What nonprofits do in these first ten days of the year will leave a lasting taste in the mouths of their supporters. Will it be the feeling of a warm hot toddy on a cool winter’s eve? Or a sip of eggnog that’s been in the fridge a week too long?
Here are three tips — two things you should do plus one idea that might intrigue your supporters, a best practice gleaned from the news publishing industry.
1. Say thank you, and do so in a way that reflects your brand. By now most nonprofits know they have a brand image, whether they choose to manage it or not. In the midst of the charitable gift acknowledgement letters that are fluttering in was this little gem, a handwritten note from Betty Cooper, development director of the American River Natural History Association, and artwork created by one of ARNHA’s little clients (click images to see full size):
Is it practical for every nonprofit to send out a handwritten note? Of course not. The point is that it is important to capture the feeling of the nonprofit’s mission. Run the organization like the responsible business that it is, but for heaven’s sake don’t sound like an accountant. (Sorry, accountants.)
2. Remind supporters what THEY accomplished by getting behind the nonprofit’s mission. I gave small amounts to over 20 nonprofits this year (due partly to journalistic curiosity about events like #ArtsDayofGiving) and I subscribe to probably a dozen nonprofit newsletters. I received TWO emails with subject lines that congratulated supporters. My favorite was an email from No Kid Hungry with the subject line, “Look what you helped do in 2013.” I don’t actually donate to No Kid Hungry — I prefer to support local food banks and closets like River City Food Bank — but I thought this was a brilliant piece, complete with video. Listen to the music. It’s anthemic. Listen to the words. They’re hopeful. You end up singing along, “We could do this all night!”
A more basic but still effective approach was taken by Appleseed, a nonprofit network of public justice centers. The subject line of its January 3 email was, “Looking back, looking ahead.” Betsy Cavendish, the president, wrote:
As we start a new year, Appleseed joins millions of Americans in reflecting on the past year and thinking about our potential for 2014. Before I get into that, I first want to thank all our supporters. As you may know, four Appleseed board members offered a $20,000 challenge grant in the waning days of 2013, matching each dollar we raised. I am delighted to report that donors rose to their challenge!
And now for the look back. My law school classmate Ken Stern wrote a powerful critique of the nonprofit sector last year, taking to task nonprofit organizations whose programs don’t work effectively. I’m glad to say that, as broad as Appleseed’s mission is, we are effective at what we’re doing. We’re not content to simply identify a problem and call it a day: we translate our research into lasting solutions. Here are some of those recent successes from the Appleseed network…
3. Look ahead. As soon as newspapers and magazines have finished their year-in-review and their best-pictures-of-2013, they’re off to the races hooking readers for the year ahead. City Arts, an arts magazine based in the Pacific Northwest, promoted its January issue with “The Future List: 12 Artists and Innovators Who Will Define 2014.” Why not a list of ideas for solutions, or program improvements, or hopes for 2014? As we start the new year, that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Hope that things will get better? A plan for change that we can support?
Driving from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. last week, my old colleague and pal Sharon Swanson (producer of the Elizabeth Spencer documentary among other career hats) and I had plenty of time to talk. About street signs like the one posted below, sure, but also about how nonprofits sometime miss the mark with events and promotions that aren’t in keeping with their brands.
This got in here because it just cracked me up
Then this little blurb caught my eye this morning, thanks to The Nonprofit Times:
Individual donors contributed about 73 percent, or $217.79 billion to nonprofits in 2011, out of a total of nearly $300 billion, according to Giving USA. Knowing your donors’ motivations can help you create more targeted asks and get more contributions to your organization. Eric John Abrahamson, Ph.D., outlined seven types of donors in his book Beyond Charity.
Communitarians give out of a sense of belonging to a community, using their gifts to reinforce collective efforts.
Devout donors are motivated by faith, adherence to religious teachings, and loyalty to religious institutions.
Investors view money as a means to create social change.
Socialites participate in philanthropy as a social activity.
Altruists see philanthropy as a way to fulfill their life purpose.
Repayers give out of a sense of gratitude.
Dynasts are born into families with deeply embedded philanthropic traditions.
Exactly. Individual donors need to be described in terms of profiles that reflect their attitudes and motivations. When I was wearing my corporate marketing hat, we called it psychographics.
