Nonprofit Bridge

I am currently working on a project to rollout a new web site for my organization’s main fundraising initiative.  It’s been a rocky road so far, but here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1. Don’t rely on a vendor to manage your project.  Ultimately, a major challenge of successfully completing a project on time and on budget is to make sure departments within a nonprofit work together towards a common goal.  This responsibility can’t be delegated to the vendor whose product you are implementing.
2. Develop the project plan as early as possible.  While there’s a certain amount of ‘discovery’ is useful, it’s important to make sure everyone knows what the schedule is and what their tasks are to complete.  By waiting too long to create a detailed plan, stakeholders can become concerned about project progress, even if it is on / ahead of schedule.
3. In addition to regular status meetings, use smaller workgroups to achieve specific deliverables.  Include these workgroup meetings on the project plan.  By trying to involve everyone in all meetings, there will be much wasted time and it will take much longer to get things done.
4. Use a centralized place for project documentation that everyone can access, e.g. project plan, minutes of meetings, wireframes etc.  Trying to keep all stakeholders up to date through email only makes it harder for everyone to stay informed.
5. Allow enough time for quality assurance review – don’t just add it to the end of the project plan.  Testing should be done as new deliverables are completed so there is time for corrective action.
6. Pay attention if the vendor is upsetting any of our stakeholders.   You can find this out quickly based on someone’s tone during a phone call, and is best dealt with by speaking a one-on-one with the stakeholder.  This situation can result in one department either trying to take control of the project or otherwise working independently of other stakeholders.
7. Keep the project sponsor fully aware of what’s going on.  If there are problems, come up with recommendations on how things can be improved.
8. Over-communicate through a variety of channels – be careful not to rely too much on email and not on phone calls and in person conversations.
9. Especially over the summer, ask for notice when team members are taking time off.  Often staff only advise immediate boss and others in their own department when they will be out, not those in other departments.  Most online projects involve a team from multiple areas.
10. Be careful to respect the wishes of your nonprofit organization colleagues.  Acting as liaison between co-workers and the vendor can be a delicate balance, but in the end, it’s important to stay focused on meeting your co-workers’ needs during project rollout.

Have a wonderful fourth of July!  While my wife and I will be moving this month, I’ll do my best to keep blogging.

While the daily newspaper may be a dying breed, I still find reasons to read the Wall Street Journal on my daily commute.  A few interesting items from yesterday’s edition:

• Tech Giants Ramp Up Their Online Offerings – Many large technology companies have resisted the move to online applications since they are often less profitable than traditional software.  It also requires firms to incur expenses (e.g. servers) that previously were paid by customers.  Unlike installed software, revenue from online products is spread over longer time periods, but may not last if customers don’t continue to use the product.  Except for financial software (Quicken) and sometimes MS Office, I use almost all online software now, yet online software still represents a small piece of the market.  But similar to the case of online donations vs. offline contributions, the market share is increasing rapidly – online software sales are rising more than 40% annually compared with 3.4% for all software.  Ultimately, companies will have to adapt since this is what many consumers want.
• Playing Well with Others -  While this article focuses on the relationship between marketing and R&D, its principles also relate to the benefits of collaboration which I’ve discussed previously, especially important when implementing online campaigns.  For example, does your nonprofit “make sure that everybody recognizes the value that each department brings to the process – and how one side complements the other”?  In many organizations, each department has its own goals and staff are evaluated by how well those objectives are achieved.  But the most important goals usually require many areas to collaborate, something which is still not a part of many organization environments.  It’s important to “get out of your silos” and “focus on the customer.”  In nonprofits, this can easily be translated to viewing your organization as the constituent does – as one.

Finally, are you making the most of your online communications channels?  Nten offers some useful examples of organizations that are doing it right in Online Communications That Don’t Suck. If you decide to embark on a web site redesign, Tech Soup offers Tips for Designing (or Redesigning) a Nonprofit Web Site.  My tip – even though it can be challenging to get everyone to work together (see above), make sure you include all stakeholders throughout the process.  Otherwise, you’ll end up with a site that no one is really happy with.  (And don’t forget to ask real constituents to provide input and feedback, don’t just ask others in your office.)

