Category Archives: communications

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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If you’ve been wondering when you can build your nonprofit page on Google+, now’s the time.  Heather Mansfield offers help on How to Create a Google+ Page For Your Nonprofit. Also view this video by John Haydon.  Here’s Beth Kanter’s take.  But the jury is still out on whether Google+ pages will prove to be as popular as Facebook pages.

Frustrated trying to keep up to date with Facebook?  Get help in John’s Tactical Guide to Recent Facebook Changes and sign up for next month’s bi-monthly Facebook features update from Common Knowledge.

Planning to roll out a new website with Drupal?  Have you already launched, but finding it difficult to manage how to manage content edits and approvals?  Join Michelle Misner and I on Nov. 29 to learn How the NYPL Successfully Project Managed a New Drupal Website.  (It’s free if you’re a Nten member!).

Speaking of Nten, I’ve just signed up for next spring’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco.  Please register now to lock in the lowest rate.  It’s always the premier event of the year for the #nptech community.

It’s year-end fundraising season again.  Get a jump start by reviewing Farra Trompeter’s online fundraising tips, Convio’s How to Get Your Holiday Appeals Opened and Jeff Brooks’ reminder to Avoid Common Fundraising Mistakes, e.g. remembering that you are not your donor.  And of course, don’t forget to plan a multi-channel campaign.

If you’re in NYC, join us at next week’s 501 Tech NYC event;  this month we’ll chat about Google for Nonprofits.  Also if you manage a nonprofit website, sign up for the next quarterly gathering of the Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table, planned for mid-December.

Updated Social Media Decision Guide Now Available from Idealware

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While many of my colleagues in the nonprofit community often share their knowledge and expertise, I’ve found Laura Quinn’s Idealware site especially helpful over the years in providing impartial and comprehensive evaluations of nonprofit software.   The just released Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide provides a systematic approach to determine how to best use social media at your organization.

Probably the most important takeaway is the recommendation to first decide what you want to accomplish and who you want to reach.  Without taking the time to establish your goals, it’s impossible later to evaluate whether social media is a worthwhile use of your staff’s time.  Idealware’s report offers several examples of how social media can help to achieve a nonprofit’s typical objectives: fundraising (although social media should NOT be primarily be used for this purpose), advocacy, recruiting / engaging volunteers, supporting events (both before and during) and outreach.

As I’ve said in the past when discussing multi-channel campaigns, social media works best when integrated with other channels.  But messaging content and frequency need to be appropriate for each channel;  don’t just post the same information everywhere.

If you take the time to apply the ideas from this wonderful resource, you will be able to measure the effectiveness of your social media campaign. Thanks to Idealware, and Balance Interactive, Trellon and New Signature for their support in helping make this report available to our community at no charge.

Why You Should Design for Mobile Now

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For a long time, I resisted getting a laptop, saying that I preferred the more comfortable keyboard and larger monitor with a desktop.  Similarly, I waited until late 2010 to get my first smart phone, not wanting to pay a premium to navigate the web on such a small screen.

I still spend most of my time online on my desktop either at home or at work, but I do use my smart phone, mostly to stay up to date with Facebook and Twitter.  But everywhere I look, smart phones are everywhere.  So if I was to assume that nonprofit constituents feel the way I do, I would be losing out on an opportunity to connect with supporters on their preferred platform – mobile.

Recently I attended a Convio webinar on mobile strategies for nonprofits.  While I encourage you to download their free guide A Guide to the Mobile Web: Best Practices for Nonprofits, I found these points by presenter Misty McLaughlin especially interesting:

