Would You Stand Up to Protect a Client’s Right to Privacy?

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Norman Reiss

At the NYC Jewish Tech Meetup Thursday evening, Nicholas Merrill described his successful efforts as an Internet services provider to protect a client’s right to privacy by challenging the National Security Letters provision to the Patriot Act. While many of us who choose to work in nonprofit for at least part of our career understand the impact of our organizations, how many of us have had to alter our life and risk imprisonment to stand up for something we believe in? To abide by his agreement with the government, Nicholas was forced to live a life of secrecy which affected both his professional and personal lives. And to this day, Nicholas is still restricted in what he can say about the case.

To hear Nicholas’ amazing story, there is a recorded stream available. You can also read this recent NY Times article or watch his Democracy Now interview.

I asked Nicholas how his situation has affected his relationship with this client only to learn that the client is still unaware of the sacrifices Nicholas made in their defense. Would you put your life on the line for something you believe in, even if it completely alters your life? Nicholas continues to fight for our right for privacy in his work with the Calyx Institute.

Lessons From Charity:Water

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Norman Reiss

At Friday’s Fundraising Day in NYC, I had the pleasure of learning online strategy from the nonprofit that has probably done it best in recent years. In only five years of existence, Charity:Water has used a combination of compelling content and innovative outreach strategies to build a dedicated constituent base. Digital Director Paull Young described their approach:

ask supporters to ‘give up their birthdays,’ offering a great ‘experience’ in return
focus on ‘sharing great content,’ not on asking for money
‘uncomfortable transparency’ about exactly how donations are used
we ‘make the campaigner the hero,’ not the organization
goal is to have a ten year relationship with constituents
100% reliance on social media / online – no direct mail
exceptional video – take a look at Water Changes Everything

After his session, I congratulated Paull on his success and asked whether some of Charity:Water’s techniques could work in a larger, less nimble nonprofit. He pointed out that he had worked primarily with larger organizations before joining Charity:Water, then added that any nonprofit could do well by paying close attention to its culture and by ‘getting people with the right skills on staff.’ In our country where the availability of clean drinking water is usually taken for granted, it’s also impressive how this organization has developed such a huge following in such a short time.

As I also heard from several speakers during the event, you get the best results by developing the relationship with constituents first before making any ask. And as Charity:Water has demonstrated, it’s critical to stay in touch to show supporters specifically how their contributions have helped the cause.

If you weren’t able to attend the event, several session handouts are available here.

Social Media for Social Good

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Norman Reiss

This week I had the pleasure of listening to a panel of social media experts at the Foundation Center’s Social Media for Social Good event. Speakers included Renee Alexander from US Fund for Unicef, Julia C. Smith from Idealist, Farra Trompeter from Big Duck and Nten‘s Amy Sample Ward, preceded by a presentation by Small Act‘s Casey Golden.

As might be expected during an event on social media, there was an active stream on Twitter, which you can review with the #SM4SG hashtag. Below are some highlights:

Mentioned several times this week and also by Danielle Brigida who recently spoke at the NYC 501 Tech Club, social media involves a lot of trial and error and experimentation. Often you will have to try different tactics before you find what will work best with your audience. Don’t be afraid to fail.
Engagement = stimulating a conversation and encouraging constituents to take action on issues.
Developing a social media policy for your organization will help guide your staff how to speak about your nonprofit online – look at the social media governance policy database and the social media policy generator for help.
Your social media policy should be a fluid, living document that is reviewed with staff and updated regularly, not in a book that is stored on a shelf.
On Twitter, in addition to sharing ideas from others you find worthwhile, make sure to include your own ideas too – the best Twitter streams have a mix of links, no links and original content. See this example of a Twitter engagement formula.
If your management is still uncertain whether social media is worth the effort, show what your competitors are doing online to engage and build their constituent base.

Want more resources? For a step by step process on how to use social media, download Idealware’s Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide. For more guidance on developing a social media policy – Big Duck’s Measuring Your Impact and Creating Policies for Social Media. And for general tips on Twitter, read Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book

Social media is sexy, but don’t forget the online basics: make sure your website and email marketing program is in place. Social media works best when part of an overall communications strategy that includes any way you connect with your constituents, whether online or offline. Focus not only on your organization’s programs, but on the issues which your organization (and constituents) is most focused on.

