Nonprofit Bridge

No one knows more about usability than Jakob Nielsen;  he recently tested nonprofit web sites and found that much can be done to optimize online giving.  Major points:

1. nonprofit web sites are good at attracting new donations but less so in ’sustaining long term donor relationships’
2. potential donors primarily want information on the organization’s mission, objectives and work as well as how it uses donations but few nonprofits provide this information prominently on their home page, where many constituents begin (and may end) their research
3. donations are discouraged by usability problems relating to page /site design and by poor content not optimized for the web

Not to my surprise, Jakob also mentioned how poorly large affiliate based organizations integrate national web sites with local chapter sites, saying that most looked ‘completely different’ from the main web pages.  At my organization, we provide templates to insure some level of consistency, but there still isn’t enough coordination to insure consistency with our national site.

This report shows the value of doing actual user testing, not just asking others in your nonprofit what they think users want.  Don’t wait until you’re ready to do a full web site redesign, which for many of us may not happen very often.  Use inexpensive tools such as 4Q and SurveyMonkey to learn how your web site can be improved.

Jakob’s full report is available here.

The recently released donorCentrics™ Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis offers many interesting insights about online giving.   Steve MacLaughlin’s blog offers  a good summary of its major findings.  My comments are below:

• online giving continued to grow rapidly in 2007 & 2008, even though there were fewer natural disasters which stimulated past years’ contributions – many of us take this for granted, but online giving is still relatively small compared to direct mail giving.
• online donors give larger gifts than ‘traditional’ donors but have slightly lower retention rates – why are we losing donors’ loyalty?  Is it too easy to opt out of email communications?
• while online giving is an important source for new donor acquisition, online donors may not be cultivated to their full potential after acquisition – this is an important point;  using a ‘welcome series’ of communications works much better than simply adding someone to an email newsletter list.
• online donors often migrate to other channels, especially direct mail – I’ve long advocated the value of multichannel marketing, but it’s still interesting to find out that many will start online than give offline.  When I asked long term fundraising expert Michael Johnston recently to predict how much longer direct mail would survive, he confirmed that it would be quite a while yet.
• direct mail donors rarely give online – so while online donors will go offline, offline donors usually won’t contribute online?  This was a surprise for me.

Twenty-four nonprofit organizations participated in this study, released by Target Analytics.  Interestingly, the headline of a NY Times article summarizing the study read Study Shows First-Time Online Donors Often Do Not Return. Clearly, we’re still figuring out what works but CARE’s Tobias Smith offered an interesting perspective, suggesting that we be “less worried about what channels donors use and offer them a variety of channels through which they can give.”  So if anyone tells you to focus only your efforts online when seeking new constituents, remind them that it’s too early to phase out traditional methods, such as direct mail.  Personally, I rarely pay much attention to direct mail, but many of our supporters still do.

(This is an expanded version of my 9/12/08 post)

For over four years, I’ve helped my nonprofit organization to develop and manage online fundraising and marketing initiatives to generate over $15 million in revenues using two leading nonprofit vendors.

How do you know which product is right for you?

1. Before arranging for vendor presentations, decide which applications are most important to you. While it is helpful to work with a firm that can handle multiple needs, e.g. online events, email marketing, content management, usually a vendor that tries to do ‘everything’ will have some modules that are great but others that are mediocre.  If online fundraising is your primary goal, select products that focus on this objective.

2. Does the vendor take the time to listen to your needs before recommending solutions?

3. Can the vendor implement within your timeframe?  A consulting firm once walked away from potential work because they didn’t feel comfortable about meeting our deadline.  It’s much better to find this out before you get started then when it’s too late to change course.

4. Do you plan to integrate data with an offline fundraising database that you already use? Integration can be a very time consuming task;  make sure the vendor has successfully completed integration projects with other clients which use the same software as your nonprofit.

5. Find out who will project manage your implementation.  You want someone who is well versed with the applications you will be using and who is able to arrange the resources you need to get the project done on time and on budget.  Ask to interview this person early or ask to speak with other clients who have recently worked with him/her.

Once you pick a product, how can you maintain a successful relationship with your vendor?