So the piece at the top of this post caught my eye. I thought this membership renewal piece was downright brilliant. It appeals to the group of people who define themselves as nonconformists and 99%’ers. It is a great execution right down to the creepy charcoal illustrations, the ironic reverse psychology, and even the use of snail mail to reach an audience that uses snail mail rarely. My son will love it.
I popped over to Twitter to see if #GiveBig was being used as a hashtag for Seattle’s community-giving event since it wasn’t obviously promoted on the home page of The Seattle Foundation, host of the event. Sure enough, #GiveBig was beginning to heat up.
I immediately noticed that my alma mater, the University of Puget Sound, was tweeting about its “One of A Kind” capital and scholarship fundraising campaign. As I did with Sacramento’s Arts Day of Giving, I made a small donation to support the Loggers (yes, Loggers) and learn more about how Seattle/Tacoma is deploying technology to support charitable giving. And naturally I sniffed around a bit to see how different nonprofits were using the opportunity.
Not all tweets were created equal
Some nonprofits seemed to use their 140 character message spaces more effectively than others:
The Pike Place Market Foundation won my prize for “best Twitter voice.” Twitter messages tend to be a bit cheeky and I liked their “#GiveBig to the Pig” message (“Rachel,” the 550-lb. bronze pig statue at the Pike Place Market is a famous landmark). But I suppose it’s hard to replicate this particular tactic if you don’t have an iconic farm animal associated with your charity. However, this can be emulated: The Pike Place Market folks chose to include a shortened ow.ly link to take people right to a donation page. I noticed that other charities linked to their event profile page, which would have required one more click to donate. A small thing perhaps, but you lose “customers” with every extra click.
Some nonprofits’ messages struck me as more powerful than others. They moved beyond the obvious, such as focusing on the generic “it’s #GiveBig day” message, the opportunity for matching funds, or a few phrases about what they do (e.g. “serve 5,000+ homeless families ea yr” or “supporting girls and women”). Better examples: @ConservationNW got a little conversation going by encouraging people to list favorite animals. @MakeAWishAKWA tweeted a beautiful image they posted on Instagram.
A number of charities asked for help funding specific programs. @IslandWood tweeted: “Every gift of $25 on May 15th funds an outdoor learning adventure,” and @GenderOdyssey made an appeal for funding of a staff position: “It’s true! We want to hire a Conference Director!! There’s just one thing…” (the tweet continued with a link to a blog post about the need for paid staff help).
I know that the Arts Day of Giving folks worked hard to make sure the e-commerce site wouldn’t crash with the volume they hoped to generate, and it looks like Seattle’s behind-the-scenes e-commerce provider, ClickAndPledge, also kept up per the Tweet below:
BUT least two nonprofits posted that their website was down during the event. Nonprofits could experiencemore intense website traffic than they have experienced previously, since all of the push happens in a 24-hour period. Nonprofits: be ready!
Comparing Seattle/Tacoma and Sacramento:
There were a few things that I liked better about the way Seattle managed its Give Big event, and a few things I liked better about Sacramento’s approach:
Seattle wins:
For including the option of a survey (an embedded Survey Monkey link) that popped up right after you make a donation. It might have been a bit long (15 questions), but I liked the additional information about whether these are additional gifts if someone has given before.
For being able to process receipts that come through with the name of the organization as the sender (the email also had a pdf attachment with a printer-friendly version). The receipts lacked any kind of emotion, but the specific sender did underline the connection to the charity (and tax deductibility).
For giving people the option of donating to a stretch pool. Sacramento used matching funds from partners, but Seattle let community members continue to add to those matching funds. I thought this was a nice solution for people who wanted to participate in Give Big, but weren’t attached to a specific nonprofit.
For their use of Twitter pics, which looked great on a computer screen. I also noticed that Jimi Hendrix Park made nice use of this feature:
Arts Day of Giving wins:
For promoting Twitter more visibly on the home page of the campaign. Seattle’s Give Big folks did promote social sharing but you saw the Twitter and Facebook push after completing a donation. This shouldn’t be an either/or. It would be best to promote the Twitter hashtag on the home page and have easy next-steps on the screen that pops up after donating.
