Nonprofit Bridge

I attended a recent event at the Foundation Center to help organizations who are just getting started with online fundraising.  Cristine Cronin, President of NY Charities offered a summary of e-giving strategies:

1. Use web site as core component of all organization efforts
2. Integrate offline and online messaging
3. Use your URL everywhere: stationery, newsletters, business cards, signatures etc.
4. Put a donations button on every page of your web site
5. Continually seek more email addresses
6. Use email marketing for donor / volunteer communications and advocacy
7. Use enewsletters to keep constituency informed
8. Encourage core followers to use viral marketing strategies
9. Promote both online and offline advocacy opportunities

Many large organizations are well aware of these recommendations, but few are consistently able to apply them, especially #2 – making sure that constituents receive a consistent message through online and offline communications.  The overflow attendance at the Foundation Center event demonstrated that many smaller and mid sized nonprofits are still very much behind the curve.  NY Charities and other vendors mentioned at the event such as Network for Goodand JustGive offer easy ways to get started.  There’s no reason for any nonprofit, no matter what it’s size, not to be developing ephilanthropy strategies.

Why do people give?  I found these ideas on a blog post entitled Fundraising 101:

• They believe you are making a difference in a cause they care about.
• They value your work
• They see it as an investment
• They get something in return
• They feel good about themselves
• Returning a favor
• Solving a problem
• Sending a message
• Receiving quality information
• Aligning with peers
• Bringing justice to the world

To encourage constituents to support our organizations, we need to appeal to one or several of these motivators.  A compelling story with a rationale of why the donation is needed will show better results will always show better results than a general appeal.

At the quarterly Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table meeting this week, I initiated a discussion on social networking, stimulated by Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article, A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy. In addition to the popular MySpace and Facebook sites, the article mentioned many new ways in which our supporters are finding to raise money for their favorite causes.

David Milner, who has run the webmaster group for several years, raised an interesting question.  If pages are created on these new sites and successfully generate interest in the organization, this will hopefully increase traffic to the nonprofit’s main web site.  But if the nonprofit maintains the MySpace and Facebook sites while neglecting its own web site, how will this come across to the constituent?  I also asked – how does the nonprofit decide which content to put on these sites while making sure there is consistency with its own web site?

The social networking sites present an interesting opportunity for us to engage a new audience.  It is likely that visitors will seek out an organization on these new networks before visiting an organization’s main web site.  So we’ll need to make sure that our nonprofits have a presence on these new sites while also keeping our own web sites fresh.  This will be a challenge, but it’s easier to go where our constituents are than hope that they’ll find our organization web sites.

In addition to MySpace Impact and Facebook’s Causes, other sites mentioned in the article that are attracting interest especially among younger constituents include Change.org, DoSomething, Firstgiving, GiveMeaning, Kiva and SixDegrees.

Carie Lewis, Internet Marketing Manager at the Humane Society recently blogged about her organization’s success in using Facebook on Wild Apricot’s non-profit technology blog.  Major points:

• Through collaboration with Project Agape, which runs the Facebook Causes application, they’ve had success in connecting with constituents who are active in other nonprofit organizations with similar missions
• MySpace or Facebook?  Although it’s a bit early to know for sure, so far they’ve had more success with fundraising on Facebook and advocacy on MySpace.
• In addition to Facebook Causes, they’ve also participated in applications available at Change.org and Care2

Many specific suggestions in getting the most in engaging constituents through Facebook are in the blog posting, Using Facebook to Spread Your Message.

An interview with Project Agape staff about Causes Facebook is available on the Non-Profit Tech Blog.  Causes has raised over $300,000 in only a few months of operation!

Since my current organization has used Kintera since January 2005, I eagerly signed up for yesterday’s Nten conference call with Scott Crowder, who joined the firm as Chief Technology Officer earlier this year.  Although I’ve raised nearly $7 million in online fundraising revenues, working with Kintera has been a challenge, especially when trying to integrate with Raiser’s Edge, our offline fundraising software.

In addition to Scott’s arrival, Kintera also hired a new Chief Executive earlier this year, Richard LaBarbera, replacing the firm’s founder who had long held the position.  Recently, Kintera announced a new initiative - Kintera Connectwhich promised a new approach to integrating with other systems, a complete reversal from Kintera’s past strategy.  However, when few details of this program were available, I feared this was mostly talk with little substance.

By agreeing to do yesterday’s call, Scott made himself available for questions by the entire Nten community.  Although Kintera Connect was a main topic, he also addressed many other issues including one that Kintera has always sought to bury – the company’s financial viability.  After detailing many new technical initiatives currently in process, Scott described the firm’s goal of reaching profitability later this year and that they are “almost there now.”

Scott also described how Kintera no longer wants to do “everything for everybody,’ which has led to it having a product which tries to do too many things, not all which it does well.  By opening up to tie in with other systems, Kintera seems to now realize that it must focus on its strengths: e.g. CRM, CMS, advocacy, and leave the rest to others.

Other announcements included:

1. implementation of Akamai technology to enhance performance
2. data center migration
3. sharp increase in capacity to send mass emails
4. enhanced CMS, replacing current system

Although I’ve often been a critic of Kintera in the past, this conference call shows that the new management at Kintera is determined to set things right.  I’ll wait and see if the results equal the promise, but Scott’s willingness to talk openly is a promising sign.  A recording of the conference call is available at Nten’s site.

A recent article in Philanthropy Journal described how nonprofits are using new media to engage constituents.  Major points:

• delivering information to cell phones will become increasingly popular
• using available web technology instead of ‘custom’ applications for needs that are not really unique
• through web based products, nonprofits now have access to the same technology as for-profits
• social network / viral fundraising can be done by allowing constituents to promote causes on their own web pages
• even small nonprofits can reach a large audience through technologies such as YouTube
• nonprofit staff responsible for information technology, communications and marketing tend to drive their organizations’ social-network campaigns rather than traditional ‘fundraising’ staff

Overall, while the tried and true ways to raise money and engage constituents still have value, it is the nonprofits that take advantage of the new strategies that will benefit the most.  Katrin Verclas, leader of the Nonprofit Technology Network which I’ve been involved in for years, says that organizations need to “learn to adapt to ways in which people are now expecting to participate.”

I think the most interesting observation is that fundraising is now a joint effort of multiple departments, not just the ‘development’ staff.  As a current member of an IT group who spends most of my time advising staff on how to do online fundraising, this is clearly a valuable direction for nonprofits that are still relying on more ‘traditional’ techniques.

While coming back from lunch today, I met a staff member from our finance department in the elevator.  Our office is setup in a way that finance and the president’s office are on one side of the floor and everyone else is on the other side.  I asked her if she liked being apart from most of the other staff members.  At first she said no, but on second thought she said she enjoyed the privacy and being able to focus on her work.

About a year ago, my organization decided to invest in a new accounting package that would be more compatible with our fundraising software.  It was a difficult transition, but now we have data flowing from one system into the other.  Yet at most companies where I’ve worked, the fundraising and finance systems have been totally separate.

During a webinar today, I was reminded of the benefits of integrating traditional direct marketing and online fundraising.  Yet these functions are often handled by different departments that each have their own agenda.  ‘Dual channel’ donors usually give more frequently than those who receive only offline or online marketing.  Yet few organizations have been successful in developing a truly coordinated strategy.

I used to think that doing my work well and pleasing my direct supervisor was enough to succeed.  Now I realize that it is just as important to play well with others.  While it’s good to be friendly with co-workers, it’s also important to work together with those in other departments, since most worthwhile projects require everyone’s contribution.  So for my organization’s finance department staff, being ’separate’ may be a mixed blessing.