Thanks to the Foundation Center’s Vanessa Schnaidt for moderating the discussion and to social media guru Jereme Bivins (who manages the Foundation Center’s Twitter stream) for planning this event.

Notes from Latest Benchmark Reports

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Norman Reiss

Two major benchmark studies were released at the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference: the e2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study (#11NTCbenchmarks) and the Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report (#11NTCBench). If you haven’t yet had a chance to digest their contents, below are some major takeaways:

When analyzing email marketing statistics, a high unsubscribe rates will often be accompanied by a high response rate. With overall open rates of emails declining, it’s a continuing challenge to get subscribers to open and read your email messages. So look at all your statistics; don’t panic if you suddenly see a rise in unsubscribes
Do you give an option for monthly gifts whenever you ask for one-time donations? Other than by large nonprofits which seem to do the best in this area, many US based organizations seem to neglect this strategy – or forget to pay special attention when communicating with these donors
9 of 10 nonprofits now have a presence on Facebook, but use of Twitter seems to be leveling off (my take – what’s good for other nonprofits may not be best for you. I’ve seen Twitter often succeed better in creating a buzz and raise visibility than relying mostly on Facebook)
While most nonprofits aren’t raising significant funds on Facebook, many of the organizations that are doing the best in raising money are small. So if you dedicate the budget and staff, you can get good results
Many nonprofits focus on commercial networks such as Facebook and Twitter; only 13% of those surveyed have private / house networks which are used mostly for program and service delivery (my take – even though they’re initially harder to create, house networks have the strong advantage of being totally under your control; Facebook can and does change its rules often, and still makes it difficult for you to extract email addresses of those who like your page.)
Few organizations have yet shown concrete hard benefits from measurements such as ROI to validate the use of social networks; soft benefits such as increased organization visibility and non-financial supporter engagement are mentioned more frequently.

How can you use these statistics to tweak your online strategy? With an overall email churn rate of 18%, it’s critical that we always be thinking about ways of building our supporter base. While website and email marketing still predominates, it’s clear that the most successful nonprofits use a variety of techniques to engage current constituents and to attract new supporters. Social media can help, but it shouldn’t be done in a vacuum. Pick a few channels to focus your efforts, test some new approaches to see how they work, and get ideas from what other nonprofits are already doing successfully, especially others in your vertical. As both reports show, results often very dramatically between sector, e.g. international organizations whose results are often skewed by fundraising for emergencies.

For even more statistics, review the Online Giving Study, also presented at the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference. Many slides and recordings from the event sessions are now available at Nten’s NTC page.

2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference Report

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Norman Reiss

This year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington DC was by far the biggest event we’ve ever had with over 2,000 attendees, plus many others who participated through the Online NTC. In addition to the many opportunities for learning, I particularly enjoyed connecting with many nonprofit colleagues from around the country, some which I had only previously met through email or phone.

These are some sessions I found especially rewarding (with Twitter hashtags):