For a better way to list nonprofits. Both cities had a search field that made it easy to find a nonprofit if you knew who you wanted to donate to. But Sacramento created “buckets” — categories — of nonprofits while Seattle offered up a verrrrryyyy long directory of nonprofits. It felt like it took five minutes to find University of Puget Sound.
Should Sacramento be afraid of becoming too successful?
I stumbled across one other important bit of dialogue while kicking around the Seattle event: it may be beginning to wear out some participants. Seattle’s event, by the way, is now in its third year.
Humanosphere, which reports news and analysis of global health and the fight against poverty, noted that it “drives many people nuts” because people are getting deluged with emails from nonprofits who have their email addresses. It’s a big enough issue that a guest column by Joy Portella, a consultant formerly with Mercy Corps, was published in the Seattle Times.
Both note that the online giving event may be especially helpful to small nonprofits that simply can’t get their message to penetrate to the same degree on their own.
If people in Seattle/Tacoma are getting deluged with emails from nonprofits, it suggests to me that there is a cadre of people who are very involved in supporting the community. These people may indeed get a bit annoyed by the “cacophony” as Joy Portella put it.
But Sacramento has a long way to go to get more people to give charitably, on a par with other communities our size.
I just received an email from the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA (which if you haven’t visited, is a must on your next trip to the Pacific Northwest) inviting MOG friends to donate to help them win a shot at the “stretch pool” for GiveBig.
It’s interesting to see the evolution of incentive structures of online giving events around the country, as well as individual charities’ tactics for mobilizing friends and reaching out. The MOG landing page, by the way, is clickable and takes you right to the profile for the organization on the Seattle Foundation’s giving event website.
Here’s the email I received:
Dear Friends of MOG,
Today is, The Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG philanthropic event that will amplify the impact of your gift to Museum of Glass. Can we count on your support? Plan on rallying your friends and supporting MOG as part of our community’s biggest day of giving of the year!
GiveBIG is a community-wide, one-day online giving challenge created by The Seattle Foundation that will stretch the size of your donation to MOG. What does that mean? If MOG raises 3 percent of all the money raised through GiveBIG, then we will get 3 percent of the stretch pool. The more you give, the more of the stretch pool MOG recives.
The MOG community came out in force during the first two years of GiveBIG and rasied over $60,000 in funds. Every dollar helps and we are counting on your support!
Donate to Museum of Glass between midnight and midnight today, May 15, through MOG’s page on The Seattle Foundation’s Giving Center. Click here to donate!
Thank you in advance for GIVING BIG and supporting Museum of Glass!
As of 8 a.m. Seattle/Tacoma is over $1 million with its GiveBig event. I wonder why they’re not promoting a Twitter hashtag more (Twitter is big up in those high tech parts), but I do like how they are positioning the value of the community foundation, and the option of contributing to the stretch pool if someone doesn’t have a particular nonprofit in mind.
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Since posting last week about Arts Day of Giving, I’ve had several emails from people in the nonprofit community who are a little anxious about the impact of community-wide giving events. The emergence of these events appeals to me for two big reasons: 1) the potential to create broad awareness and sweep up people who have not been moved by individual nonprofit fundraising campaigns; and 2) the challenge, for small nonprofits, of implementing online technology that meets the expectations of younger potential donors who are accustomed to quick and easy online options for engagement.
That said, online giving events are an experiment. A couple of years back, social media theorist Clay Shirky, author of “Here Comes Everybody – The Power of Organizing without Organizations,” told a group of nonprofit leaders, “Fail informatively,” and “Start small and good, then make it bigger.”
My take on Arts Day of Giving, overall, was that it was good. But in what ways did it fail? By “fail,” I mean: were there unintended consequences? When we figure that out, we can make it better.
I posed some questions and some “please do” and “please don’t’s” in my last post about Arts Day of Giving. Based on the wisdom of the crowd – or at least a few people in my social circle – here are a few more suggestions about how to dig more deeply into the analysis of Arts Day of Giving:
1. Were there winners and losers when it comes to attracting new donors? As mentioned in my last point, the biggest worry point about an online giving event is that it would attract more existing donors who give less instead of giving additionally through this event. According to Susan Frazier of Give Local Now, 27% of those who participated in the event checked the box indicating that they were a first-time donor. While that’s encouraging, I think it’s important to delve more deeply and ask nonprofits to do some analysis.
