental houses, and even residential houses.

Recently, one of the charities that receives non cash gifts—iDonate.com—reported receiving an RV. iDonate regularly receives gifts of vehicles. One donor called to inquire about donating a 1967 Chevrolet—a classic car that was in mint condition. During the month of December, iDonate is expecting to receive many offers of real estate gifts as well, including residential real estate gifts.

Certainly, giving is not just about cash donations but also for donors who want to think creatively about how to support charities of their choice.

--William F. High is the President/General Counsel for the Servant Christian Community Foundation (www.servantchristian.com). Servant’s mission is to inspire, teach and facilitate revolutionary biblical generosity. He may be reached at whigh@servantchristian.com.

Online Fundraising: Resources for Ministries

Bill High — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:39:07 GMT

In this final post of our fundraising guide, I want to challenge you to investigate more online opportunities. One of the most important things you can do to sustain your ministry is have a wide fundraising base. These past posts have discussed mostly ways to connect with donors, so let's think outside of the box now.

With the rise of the Internet, you now have virtually millions of resources right after your finger-tips. However, you have to be willing to invest some time in doing a little research and think creatively. Ask other volunteers to help you out in the research process; to tell a person they are needed and valued will only strengthen your relationship.

Let me help get you started with a few thoughts:

1) Are many of your donors hurting financially?-- Here's your starting idea: Why do they have to give cash? Go online and research non-cash donations. Most of the nation's wealth is held in non-cash assets. Check out www.idonate.com This online resource can help you convert non-cash donations into funding for your ministry. They offer links that you can add into your website so that people can submit their interest in giving you a non-cash website.

2) Does your ministry need food for some of its outreach?-- It's time to pull up Google and do a little research. Check out stores in your area that sell food items, and see if you can receive food or damaged goods at a lower price. World Garden and Soup Kitchen, an organization based out of Northwest Arkansas, started off with this basic approach and has been able to cut their costs significantly by simply tapping into these many available resources. Go to www.worldgardensalads.com to learn more about their work.

3) Would it be helpful if your staff had further training?-- You don't have to spend big bucks to educate people. Instead, go online and find professionals who excel in their work. Read their materials, sign up for webinars, and pursue all the free learning you can get from there. In our next series of blogs, William High of the Servant Christian Community Foundation, will be writing to help educate you on changes needed in the fundraising process in light of the current economy. Visit www.servantchristian.com to learn more about his work. Also, if you are interested in learning more about how to find Christian foundations and write grants, check out our new book "Grants for Christian Ministries and More!"

Of course, these ideas are just the start. So how do you get started from here? Sit down at your computer or pull out a sheet of paper and write! Write out needs, questions, wants, etc. Make your priorities and then get busy with a little research. There are so many resources; it's just up to you to seek them out.

Need help along the way? Send me an email! Or find me on LinkedIn! I'd love to help connect you with many of CFG"s great resources.

Jessica High manages research and marketing at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to to faith based organizations. www.idonate.com is a website that allows ministries to receive non-cash donations online.

O.F. Part 3: Personalized Fundraising Websites

Bill High — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:19:07 GMT

When we talk about websites for fundraising, you probably are thinking of your ministry's website. However, let's flip things around and talk about setting up websites for your donors and volunteers. A recent online giving trend has people using sites such as CrowdRise, Convio, or First Giving to let their donors build their own fundraising pages to support their ministry.

Picture this: You are doing a 5K run as a fundraiser for your ministry. You have 500 people signed up, and some of them have people also sponsoring them to run. This is a decent amount of people, clearly, but let's think about how this could grow simply using personal fundraising sites.

What if when people registered for the 5K, you confirmed the registration and set them up with an online fundraising page., using one of the simple online giving software programs. With this page, one person could send it to all their email contacts, share it on Facebook, tweet the link, post it on their blog, and continually refer their friends back to it. Do you see the potential? Add in an online giving link on the page, and suddenly your ability to expland the reaches of your fundraiser goes far beyond just your registrants.

The uses of a personal fundraising site are not just limited to fundraisers. Give your faithful volunteers their own pages so that they can share it with their friends. Use the sites to capture email addresses in addition to gaining donations and increasing awareness. Get people excited about using these sites, and give them a vision for how it benefits you and them.