  1. There are many approaches to mobile, such as a ‘mini site’ which highlights your highest value content or a ‘mobile optimized site’ – unless your organization is primarily providing information as your mission, it is usually not necessary to replicate full website content on your mobile site
  2. A good rule of thumb – when mobile visits in your web stats exceed 5% of your overall traffic, it’s time to have a definite strategy to communicate with mobile users
  3. For most nonprofits, it is usually better to focus on a mobile version of your website and not rush to create an app.  In addition to the expense of having to handle multiple platforms (iPhone, Android, Blackberry etc.), there is a much higher barrier to entry since constituents have to find the app, download it, and then remember to use it.
  4. If you’re currently redesigning your website, creating your mobile presence first will help you to provide a richer, more focused and integrated online presence
  5. Although tablets are the rage these days, it is usually not necessary to create a separate ‘tablet’ site since most desktop websites convert well to a tablet screen.
  6. Scrolling on mobile pages is more acceptable than while browsing on a desktop, but you should still limit scrolling on your home page (OK on secondary pages)
  7. If you’re CMS shopping, pick a product that will allow you to:
    • create content once for multiple platforms by separating presentation from content
    • provide auto device detection (so mobile users get the mobile site)
    • allow device-specific tailored displays

Key takeaway – mobile forces us to be smart about our content.  What are the most important actions we want constituents to take?  What is our key message – is it succinct, understandable and repeatable?  We only have our supporters’ attention for a short time, so it’s more important than ever to use that time wisely.

For examples of great nonprofit mobile sites, visit the US Fund for Unicef’s main website and then view its recently designed mobile version. Also, compare the  World Wildlife Fund main website with its corresponding mobile site.   When you look at your organization’s website on your phone, can you quickly find the information you’re looking for without getting frustrated?

For more mobile tips, listen to Nten’s webinar, Mobile for Nonprofits.   And remember that however you feel about using smart phones, you are not your constituents.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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Most nonprofits are on Facebook now, but fewer are using Twitter well.  Read these 24 Twitter best practices, and 8 nonprofit Twitter superstars who especially do it well, led by Charity:Water, which I highlighted in a recent post.  Also, don’t make these seven Twitter mistakes.

If you’re trying to figure out how to use content curation to benefit your cause, Beth Kanter offers this great primer as well as Content and Curation for Nonprofits on Scoop.It!  New tools such as Storify and Paper.li also offer interesting ways to consolidate great content.  (But make sure you take the time to digest content you are curating.)

Not hearing as much lately about Google Plus even though it’s now open to the public, yet I keep receiving connection notices from people I don’t recognize.  Strange.

There’s no magic bullet for how to succeed in the nonprofit sector, but thanks to Big Duck and the Taproot Foundation for offering these suggestions.

Were you able to attend the recent Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits or the Convio Summit?  Here’s some ways on how to live tweet from an event from M&R (but make sure you participate in the live discussion – some of my best insights are from Q&A that takes place at events)  Also, Frogloop offers these takeaways on What Your Nonprofit Needs to Know.

If you missed last week’s chat with Andy Goodman on story telling, you can still get the recording from Nten.  Unfortunately, Andy reminded us that many nonprofits are ‘great at what we do, but not good in talking about it.’

Finally, if you’re spending a bit too much time on social media, here’s an important reminder from Jocelyn Harmon – put your most important relationships first.

How the NY Public Library Successfully Rolled Out Website Content Management

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At yesterday’s quarterly meeting of the Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table, we shared a particularly interesting discussion on website content management.  As group founder and leader David Milner pointed out, nonprofits spend considerable time and money to update a website, but not nearly as much effort to keep site content fresh and relevant.

Although there are many great open source content management systems available, I’ve noticed that it’s still a challenge for many nonprofits to decentralize the process of updating website content at our organizations.  But at least one organization at our meeting has figured out how to do it right.  Michelle Misner, Digital Project Manager at the NY Public Library, kindly shared her experience with us yesterday in rolling out Drupal which “revolutionalized” how their website is maintained.  How did they do it?

  1. Setup extensive training both during rollout and on an ongoing basis to familiarize staff with the new software
  2. Recruited senior management to spearhead the process, including the modification of staff roles to include responsibility for website content updates
  3. Using permissions, user rights and specific Drupal content types, entrusted staff with responsibility for specific areas of the website and chose not to use an intricate approval process.  Instead, there is a staff person who monitors site updates.
  4. Encouraged in-house developer to learn Drupal to maintain the system instead of having to continue to rely on the outside firm which assisted with the implementation.