The methodology to figure this out is tricky but here are my initial thoughts to get at not only the initial impact but the over-time dimension:
Survey participating nonprofits now asking them to determine the percentage of donors that were not previous donors. Ask further if the average donation for the known donors trended bigger, smaller or about the same. Unfortunately, not all nonprofits have the fundraising software that makes answering this question easy. (The unfancy way to do this would be to import the list of the Arts Day of Giving donors in Excel with the ADOG gift, and import or estimate the average gift into the same Excel. The ADOG gift and average gift can be summarized as Y (yes, ADOG gift was bigger) N (ADOG was not as big as average) or ND (no significant difference).
Survey participating nonprofits again after Jan. 1 asking them to determine if giving through Arts Day of Giving seemed to substitute for a gift the donor would have made at a later date. I can’t think of an easy way to do this as it requires a system of “coding” the pattern of giving. For example, donors may give monthly, once a quarter, X times a year (according to the appeal cycle of the nonprofit) or only during the holiday period. Someone will have to judge if the individual donor diverged from his or her normal pattern. (Smart people out there – what would you suggest??)
2. What promotional strategies were used by the nonprofits themselves and how did that affect attraction of new donors?
Ask participating nonprofits for a list of exactly what they did to promote the event to their own constituents, along with the distribution or views of each tactic. It’s important to understand something about the reach of the nonprofit through its own communications channels. It’s possible that nonprofits with large email lists, Facebook or Twitter followers may have been disadvantaged. If they already have their own effective channels to reach people, they may be more likely to experience cannibalization when promoting an online event. Finding out that existing donors gave to this instead of rather than in addition to does not mean that online giving events are a bad idea; it suggests that bigger nonprofits may need to support the event by targeting new likely givers through a direct mail or other channel.
3. How much did the availability of matching funds influence donating behavior? I previously wondered aloud on “Philanthrophile” if the match-kitty would be diluted over a much larger number of charities when the community-wide event rolls around in 2014. Susan Frazier responded by saying, “For starters next year will not just be the arts but the full spectrum of nonprofits. That gives us a much larger pool of donors to approach for match $$ and we also now have proof of concept that will facilitate that fundraising. We also have a year to plan so will begin the fundraising right away and be able to get into the 2014 budgets. Austin has $800,000 in match $$ for a full sector this year– we would like to look like that! However, we will also have a much larger number of nonprofits to split the $$ – hoping for a minimum of 600 with profiles on Giving Edge for next May. So the ratios are likely to stay sort of the same.”
Still, I think we need to know more about the influence of matching from donors’ perspective, especially if there is concern about cannibalization:
An online survey of Arts Day of Giving donors is the only way to learn what motivated people to give through this means. Was it because they were already loyal to a nonprofit and wanted to take advantage of matching funds? Was it because a friend recommended it (and the matching gift had no effect)?
There’s a lot to the design of an online giving event – far more than the technology. To my way of thinking Arts Day of Giving proved the potential, but there is much to be learned as we look forward to the 2014 event. Cannibalization is something to fear, but fear shouldn’t stand in the way of experimentation.
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On April 29, Sacramento held its first online fundraising blitz and generated $411,907 for ~80 arts-related organizations with programs spread across the region from Davis to Roseville, Placerville and Stockton. Even though another big local news story threatened to eclipse the attention being lavished on the event — the vote of the NBA Committee not to allow the sale of the Sacramento Kings to Seattle, posted by the Bee at about 2 p.m. — Sacramento proved it could multi-task. People tweeted about the Kings while the Arts Day of Giving continued to generate email, Facebook and Twitter traffic.
The event was a big darned deal for a number of reasons:
It brought to Sacramento a powerful piece of technology that could benefit all local nonprofits
By creating buzz for philanthropic giving, it introduced community-minded people to worthy nonprofits, many of which had a very limited public profile
Looking at the experience of other cities that have deployed similar technology, it also successfully demonstrated how much more opportunity we have. I’ll blog some thoughts soon about where we might go from here.