Convio’s report The Secret of Online Success: Why Structure Matters examines how nonprofits staff for ephilanthropy.  Major themes:

1. Nonprofit organizations are resource constrained – no kidding :>).  “Insufficient staff resources” (mentioned by 90% of 60 nonprofits surveyed) is the major barrier to succeeding online, followed by “budget constraints” (64%) and “senior management not understanding the value of online marketing” (48%).  But having the right people is more important than simply having more staff.   Especially if a nonprofit only has a few people devoted to online efforts, it’s unlikely they’ll have the many skills (see below) required to manage ephilanthropy.
2. Organizational structure matters – will make a big difference on how well online strategy is implemented.  Usual options are: centralized (20% of nonprofits surveyed – all online staff in one department), decentralized (39% – spread across organization – this is model at my organization) and hybrid (41% – somewhere in middle).  While there is no one “best” model, my take is that there has to be multi-department involvement, due to the many types of expertise required for ephilanthropy implementation: strategy, web administration, creative, campaign/project management, analysis and usability.  (Usability is the skill that’s often overlooked but which can have a major impact on how effective a web site is.)
3. Not having a (Internet marketing) plan is planning to fail – Yes, but to be most effective, the online ‘plan’ needs to be integrated with offline campaigns to derive the full benefits of a multichannel strategy.
4. Structure impacts performance – A centralized group may perform best in maximizing online revenue, but a hybrid group may do better in building an email file.  I’m not sure structure matters as much as the level of collaboration that exists within an organization.  Some nonprofits have too many silos where staff prefer to work within their own department and actually avoid contact with other areas.

Convio’s report suggests we take the time to think out what type of structure makes sense in our organizations, and what types of skills may need to be brought in from outside.   It’s also valuable to think about career paths, especially where there isn’t a centralized department (traditional promotion paths may not make sense).  Sometimes in a decentralized setup, online goals may actually conflict with those of the department you’re in.   While we often fear internal reorganizations, in this case in may make sense to consider whether changes are needed so that staff can effectively work together to achieve online goals.

Convio also provides a summary of this report and will offer a webinar to discuss it later this month (I don’t see it on their web site yet but received an email invitation – please contact me if you can’t find it.)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of participating in the New York Fundraising Summit.  I joined Paul Habig of SankyNet and Luke Vander Linden of Carl Bloom Associates to discuss Online Fundraising: Harnessing Technology to Build and Maintain Relationships.  I also attended sessions on Special Events Fundraising and Direct Mail Fundraising.

Some takeaways:

• The benefits of multichannel fundraising and marketing was a major theme at multiple sessions.  While I expected my colleagues at the online fundraising presentation to present these ideas, I was pleasantly surprised to hear this mentioned prominently during the direct mail session.  When I asked why so many organizations still insist on using different staff / departments to handle different channels, it’s because direct mail has long been a dependable income stream.  But now it’s definitely best to not plan and report results from direct mail and email appeals separately
• How to introduce multichannel approaches in your organization?  Get an internal ‘champion’ or work together with a consultant / vendor that your nonprofit already trusts
• How often do you email consituents – when you have relevant content that will be of interest
• Make email appeals part of a planned campaign, not as a series of unrelated messages.
• Use an integrated calendar to plan all constituent communications in advance, not just email.
• Easiest way to secure ticket sales for a special event – include an honoree
• How much will special event attendees participate in other organization activities?  It depends on how much to cultivate them afterwards and get to know what will most attract them to participate.
• Raising money is only one goal of a special event.  Other considerations are meeting constituents, finding board members, generating publicity.  Are you willing to break even on an event to achieve other objectives?
• Segment your list!   Communicate with prospects and past donors differently.
• Looking for ways to supplement your ‘traditional’ events?   Are constituents already engaged in activity with group of devotees who might be willing to make a donation as part of that activity?

I also met Tom & Candy Zackey from Amazing Grace Africa, who described at lunch how they have 17 children, many which they’ve adopted from Liberia, a country in Africa that has been ravaged by civil war for many years.  View more details about their work.

Thanks to the Center for Nonprofit Success for sponsoring this event.