We also took a look at how to optimize web content for specific contents, such as the Boston Globe‘s impressive use of responsive design,  shared tips for getting the most from Google AdWords and debated the latest Facebook news feed updates.

Thanks to David for having kept our group active for several years and to Michelle for sharing her story about how we can better manage content for our websites.  Quoting David, paying attention to your website could make the difference between your organization receiving an online donation, attracting a volunteer – or not.

7 Tips to Implement a Successful Fall ePhilanthropy Campaign

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Sadly, Labor Day is followed by fall with shorter days and cooler weather.  But it also provides an opportunity to reconnect with your constituents, climaxed by the important year-end fundraising campaign.  Here are some ways to hit the ground running when you return to the office tomorrow:

  1. Prepare an integrated communications / fundraising calendar describing how you will engage with your supporters across channels.  Balance appeals with messages showing how your organization has helped your target audience and be specific about you’ve utilized past donations.
  2. Start planning content for email campaigns well in advance, using these 7 tips for better fundraising emails and applying these best practices for enewsletters - they apply just as much for nonprofits as for small businesses (More ideas here)
  3. Take the time to analyze data on email subscribers, website traffic, Facebook ‘likers,’ Twitter followers etc. so you better understand what platforms your constituents are engaging with you
  4. Is your website consistently providing fresh content that is in synch with your other communication media?  If not, have you provided ongoing training to staff on how to utilize your content management software?  (What?  You don’t have a CMS.  Read Idealware’s Five Tips for A Successful Open Source CMS Project on a Budget)
  5. Find a few simple ways to start thinking multi-channel, even if it means changing the way your nonprofit usually works.  Get ideas from Frogloop’s  Multichannel Magic, then read about others’ successes in this month’s upcoming nonprofit blog carnival hosted by Big Duck featuring this topic
  6. Get out of your office.  If you’re in NYC, for example, you can learn how to innovate and thrive in the digital age at this month’s 501 Tech NYC event and discuss what makes successful websites at the Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table.  (You can also learn from your desk by taking a webinar during you lunch hour.)
  7. Optimize your online giving forms, paying particular attention to whether they work as well on mobile and tablet platforms, where more of your constituents are seeing them.
Congratulations once again to Charity:Water, which has kicked off its September campaign as another example of how to do ephilanthropy right with stirring video and constantly providing feedback on how it uses donations towards its mission of providing clean water worldwide .

Thoughts After a Hurricane

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It’s been an eventful week in New York.  First, we were shaken by a rare East Coast earthquake.  Then, we were faced with a Hurricane Irene which forced many of us to relocate to higher ground.  While not as severe as anticipated, this weekend’s storm has caused massive damage and electrical outages for many.  I was extremely lucky;  my thoughts are with those who are facing major clean-up efforts.

Is your nonprofit prepared for a disaster?  Care2 offers a webinar this week on Surviving and Thriving When a Crisis Hits.    And while this week’s events were a major inconvenience, find a way to Put Your Cause in the Eye of the Storm to tell stories about how your organization helps its target audience.  Here are some Tools to Help Any Nonprofit Tell Stories Online from Amy Sample Ward.

For yet another reason to use social media, read why Nonprofits Are Expected to Use Social Media During Disasters.  For many great ideas on how to implement a social media strategy at your organization, learn from Jereme Bivins in his Social Media Case Study on how the Foundation Center uses Thrive and other tools.  Per Pew Internet, 65% of Online Adults Now Use Social Networking Sites.

Most of us make presentations, but it’s always challenging to keep listeners engaged, especially when you’re on a webinar.  I participated in last week’s Nonprofits Live: Great Presentations, offered by Tech Soup.  You can watch and listen to the event here or search the #nplive hashtag on Twitter  which include many of my comments.

Help Nten to make next spring’s Nonprofit Technology Conference the best yet by tweeting your ideas to #12NTC.  Work for a really great organization?  Nominate your organization as one of the 50 Best Nonprofits to Work For In 2012.