I decided to test the technology by making several small donations. Dead easy indeed. If you knew which organization you wanted to donate to, you used the handy search field. But what if you didn’t know and wanted to “shop” for an object of your affections? The brain trust behind Arts Day of Giving created easily-digestible categories of arts organizations from arts education to dance, music, arts education, visual art, media and more. In each of those categories, you might see as many as a dozen nonprofits. You could click on a profile and learn more about them; seeing them in a consistent, complete framework made it a cakewalk.
As you can tell from my tweet stream, I made a series of seven rapid-fire small donations between 8:05 and 8:28 p.m. At the bottom of my first purchase screen was a link to allow me to select another charity. When I selected one, all I had to do was re-enter my credit card. Within seconds, I had an email receipt in my inbox.
The reason I tweeted my donation (which I normally wouldn’t) was to help charities vie for a social media prize worth $1,000. They had to be mentioned on a public post or tweet along with the hashtag #ArtsDayofGiving.
Who benefited most?
The Leaderboard (which is still visible) allowed charities and donors to see exactly who was winning the donation race. Sacramento Ballet received almost $50,000.
My informal visual survey of the Twitter stream during the 24 hour event revealed that Sac Ballet was the most active. They may have done a bang up job of promoting the event to their members in advance of April 29, but I suspect that the event brought them new supporters, largely through Twitter. And this is strange: Sac Ballet doesn’t promote its Twitter “handle” on its website and doesn’t seem to have a Facebook page. My advance prediction was that the Crocker Art Museum would raise the most funds because of its highly public profile. After all, it’s a place — and a place has the advantage when it comes to building relationships. Drop in anytime! But the Crocker also has a big social media footprint with nearly 18,000 likes on Facebook and almost 1,000 followers on Twitter.
But in some ways I think the biggest winners were organizations with lower profiles. The technology provided them with a way to raise visibility that they never could have achieved on their own. Case in point: @DDSOorg noticed me tweeting and sent me a message thanking me for supporting the Arts Day of Giving. I looked at their Twitter profile where they turned out to be the Developmental Disabilities Service Organization which “champions the creativity & potential within the hearts & minds of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities using innovative strategies.” Then I looked them up on the Give Local Now event homepage. Then I gave.
Another surprising winner was the Sacramento Mandarins, a drum and bugle corps, which raised $16,000 from 78 donors.
Inquiring minds want to know
An event like this leaves me salivating with more questions than answers:
Did Twitter have the most impact on traffic to the event page?
What happened to traffic on nonprofits’ own websites during the event?
Did landing pages like the one on Capitol Public Radio convert traffic to Give Local Now visits?
Did nonprofits mostly find new donors, as has been the case in other cities? Or did they see old friends come back in a new way?
What were nonprofit’s best practices (IMHO) on Twitter during the event?
Why weren’t more individuals engaged (as opposed to organizational tweeters)? There were a few voices out there but some of the most active social media adherents (some of whom work for public relations agencies) didn’t seem to be involved.
Where was United Way? In some other cities they seem to have been involved in giving events like this one.
Tomorrow (I hope): Opportunity knocks! How this online giving technology could become an even better thing for Sacramento nonprofits? (And I might throw in a little about the risks – like rising administrative fees, wearing out the market with fundraising contests, or failing to let people know what happened with their donations, a leading reason that people don’t give.)
In 2011, I wrote about Washington DC’s “Give to the Max” online fundraising blitz, and I’ve been anxiously waiting for something like that to come to Sacramento. This Monday, April 29, that moment arrives as Give Local Now, the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, For Arts’ Sake, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission and the Nonprofit Resource Center bring us the Arts Day of Giving. As happy as I am for the arts organizations that will benefit, I’m even more excited about what it potentially means for all local nonprofits. I caught up with Susan Frazier of Give Local Now to learn more about the event — and the progress of Give Local Now’s efforts to energize local giving.
Let’s start with the basics: what do you want people to do on April 29?
We want them to go onto givelocalnow.com, where they will be redirected to a special giving page. The page will be up over the weekend but they won’t be able to donate until 4:29 a.m. on Monday, April 29. It’s very simple and quick to get to a list of nonprofits and pick the one you want to donate to. The page can handle 10,000 transactions a minute so it’s not going to slow down. Check out the tutorial about a minute in:
You can also help by spreading the word. Local arts organizations stand to win prizes including $1,000 for the organization that generates the most posts on Facebook and Twitter during the 24-hour-period, but posts must be public and use the hashtag #artsdayofgiving.