Below are excerpts at my planned presentation at next week’s NY Fundraising Summit, where I will be speaking in the session Online Fundraising: Harnessing Technology to Build and Maintain Relationships:

When developing online strategies for your nonprofit, be careful if you hear any of these ‘assurances’ from your colleagues:

• Everything is being done over the Internet, we don’t need much Information Technology staff. – Whatever vendors or products you decide to choose, you still need someone to not only select the best product for your organization’s needs, and then once it’s implemented, manage the relationship with the vendor.  Expecting any online product to just ‘work’ without some ongoing tweaking is a recipe for disaster.
• We can get a better deal if we hire web designers from overseas – While it’s a good idea to hire the best web person you can find wherever they are, be careful about basing a decision strictly on economics.  Working on a web site overhaul involves much give and take during the design and implementation process, and email isn’t always sufficient to insure that the deliverables match the goals.
• We don’t need to do a formal evaluation – I’ve worked with this person / vendor before. – What works for one nonprofit may not work for another.  In addition, making a decision based on a personal contact may backfire if that person suddenly leaves for a new opportunity.
• Vendor says we can connect our online and offline systems and they will help us to do it. – As I’ve discussed in my recent post, Reporting Across Multiple Systems, integration can be a mine field.  Beware of any vendor that says this is easy.  Ask to speak with other clients who have already connected their systems successfully – and are using the same products your organization is.
• Vendor suggests we should do things differently – Before speaking to any vendor, make sure you’ve outlined your requirements.  If you’ve done this, and the vendor questions your specifications and recommends a different approach, ask why.  Unless they can give you a satisfactory explanation – and provide alternatives that have worked well for other clients, find a different company to work with.

I will post my presentation after next week’s summit, which will take place Wed, June 3 and Thu, June 4 in New York City.  Hope to see some of you there.

If you haven’t yet seen it, take a look at the latest eNonprofit Benchmarks Study released last week where you can also listen to the recording or view slides from the May 14 event.  The report covers major ephilanthropy topics: email messaging, online fundraising, and online advocacy.  Major takeaways:

• email open and click through rates continue to decline, although less than in previous years;  but a message that is ‘opened’ may not be actually read by the constituent
• the number of online gifts and total dollars raised online continue to increase;  the increase in number of gifts helped to offset a decline in average gift from $86 to $71
• email lists continue to grow, but at a slower rates than in past studies;  almost 20% of email addresses go bad every year due to bounces or unsubscribes
• email results vary dramatically by audience sent to;  are you still making the mistake of sending everything to everyone?
• gifts of under $250 represent 97% of all gifts, yet donations of $250 or more make up 41% of revenue – don’t forget to recruit and acknowledge your major donors
• while social media gets most of the buzz lately, email clearly is still king, at least for now.

Thanks to Nten and M&R Strategic Services for updating this very useful report.  Network for Good, which continually offers wonderful guidance in online fundraising and marketing, offers Creating an Online Fundraising and Marketing Strategy to Thrive in Tough Times next Tuesday, May 26 at 1 PM EST.  Also see my previous post, Online Fundraising Strategies for Tough Times, where you can also listen to a recording of the event I moderated at the Foundation Center in NYC. earlier this year.

This week I’ve participated in the International Fundraising eConference which has demonstrated a completely new way to learn more about ephilanthropy strategies.  There is no physical location;  all sessions are online and are recorded so that if you can’t attend in person, you can watch/listen whenever it is convenient.  There are attendees from all over the world.  Online discussion boards have been created to continue a dialog beyond the sessions, which have been offered at multiple days/times this week.  While I miss the opportunity to personally meet many of my peers, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to participate at my convenience.

This morning I attended an excellent workshop on Community Fundraising led by Bryan Miller of Cancer Research UK.  He offered many examples of how we can help our supporters to help our nonprofits by engaging in their own fundraising initiatives.   In response to my question on how traditional nonprofits can maintain some level of ‘control,’  he suggested that we provide quality content to describe what our organizations are doing, which constituents can then use to ask for support.  Bryan also suggested that we seek out who’s already committed to our causes (e.g. look for your organization’s name on Facebook to find out how many pages have already been setup) and help them to use social media tools to spread the word and raise money.

Bryan also introduced the concept of crowdfunding, offering many examples of innovative event and cause specific fundraising at sites such as Kiva, Global Giving and a soon to be launched See the Difference.   Anyone can do fundraising now;  you don’t need your own web site, you don’t need strong technical skills.  In today’s difficult economic times, you can help someone save their home using Small Can Be Big. He also suggested a new focus in fundraising:

• from contact lists to communities
• from campaigns to developing strong content
• from campaign managers to community managers

Even a large retailer like Target, which has always been a large supporter of nonprofit causes, uses Facebook to help it choose which organizations to support.