Online fundraising is as creative as you make it. These past posts really are just scraping the surface of basic things you already know about. Do some research. Test out a few ideas. You have the time for whatever you make time for. Dive in!

Jessica High manages marketing and research at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online. Find Jessica on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-high/23/235/477

Online Fundraising Guide

Bill High — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:34:41 GMT

The best online fundraising practices and plans of action will be included in this next series of posts. With experts’ advice in a simplified format, this guide will help you easily start or grow your online giving.

Part 1: Email Campaigns

Some people suggest that email will soon be yet another dying form of communication. However, trends do not show this at all. Rather, it is a fundamental tool to communicate with an ever on the move society. This does not mean it is the only tool, but it still is a valuable one, so let’s get started.

Step 1) Choose an email campaign service—

Unless you have access to a great email design program, it usually is best to choose an email campaign service. You can easily store all your addresses there, track statistics, send to large or specific lists easily, and create nicely designed emails. Constant Contact and MailChimp are two of the top providers. Want to see an example? Go to www.christianfoundationgrants.com and sign up for our mailing list!

Step 2) Build your database of email addresses—

You have an easy starting point with all your current contacts. However, never stop there. Utilize events and other meetings to gain email addresses. When you meet with a prospective donor, exchange business cards with them or ask if they would be interested in receiving your newsletter. Ask for email addresses on your event response cards. Convio, Inc. gives this creative tip: “At events where you will interact with a large number of constituents, […] offer a giveaway for attendees who drop in their card with their name.”

Your website is also a powerful tool for gaining sign-ups. Include a sign-up box that displays on multiple pages throughout your website. Keep the sign-up form simple and make sure people know that they can opt out at any time. Include inviting text that conveys signing up as a benefit to these people. For example: “Sign up to receive our latest updates and stories”

Step 3) Segment your lists of addresses—

Knowing your audiences is an important part of email campaigns’ success. Think about age group, supporter or volunteer, location, etc. You may often want to send different versions of the email because these different groups will want to see different things. For instance, if you have a large group of Gen Y that you interact with, you may want to customize the email to them with a catchy subject line, includes stories, and give the links to your social media. If you are emailing established donors, use a short subject line to tell them what the email is about, include a story that lets them know how their donation is being used, and keep content simple.

Come back on Monday where we will continue this series! Be sure to find Jessica on LinkedIn as well to stay connected and follow the latest CFG updates. (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-high/23/235/477)

-- Jessica High manages marketing and research at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online

Tips from 2009 Online Giving Trends

Bill High — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:39:31 GMT

The latest statistics on online giving has been released by Convio Strategies. These statistics will help you evaluate your own organization and provide insight for changes or additions to make in your online fundraising.

The key statistics from the report were:

--“ Online giving grew 14 percent despite a difficult economy. Overall, 69 percent of organizations raised more in 2009 than 2008, while 31 percent saw declines in their online fundraising.”

--“ An increase in gifts drove fundraising gains.”—92% of organizations that increased the number of gifts they received expanded their fundraising, rather than those that increased the amount of the gift.

--“ Small organizations grew fastest. Organizations with fewer than 10,000 email addresses on file […] grew online revenue by 26 percent, and gifts by 32 percent.”

--Web traffic growth was slower—“ Web traffic growth in 2009 was in the single digits at 6 percent compared with double digit growth seen in previous years.”

--“ Web traffic was strongly correlated with email file growth. 38 percent of an organization's success building large email files could be directly attributed to the amount of traffic to the organization's website.”

--“Constituents more reluctant to open emails and click through.”—The email open rate remained average, but those that clicked-through declined.

From these statistics and the complete report, several needs are made clear.

1) Your website traffic is becoming critical—More often than not, the website is the first encounter a potential donor will have with your ministry. It is also the most important tool you will have to grow your email newsletter list. Ministries that experienced a decline in traffic often were those that had shifted money to other fundraising initiatives instead of keeping the website updated.

2) Subscribers need compelling and unique reasons to provide their email address—This area certainly is becoming more difficult as the newness and excitement of email campaigns has worn off. Here it is important for subscribers to know the unique benefits to themselves by signing up. Content should be presented in a helpful, engaging manner.

3) Growing your email file size is important—You must be proactive in gaining email addresses and contact information. From events to day-to-day interactions, take advantage of your opportunities. Small organizations (those with under 10,000 email addresses in their file) experienced the most online revenue growth.