Is this the first 24-hour online giving event in the area that benefits a group of nonprofits?
It is. You have to have sophisticated technology in place, which we now have, thanks to the Sacramento Region Community Foundation. The next online giving event will benefit the full sector of nonprofits, in May of next year.
The Sacramento Region Community Foundation has been terrific. The amount of labor and investment that they’ve taken on has been stunning. It’s a real gift to the region. They both funded and staffed the development of the technology.
Technology is more and more important to nonprofits. What technology was required to make this online giving event possible?
We integrated two pieces of existing technology: a database and an ecommerce/campaign tool. The database comes from Guidestar; they branded it as DonorEdge but we renamed it GivingEdge. The secure ecommerce/campaign tool provides the landing page for the day, which will instantly track and display each donation and all kinds of statistics as the day goes along. You’ll be able to tell which nonprofits are getting what and how we’re doing against our goal.
The database allows donors to see really robust information about a nonprofit’s programs, financials, management and governance. We only have the arts organizations profiles now but by fall we hope to have good representation of all sectors of the local nonprofit community. While Guidestar includes all IRS-registered nonprofits, those organizations will have to choose to complete a profile for GivingEdge. The database shines a lot of light and transparency on organizations.
What do you hope will be raised for the arts?
We hope to raise as much as $500,000. We have $100,000 in matching donations from a variety of corporate sponsors and businesses and restaurants that are offering discounts or freebies to contributors who show a receipt for their donation via print out or on their smart phone. And this was just added: Bistro 33 locations are offering a 20% discount to donors and Harv’s Car Wash will provide a free wash. We’re deeply grateful for the support of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, Western Health Advantage, Wells Fargo Bank, Barry and Lynda Keller, Enlow and Mel Ose Endowment for the Arts, Safe Credit Union, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, and the Jean Runyon Endowment for the Arts Fund, which will give a cash prize of $1,767 to the arts organization that raises the most overall during the event.
Why the particular focus on the arts?
The original initiative idea came from “For Arts’ Sake,” through Mayor Kevin Johnson’s office. They thought it would be a great use of their initiative and they knew they couldn’t do it alone.
What are you hearing from local nonprofits about their fundraising success as the local economy begins to slowly improve?
I’m hearing about a slight uptick, but there’s also a lot of concern among donors. As one donor said to me, “Darn, I thought this economic downturn would get rid of some of these nonprofits.” What’s behind that is some skepticism about whether the sector has too much duplication. Nonprofits are really frustrated with that, that they may not be able to attract donors, often because of a misperception. That’s something that this database can help with. It may show that they fill a need that other nonprofits do not, or suggest opportunities for collaboration.
What’s next for Give Local Now?
We’re gearing up with a bunch of different strategies. One of them is the nonprofit capacity piece, working through the Nonprofit Resource Center to build fundraising skills of nonprofits and their Boards through training, and to make them better stewards of the resources they have. We can help them with their message about why they’re worthy to invest in, as opposed to “help us because we’re desperate.” We’ve written a grant for a series of training sessions that will bring executive directors and Boards together to help them understand fund development better – their different roles and responsibilities as well as best practice strategies.
Another focus is measurement. In September 2011, we announced three ambitious goals: to increase the regional average of households that give to charities; increase the average household contribution of households that give; and increase the share of giving that stays here in the area vs. benefiting national or international charities. To help us track progress, we’re developing a set of measures using nonprofit partners’ results as the data source. But first, we need to get local nonprofits on the GivingEdge tool.
The third thing we’re doing is developing a whole suite of new tools that will help local nonprofits connect with donors. We are changing out the website to have a lot more donor tools on it, and to enable donors to get a lot more information about local nonprofits.
The fourth strategy is just an awareness and outreach strategy, with an underlying idea of building regional pride. If information about the cool things that are happening here were more broadly known, there would be a greater sense of pride in philanthropy.
What are some of the cool things you’re seeing?