Opening Plenary, featuring Dan Heath, co-author of Switch (#11NTCSwitch) – I’ve always been fascinated with how change affects our lives; Dan clearly demonstrated how we can learn to welcome change rather than to fear it. His advice that we analyze our successes instead of our problems and ‘do more of what is working’ is also consistent with my life philosophy of looking for the good. This is particularly relevant at our nonprofit organizations, which are almost always changing.
E-mail Design Workshop – Don’t Let Bad E-mail Code Ruin Your Day or Your Results (#11NTCemail) Shana Masterson and Sean Powell provided an eye opening look at how we can prepare emails that will look good on whatever device or browser our constituents use to view them. Sadly, Shana recommended that we give up working in WYSIWYG, as many email programs provide, and stay with HTML for the best results. Emailonacid was mentioned as a good way to preview emails and test deliverability. Unfortunately, email design is very different from web design and can’t fully utilize common web technologies such as CSS (cascading style sheets).
Secrets of the Engagement Pyramid (#11NTCeng) presented by Karen Uffelman and Eric Magnuson, featured an interesting approach to evaluating the engagement level of our constituents, and how we can move them to higher levels to commitment. As many nonprofits are learning, social media followers may or may not become more involved with our organizations. But those who take advocacy actions are strong donor prospects (and vice versa).
Not convinced that segmentation yields better results? In Scientist in Your Communications Department: Segmenting Messages, Customizing Content, and Delivering Results. (#11NTCsegmt). Jeff Schuck used the success of sites such as Amazon and Netflix to provide customized recommendations based on its knowledge of user preferences. The simplest way to get started? Separate your donors from non-donors, and prepare different content for each. I asked why so many nonprofits struggle with targeting groups of constituents; Jeff replied that many organizations keep data in too many places. Another point: it’s much easier to get a donor to increase their gift than to get someone to donate for the first time.
Marketing gurus Kivi Leroux Miller and Nancy Schwartz led the session on Weaving Your Marketing Loose Ends into a Strong, Tight, Powerful Plan (#11NTCweave), which demonstrated the importance of developing a marketing plan template as well as doing a communications audit to insure that your communications are consistent across channels. Nonprofit marketers Tara Collins and Karen Secular also shared their experiences in managing the sometimes difficult balance between development and communications, showing why it’s so critical that these departments work together to build relationships with constituents
In The Social Website: Integrating Social Media into Website Design and Function (#11NTCSocsite), Debra Askanase and Seth Giammanco discussed many websites which use a variety of techniques to engage visitors using social media links – view the slides for details. They then challenged us to develop ideas for a fictional nonprofit which wanted to do the same.

Notes from these and other sessions are all publicly available, as are recordings of several of the presentations. Also download these newly released reports,: e2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study (#11NTCbenchmarks) and the Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report (#11NTCBench), which I will analyze further in my next blog post.

Kudos to Holly Ross who, together with her Nten staff, put together such a wonderful event. Kudos also to my friend Peter Campbell who received special recognition, those who won the NTENny awards (which I helped to present) and to those nonprofits who produced winning videos. If you couldn’t join us in DC, hope to see you in San Francisco next year.

See you at NTC This Week?

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Norman Reiss

This week I’ll be at the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference, where a record crowd of nearly 2,000 will discuss how nonprofits can optimize their online strategy. Below are some sessions which look particularly interesting:

Stop Chasing Rainbows: Enduring Success In a Shifting Online Landscape (Fri 3/18, 10:30 – 12 Noon) - Jascha Franklin-Hodge will review how we can integrate social media, location based services and mobile to engage supporters
E-mail Design Workshop – Don’t Let Bad E-mail Code Ruin Your Day or Your Results (Fri, 3/18, 3:30 – 5 PM) – email is still the primary way to communicate with stakeholders, and Shana Masterson and Sean Powell will discuss how we can get the best results
Sneak Peek at the Third-Annual Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report (Fri, 3/18, 3:30 – 5 PM) – I helped prepare last year’s report, which is sponsored by Nten, Common Knowledge and Blackbaud. Even if you can’t attend this preview, you’ll be able to download the report soon and attend follow up events to discuss its findings.
It’s Not Direct Marketing If You Can’t Track It! Analyzing the Social Web (Sat, 3/19, 10:30 – 12 Noon) – Social media can be fun to participate in, but you have to be able to show your management how it’s helping. Brenna Holmes will offer some tips.
2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study Release (Sat 3/19, 1:30 – 3 PM) – Nten & M&R Strategic Services‘ annual study looks at online messaging, fundraising, and advocacy data from 36 nonprofit organizations; you’ll be able to download this report too, but it’s fascinating to hear the analysis

The biggest problem you’ll probably have at the event is deciding which session to attend – since this is the largest NTC ever, there are even more choices this year. In addition to these tips from Yesenia Soleto, don’t deliberate too much about what to pick. But I’ve found that you can quickly get a feel in the first 15 minutes whether a session is matching your expectations; if not, feel free to go elsewhere. And don’t fret if your first choice is overcrowded and you need to select an alternate session; this happened to me last year and the ‘other’ presentation turned out to be fascinating. Also consider which sessions will be recorded or covered later through follow-up webinars.

If you’re in town early or staying after the conference, consider visiting the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (I’ll be there Wednesday) or attending Penguin Day to learn more about open source software.