1. Take advantage of any training that is available to learn the product.  This enables you to deal with issues more quickly and allows you to more effectively work with support staff

2. Develop a rapport with your account / project manager or whoever handles your relationship.  This includes asking not only how the vendor can help you, but includes what your responsibilities are in using the product and dealing with the vendor’s staff.

3. Document problems online, ideally with a support system that can be accessed by both nonprofit staff and vendor support staff.  If your vendor doesn’t provide this, use your own tracking system, and, if possible, make it available to the vendor.

4. Be respectful about prioritizing issues.  If a problem is affecting a major application and / or many of your co-workers, make sure the vendor knows this and use escalation procedures.  (Make sure you specifically ask about how to escalate issues.)  If you make every problem into an ‘emergency,’ then nothing will be treated as a high priority.

5. When rolling out a new application, be sure to test exhaustively.  This includes filling out and submitting all forms, reviewing auto replies and testing different scenarios.  Make sure the vendor has a ‘test drive’ mechanism available.

6. Consult with other nonprofits that are using the product and take advantage of any online forums (either promoted by the vendor or not) to learn from others and share your own experiences.

7. Avoid criticizing your vendor to internal staff.  Even if you’re feeling frustrated on a particular day, don’t vent to your co-workers;  you want them to feel positively about the product you’ve selected despite any occasional glitches that come up.

8. Regardless which area you work in, make sure that multiple departments within your organization have access to the vendor’s support staff, and are kept updated on status of your implementation.

9. Be aware of when system upgrades will be performed, and how your applications will be affected.  Make sure you’re notified well in advance of planned enhancements or product fixes.

10 .For optimal results, approach your relationship as a partnership.  While it’s important to be clear what is expected from the vendor, you also need to be able to devote time of your organization’s staff to learn and work with the application.  Rather than looking for ways to blame the other party when things go wrong, instead focus on how you can find a quick resolution and minimize inconvenience to your constituents.

With the recent doom and gloom in financial markets, reading the Wall Street Journal has often been depressing lately as the bad news accumulates. At a staff meeting at my nonprofit organization lately, while our president tried to put a positive spin on our prospects even though we had to lay off staff earlier this year, as have many other large nonprofits across the US. I find myself working longer hours to keep my work current, as are most of my colleagues. With our savings seeming to decline each day, how can we avoid negativity?

In the same Wall Street Journal that has documented the financial crisis was an article this week From Attitude to Gratitude: This Is No Time for Complaints.   Despite the abundance of bad news, many of us who still have our jobs are “finding reasons to be appreciative.”  As has happened in my nonprofit, we’re being asked to take unpaid furloughs to avoid larger cutbacks.   We’re also feeling grateful that we still have our jobs (many others don’t) and are “finding reasons to be appreciative.”  I’ve already read Will Bowen’s wonderful book A Complaint Free World, and have ordered Jon Gordon’s  The No Complaining Rule, which specifically deals with reducing negativity at work.

What can we do to survive at our nonprofits during these turbulent times?

1. Will Bowen advises us to pledge to stop complaining, criticizing and gossiping.  Minimize contact with colleagues who constantly talk about how hard things are.   Instead, be the person who points out what’s good.
2. Use this time as an opportunity to roll out online strategies to reduce costs, such as replacing paper newsletters with enewsletters and making more use of web / phone conferences to minimize travel expenses
3. Find ways to help others to deal with stress and increased work loads.  Understand that if someone seems a bit cranky with you, it may because they are struggling to get their projects done.
4. Keep reaching out to constituents, even if they aren’t able to sustain the level of financial contributions they have in the past.  There may be other ways they can help.
5. Find a way to vent your feelings, but go easy on your spouse.  My wife surprised me yesterday by pointing out that I have often frequently complained about problems at work, even when I thought I was staying positive.  Focus on what you have to be thankful for, not on what’s wrong.

The Wall Street Journal article ends by asking us to “write down three things we’re grateful for every day,” even if some days you can only come up with basics such as “oxygen, food and shelter.”  When an individual deals with depression, it feels like things will never be any different.  It’s important to keep in mind that although we’re not sure when conditions will improve, things will get better.  And as many self-help books I’ve read over the years have repeated, it’s not the situation that causes grief, it’s how you deal with it.

Let’s also be grateful that we work in the nonprofit sector, where we can see the benefits of what we do for our constituents on a daily basis.