One example is “Reason to Party,” which organizes events benefiting a cause they select as a way for 20-somethings to have fun and donate. It’s pretty inspiring. Another is the El Dorado Giving Circle, a group of several hundred women in the foothills who contribute individually and pool their donations to make an impact on a cause they select together. The Metro Chamber’s Project Inspire is another innovative way approach to philanthropy, where anyone who donates $250 or more can participate in supporting an exciting project benefiting the Sacramento area community.
Any parting words?
There’s nothing static about Give Local Now. New ideas come in everyday. I really see it as a snowball rolling down hill that’s picking up pieces as it goes. It’s a catalyst. We’re starting to attract people that can see this as a vehicle for change.
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Did you see this item from the Association of Fundraising Professionals?
A majority of charities surveyed saw their fundraising revenue remain stable or increase last year, according to the 2010 Year-End Survey of the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (NRC), a coalition of six fundraising and philanthropic organizations.
The survey also showed that strong fundraising results were more likely when organizations invested resources in fundraising staff and infrastructure, including volunteer management.
The study asked about two key measures of fundraising — the percentage of organizations reaching their fundraising goals and the percentage of charities raising more funds in one year compared to the previous year. In the NRC survey regarding 2010, just 52 percent of organizations reported reaching their fundraising goals that year. In a survey conducted by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP, a member of the NRC) regarding 2009, 53 percent of charities reported meeting their yearly fundraising goals that year.
In addition, the percentage of organizations raising more money in 2010 compared to 2009 was 43 percent, the same percentage found in the previous survey when respondents were asked if they raised more money in 2009 compared to 2008.
The significant shift was in the percentage of organizations raising about the same amount of money in 2010 compared to 2009. Twenty-four percent saw stable amounts of giving in 2010, compared to just 11 percent at the end of the year in 2009. At the same time, the percentage of respondents raising fewer funds dropped from year-end 2009 (46 percent) to year-end 2010 (33 percent).
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I found it useful on a couple of fronts. First, it helped me to understand more clearly what were tools for using social media, and what were the actual channels where two-way (or every-which-way) communication was taking place. Secondly, it gave communicators and marketers a birds-eye view of the huge range of stuff in the social media bucket so that they could identify aspects they needed to check out and understand.
It proved to be useful during a conversation last week — or, it would have been if it had been up to date. Things have changed!
As I begin working on the updated taxonomy, I’m turning to one of my favorite (and most prolific) sources: Beth’s Blog. Beth Kanter’s material is always provocative and current. Search for tagged content, and you’re bound to find posts that will be informative and helpful. But she writes so much and so consistently that her blog is actually a great research source.
Besides thinking about specific tools or media that I might add to the taxonomy, it struck me that several forces are driving change in the evolution of social media:
Technology innovation: Geo-locational technology is starting to have an effect on communications, community-building and fundraising. The adoption of mobile devices such as iphones and ipads also opens up possibilities to connect, converse and fundraise.
Social changes: It would take a sociologist or anthropologist to tell us why, but, despite the recession, there is a group of people who have been activated to try to make a difference in a very personal way. Terms like “citizen philanthropy,” “peer-to-peer fundraising,” “individually-based fundraising,” “fundraising communities,” “charity chains,” are some of the labels that are being used for this phenomenon. Closely related is “crowd sourcing,” efforts that encourage people to find and share stories. And, in a tactic that may be rooted in the social appetite for celebrity as well as competitive spirit, “vote for me” or “vote for my cause” contests have provided the impetus for millions of people to reach out to their network of friends and ask them to get involved. Lastly, some people speculate that social expectations of charities is undergoing change. Beth Kanter, in a nod to Peter Dietz, founder of SocialActions, commented: donors in an age of social media, will come to your organization with the expectation of being full partners in your work, not just an ATM machine to be tapped when cash is needed.
Business model changes: We all know there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but many social media enterprises have lacked a means of raising adequate revenue to cover expenses. Ning, a tool for creating like-minded groups, ended its free lunch earlier this year, affecting many schools and non-profits who had relied upon it as a platform for community-building. Some new social media approaches involve a trade that solves the business model problem: you give me something valuable (like your shopping data), and I’ll do something you value (like give money to a charitable cause).