4) Develop a “sustainer or monthly giving program”—While online giving may slightly decrease with such an approach, overall revenue increased. As the key statistics showed, by having this increased number of gifts, fundraising increases. Donor retention and consistency is key to your success.

5) Email fundraising appeals must be carefully thought through—Christian ministries had one of the lowest fundraising response rates from their email campaigns. This can be attributed to many factors from an over-saturated market to poor content, but nonetheless it points to the need to evaluate.

To read the complete report, you can visit http://www.convio.com/files/2010-Benchmark-Report.pdf

Quotes and statistics taken from the report.

-- Jessica High is a Research Assistant at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online

3 Online Fundraising Helps

Bill High — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:27:52 GMT

Online fundraising has become close to a fundraising "norm" now. While this is an exciting change, it means as well that now non-profits must be innovative in how they promote and use their online fundraising tools. To utilize this way of fundraising to its fullest capacity, one must seek a variety of perspectives.

Consider a few of these perspectives:

1) Offline-- Of course this sounds strange at first, offline online fundraising?? Think about it again though. Too many people rely just on the idea that people will find their website through an online search and be compelled to donate. While this can be true, it is unhealthy to rely on promoting your website entirely online. Think offline.

An offline approach needs to be very targeted, however. Include your website & its giving options in your mailings. Put posters all through-out your community. Creating an offline awareness with people who are already semi-familiar with you is an important step. These people who you have an offline relationship with will be more likely to visit and share the website.

2) Relationships-- Think through the various groups of relationships that you have and how these people will interact with your website. For instance, maybe you have a large group of college aged people who consistently interact with the website because of the services you offer. They probably won't be donating since they are poor college students, but they still are a vital part of your network. By having tools such as Twitter or Facebook, they can become part of sharing your organization and thus bringing in those who may donate.

Look for these connections between you and groups of people, and utilize these connections to expand their power.

3) Simplicity & Clarity-- These seem like two small components, but they should not be overlooked. One of the best things you can do to increase donations is to keep your donation page and form simple and clear. Statistics show that the more information you require people to fill out, the less likely they will be to donate. After they've made a donation, make the process for them simple to receive a receipt and other necessary information for tax purposes.

--Jessica High manages research and marketing at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online

How is Your Ministry’s Website Doing?

Bill High — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:53:40 GMT

SEO, tracking metrics, or linking would not normally come up on a ministry’s list of priorities, but let’s pause a moment. Seeing how one’s website is doing and making improvements are a lot easier than one might imagine. Here is a one word solution:

Analytics.

Subscribing to a service that provides website analytics is a simple way to see who is coming to your site, why they are coming, what they are looking at, how many choose to donate, when the site is most visited, and other such valuable information. To take a tour of what Google Analytics looks like and what they provide, click here to watch their tour video.

Some quick steps to set up:

1) Choose a site (such as Google Analytics) and set up an account.

2) Enter your website’s tracking code (see your website developer if you are not sure how to get this)

3) Set up a dashboard on the analytics account where you can view the key statistics.

Once you’ve set up this account, you are ready to start looking at the data. You will want to pay attention to these tracking metrics:

--Keywords: This shows you the top search terms by which people come to your site. This helps you understand what people are looking for as they come to your site.
For instance, if you are a crisis pregnancy center, and one of the top search terms is “abortion advice,” this might tell you that your website is reaching an audience who would be interested in your services. With this information in mind, you would want to adapt your website to reach out to this audience by making your services visible, your commitment to privacy clear, etc.

--Referring Websites—These are the websites where your users come from. If you are not already in contact with these websites, they are excellent resources for you to connect with. Using the analytics, you can create a “goal” that will allow you to track how many people come from that site to your website and then accomplish that “goal” (such as clicking the Donate button)

--Most Visited Pages—This will tell you more about why people are visiting your site. Look and see how long people are staying on these pages too. Think through these statistics carefully. If people aren’t staying very long, why is that? Think about what content might need to be updated or changed. What information are they looking for? If you’re adding more content, make sure it’s centered around the needs and wants of users.

This is just a brief start to analytics, but it is a valuable resource. For more resources to help grow your ministry, be sure to visit www.christianfoundationgrants.com and check out the CFG Classroom.

-- Jessica High manages research and marketing at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online