Can’t attend the conference in person? You still still participate through the Online NTC.

Don’t forget to thank Holly and her staff for putting this event together. They work hard year round to make this a special experience for all of us. Hope to see you later this week in DC.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Norman Reiss

Thanks to Charles Lenchner for today’s Organizing 2.0 Conference, where I presented a session on how to evaluate and implement a donor or membership database. Thanks also to fellow speakers (among many others) Steve Dondley, Jason Lefkowitz & Colin Delaney who spoke about content management systems (particularly Drupal) and managing online consultants.

Last week’s Nten webinar on email list management strategy offered tips such as segment on constituent behavior not on interests so you can better target your communications. According to the Agitator, email is still an important channel, but many readers may be reading them on their phones, making it even more important that your message is concise. Big Duck also offers 7 tips for an effective e-newlsletter.

Facebook has (again) changed how pages are presented – The Social Path and Tech Cafeteria offer a look at the latest changes, and Beth’s Blog discusses a Facebook content strategy.

Using a slide show on your home page? Future Fundraising Now suggests it may not be effective, even though many other sites are doing this. Also see EchoDitto’s take.

I’ve noticed on the NYC subway lately that almost everyone is on their smart phones, not a surprise since smart phone sales now exceed PC sales. All the more reason to make your website mobile friendly.

Nten’s 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference next month will be the biggest and best ever. Even if you can’t attend in person, you can now participate online.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Norman Reiss

I’ve long advocated using web based applications, but are we ready for a cloud operating system? Here’s a first look at Google’s Chrome OS, planned for release next summer. (Why not just focus on Android, which is already in wide usage on the mobile platform?)

Need help in planning a social media and online engagement strategy? Here’s a great overview of what’s involved, thanks to Big Duck‘s Farra Trompeter. For example, pick the channels where you have the time and resources to participate (you can’t be everywhere).

Will you join me at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in March in DC? For a preview of some issues we’ll be discussing, Nten summarizes the best of nonprofit technology in 2010.

In social media, a key principle is to listen first. Janet Fouts recently offered a terrific webinar on Streamlining Your Social Media Workflow , and offers this useful list of listening tools.

Only two weeks left to get out your year-end appeals. Here’s why you need to act now, and some last minute advice, more tips on making the ask and best practices for year-end fundraising.

While this is a busy time for fundraisers, I hope you still find time to celebrate the upcoming holidays.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Norman Reiss

Attended an interesting session on email marketing and social media at the All About Email Virtual Conference and Expo yesterday, reviewing how these channels can be used to complement each other. An important point – since you don’t ‘own’ information on Facebook and Twitter, it’s still important to build your own email list. (Sessions were recorded and will be available for listening starting Mon, Nov. 15.)

While we’ve seen reports on social media and email marketing, there’s been little to guide nonprofits on website statistics until the new 2010 Website Benchmarks Report available from Groundwire. Although the report focuses on small environmental organizations, its findings are useful for all nonprofits.

When deciding how to do fundraising, do you rely on data or on your own instinct. Jeff Brooks in Future Fundraising Now suggests that you use facts and past experience as your guide. And if you think that a multichannel approach to fundraising / marketing is something new, take a look at Hank Rosso’s classic Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, last revised in 2003 (see chapter on using the Internet as a fundraising vehicle).

If you still need help with your year end fundraising drive yet, get some help from Network from Good’s upcoming webinar as well as this tool from Blue State Digital which analyzes your Google Analytics data. (Tip – don’t wait until the last week of 2010 to frantically prepare an appeal.)

Like to be on the cutting edge? Try RockMelt, a soon to be released browser which integrates social media.

If you’re in NYC next week, attend the Foundation Center’s Open House on Tue, Nov. 16 and Nten‘s 501 Tech NYC meeting Wed evening, Nov. 17, which will feature Allyson Kapin, from Rad Campaign, Women Who Tech and lead blogger at Frogloop offering tips on nonprofit technology and social media.

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Bridging Technology, Communications & Development to Implement ePhilanthropy for Nonprofit Organizations

Category Archives: event

Would You Stand Up to Protect a Client’s Right to Privacy?

2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference Report