I’ll be revisiting my social media taxonomy to figure out where these specific tools or examples fit:
Green Map marries crowd sourcing with mapping technology and lets eco-minded folks co-create a map of eco-friendly spots. (Sacramento Tree Foundation, be thinking about this!)
CauseWorld uses geo-location technology to arrange an exchange between merchants and cause-minded shoppers; karma points are earned by shoppers when they walk into stores, which the merchant converts into donations to a cause.
Zoetica is collecting tons of information about causes and making it available via an itunes app. If you’re familiar with mashable.com (which I love), it’s kind of like mashable on itunes. What’s social about it is how people share and comment on the content.
Then there’s a bunch of tools that support peer-to-peer fundraising: Ammado, firstgiving, SocialAction (and MySocialAction).
Facebook is now the 800-lb. gorilla. Though it’s not a reality yet, here’s the backlash product I’ve been watching for, Diaspora, a Faceb00k-like tool that puts you in control of the privacy of your data. An article about it is the headline on mashable.com as I write this.
In a small non-profit, every penny (and minute) counts (unomike2/flickr via CC license)
Large organizations typically have highly developed dashboard metrics and formats for evaluating the results of key operating divisions and staff functions. Small non-profits often have no history of formally documenting results of fundraising and marketing activities, yet you could argue that it is even more important for them to take stock because they can’t afford to waste a dime or a minute.
Evaluation doesn’t have to be complicated. If you did a formal fundraising or marketing plan (good for you!), report out based on the quantitative goals that you established in the plan. If your organization is more used to using the budget as its primary management tool, you should still create a framework for evaluating what you did and how it worked.
1. Start with the BIGGIE. What was the fundraising goal and was it achieved? How much over or under were you compared to last year in total dollars? What was the total percent increase or decrease compared to prior year?
2. Analyze important variances within your program. For example, you may have had financial goals for five or ten tactical subcategories such as events, direct mail programs and so on. Did they beat or fall short of expectations? Did these subcategories grow or decrease from the year prior?
3. Analyze important variances by segment. You may also have established particular fundraising goals for categories of donors such as demographic groups (young donors), giving level (major individual gift givers) or organization type (individual vs. business). Were you over or under goal? By how much?
4. If you established leading indicators to help you know whether activity was moving in the right or wrong direction (for example, increase or decrease in mailing list size, friends on Facebook, event attendance, etc.), take a look at where you started and ended the year. Did things play out the way you expected? How do your results compare to benchmarks, where they exist?
5. List and subjectively grade all of the tactics that you spent time or money upon. Your plan may only have included major new initiatives, but for this purpose, you should give some conscious thought to everything that absorbs staff resources or costs the organization out of pocket for purposes of fund development and communications. Do you believe they are integral to the success of your program, or are you keeping some tactics around that are no longer adding sufficient value? One fund development manager recently evaluated all of the tactics she implemented according to this grading system:
In hindsight, was this strategy a good use of our time based on a) return on investment of time, b) return on investment of money, and c) whether it raised awareness with a significant new audience? An “A” rating means it met all three criteria. “B” means it fell short in one area. “C” means it fell short in two areas. “D” means it was not a good use of time. “F” means we should not repeat this strategy next year.
6. Lastly, capture lessons learned. In the current economic environment, there is no such thing as a sure fire approach. Everything is an experiment. What worked as well or better than expected? What didn’t work as well as it has in the past, or as well as you expected?
Being “planful”, as an old colleague of mine used to put it, is an important discipline in any business. Small non-profits may think that they don’t need to get all caught up in the exercise of evaluation. But, with finite resources and volunteer good will, I’d argue that evaluation and basic planning is even more important than it is for large organizations. Your evaluation becomes the impetus for a smarter, better program in the year ahead.
Who should see it? Small non-profit boards should be asking for an evaluation of the year’s fund development and marketing efforts. Even if they’re not, providing a 1-2 page executive summary can be an extremely helpful tool to educate the Board and frame the right kind of dialogue. Like, dear Ms. Board member, how can you personally help introduce us to major donors next year??
P.S. Did you know that Google has over 3 million hits for “marketing evaluation template” but only less than 200,000 hits for “fund development evaluation template” or “fundraising evaluation template”?
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Betsy Stone's The Philanthrophile 