Nonprofit Bridge

In her book Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age, Allison Fine asks organizations how well they are handling a new era in online communications:

• Do other people and organizations trust you and your organization? How do you know? How can you increase and strengthen that trust?

• Are you reaching out to new people and organizations to learn with and from them? Do you approach networking as an opportunity to push out your “brand,” or to strengthen a connection with others?

• Do you support and celebrate your alumni and other ambassadors to other groups and communities?

• What information are you sharing with the world? Are there other kinds of information that you could share?

• Are your Web site and other communication vehicles inviting to strangers? Can anyone looking at your information figure out who you are? Which individuals are key?

• Do your materials (your Web site, brochures, plans, proposals, reports) use words that people understand, or language that says that your organization is made up of really smart people?

• Do you think of questions from outsiders as time-suckers that need to be answered, or as the beginning of a conversation?

• Do you ever introduce people for no other reason than the fact that they should know one another? Does that include introducing collegial organizations to potential funders? What are you expecting in return for these introductions?

• Do your participants ever talk to one another about your endeavor without your prompting?

• Can you help your volunteers start their own conversations, have their own meetings, and develop strategies to support your efforts?

• Do you celebrate achievements by other organizations in your network?

• Do your participants (board members, volunteers, clients, collegial organizations) watch you make plans or help you to make them?

In a related article on the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Ms. Fine says: “Today, nonprofit groups are part of a larger network or ecosystem of people, organizations, resources, and information. Relying on old-fashioned, top-down management approaches for setting activist agendas and designing fund-raising and volunteering efforts will lead inevitably to disappointing results.”

How well does your organization meet these challenges?.

The SPIN Project provides a online communications tutorial that offers many suggestions how nonprofits can develop online communications strategies.  Most organizations begin by focusing on their web site, email newsletter, and creating donation forms to provide online fundraising.  But many additional tools are suggested:

• blogs.- can you provide useful content while keeping it current?
• surveys - find out what your constituents are concerned about with a low cost tool such as Survey Monkey
• podcasts - audio or video – can require a “significant investment” of time to create and maintain
• message boards - can be moderated so that content submissions are reviewed before posting
• photography - use a service like Flickr to share images of organization events / activities
• commerce - but how will you handle order fulfillment and deciding what merchandise to sell?

How can you enhance your online fundraising strategies?  Fundraising Success provides many tips.

Whether or not you’re a customer of Convio, you can access resources covering online fundraising, integrated marketing, email marketing and online advocacy.

Finally, for a one page summary of many prominent nonprofit web sites, try Alltop’s Nonprofit page.  You can preview the content by just mousing over the title to decide if it’s worth clicking through to read the full story.

mStoner provides an interesting look at How Donors Use the Internet.  Interestingly, success of a nonprofit’s web site can’t only be judged by the level of online donations, since many visitors will check out an organization online but continue to give offline.

Nonprofit Times reviews a study which discusses the value of email addresses: Get an Email Address, Generate Income, as well as other trends in online giving.

Association of Fundraising Professionals discusses a survey that suggests that Integrated Fundraising Activities (are a) Key to Success and that using a variety of approaches is best, although reminds us that developing relationships and major gifts are still critical components..

Finally, the blog A Small Change suggests that fundraising no longer needs to be restricted by geography in Fundraising Without Borders.