The eConference continues through today but registrants will have access to the sessions and discussion boards for the next six months.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, online giving continued to increase in 2008, but at a slower percentage than in 2007.   M&R Strategic Services reports that while the average online gift has decreased, the number of online donors has gone up, more than making up the difference for most organizations.  And while online donations are still a small piece of total giving for most nonprofits, some such as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society have raising a significant portion over the Internet.  Some techniques that are most effective:

• Including deadlines in e-mail appeals
• Seeking small sums
• Combining text messages and e-mail appeals
• Asking corporate sponsors or like-minded charities to send ‘chaperoned’ e-mail messages on an organization’s behalf
• Using multiple channels, e.g. social networks, video, e-mail, and text messages

Many nonprofits (including mine) raise significant revenues through athletic events, such as walks and endurance type events.  But the Chronicle reports this too is also getting harder, encouraging us to provide lower-cost ways to participate, adding new types of events, encouraging more constituents to actively fundraise, and aggressively seeking more participants.  This article encourages us to stay positive and seek creative approaches to stay afloat.  Helping supporters to raise funds through third party events is sometimes overlooked as a further stimulus to overall fundraising.

More online fundraising tips are available from Alica McKee of Sea Change Strategies at Nonprofit Marketing Guide and the Nonprofit Blog Carnival.

During this week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, two new reports have been released:

1. Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report by Nten, Common Knowledge and The Port shows that social networking has become an integral part of nonprofits’ online strategy.  A recent Washington Post article suggested that Facebook’s popular Causes application has not been successful in fundraising in comparison with email appeals and other more traditional ways to generate donations.   But Beth Kanter points out that the value of tools like Facebook can’t be measured only in terms of money raised.  I agree – when my marketing director recently asked me for fundraising results from our Facebook page, I pointed out that generating buzz and engaging constituents in our organization is also valuable.  Beth suggests we seek a metric to measure this.
2. Idealware and Nten’s Consumer’s Guide to Low Cost Donor Management Systems suggests looking at what features you need in managing your donor relationships before reviewing specific products.  Sadly, how often do our organizations go through this type of detailed evaluation before selecting a product?  Sometimes the problem isn’t the product, it’s the processes within the nonprofit and the training (or lack of training) that is provided to staff.  Make sure your database has a way to integrate with your existing systems – see my recent post on Reporting Across Multiple Systems.

Nten has also provided a way for those of who couldn’t attend NTC this year to participate online.  Make sure you take a look at Holly’s version of Beyonce’s Single Ladies.

Many of us in the nonprofit sector aren’t as effective as we could be in interacting with our constituents because departments of our organizations aren’t working together.  Often each department will have its own agenda, and offline and online strategies are handled by different areas.

In No Constituent is an Island, Steve MacLaughlin suggests that we stop thinking about offline and online and simply treat them as different channels.  Steve offers some interesting analogies, such as how we would react if we deposited a check at our bank but its online system had no record of it, or if you bought tickets online but when you arrived at the event, the box office could not access your purchase information.

Social media guru Beth Kanter offers a similar perspective in Silos Culture Inside the Walls of Nonprofits Prevent Effective Social Media Use.  She describes the experience of a nonprofit staff member who tried to promote a social media policy within their organization, but encountered departmental turf battles.  The volunteers who had asked to start using Facebook to promote the nonprofit eventually started on their own;  the organization only became involved later.   Social media brings up even more challenges since some of us still think it deserves a place with other tools we use to interact with our supporters.

With the increasing popularity of social media, some are asking if email is on the way out, e.g. Will eMail Fundraising Die.  But just as direct mail is still effective, so is email.   These tools work best when part of an integrated strategy.  To accomplish this, our nonprofits have to change how we’ve traditionally worked.  One way to do this is to have frequent cross-deparatment projects and meetings – not long, drawn out lectures but quick updates so each area is aware of what other parts of the organization are working on.   This is why project management is so important at nonprofits to help staff across departments and locations to learn to work collaboratively.

Constituents don’t view us as different departments but as one organization.  It’s time we started to treat ourselves the same way.