Report from Event Fundraising Roundtable

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This week I joined many nonprofit colleagues at the Event Fundraising Table sponsored by the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council, Blackbaud, Charity Dynamics and Event 360, focusing on ideas to stimulate peer to peer fundraising.  Below is a summary of my takeaways:

How can I get more event participants to fundraise?

  • encourage participants to form and join teams, then ask their employers to sponsor corporate teams
  • offer incentives for specified fundraising levels
  • provide step by step instructions and coaching
  • ask on the registration form – are you planning to fundraise?  Then prepare different messaging based on their response
  • encourage participant donations – makes it more likely they will ask others to contribute

How to Use Social Media for Event Fundraising

  • Sponsor live chats with top fundraisers (chats don’t only have to be about fundraising, but can help to build affiliation with nonprofit)
  • Create a mobile phone application, then push it out to social media (has worked well for March of Dimes and will be released soon by National MS Society)
  • Target Facebook messages based on location
  • Provide Facebook exclusive content
  • Give ‘white glove service’ to top fundraisers (at National MS Society – 50% of $ is raised by top 2% of fundraisers!)
  • In multi-site organization, national office can offer weekly highlights to provide content to local chapter / affiliate offices

How Can I Enhance My Marketing and Communication Efforts?

  • Event360 strongly suggested segmenting messages (my concern – do many of our orgs have staffing to provide strong content for different audiences)
  • Focus on customer service – offer a special hotline for top fundraisers
  • Use Seth Godin’s ‘Purple Cow‘ concept – find a way to differentiate your event from other organizations offering walks, endurance events etc.
  • Ask your nonprofit staff to come down on event day to cheer event participants (has been consistently used successfully by YAI)
  • Don’t rely on one person to handle social media (Autism Speaks has devoted considerable resources to build huge audiences on both Facebook & Twitter)
  • Visit your organization’s programs and tell great stories (suggested by YAI)

Thanks to roundtable participants who shared their expertise: Scott Archimbaud, March of Dimes;  Paul Irwin-Dudek, Autism Speaks;  Papa Kofi F. Baffour-Awuah, YAI; and, Nancy Palo, National MS Society (NYC-SNY Chapter) and to David Hessekiel of the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council who moderated the panel.

It was also great to see many friends from across the country such as Shana Masterson who attended with several of her co-workers from the American Diabetes Association, Jono Smith from Event 360, and a few attendees from the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, where I first focused on managing peer to peer fundraising events.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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If you missed this week’s Social Media for Nonprofits NYC event, you can get a great summary from Big Duck’s Farra Trompeter, who presented a great step by step tutorial on implementing Multi-Channel Campaigns.  (More session slides from this and past events are available here.)  See also Kivi Leroux Miller’s post highlighting Convio’s recently released Multi-Channel Marketing Report.

Coming up with strong content is the key behind any online strategy.  As I and many of my nonprofit colleagues around the country do, I try to find the most worthwhile posts to share with my followers.  Beth Kanter explains that Content Creation is Listening and Engaging, then followed up with this look at Scoop.It as a way to organize your content.

How can you make your website more ‘social’?  Debra Askanase explains how and gives several examples of nonprofits that are doing this well, and will follow up with a Nten webinar next month.

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen says you must focus on essential content when writing for mobile platforms.  If you’re new to email marketing, learn about Email Marketing 2.0, then learn how segmentation can help you to get better results.

Finally, if you’re trying to find a format to send to your management to summarize social media and results of other online activity, Beth offers this guest post highlighting the Smithsonian Institution’s in-house dashboard, then suggests using a small pilot project to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media.

 

Too Much Content? Less is More

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OK, we’re all trying to keep up with email, Facebook, Twitter and now Google Plus.  So we’re scanning our messages quickly, and consider it an accomplishment when we’re ‘up to date’ (at least for a brief moment).  I’ve realized lately that sometimes less is more when it comes to actually absorbing the content we are reading.

Back when we were in school, we had to memorize facts so we could repeat them on a test.  Afterwards, we could clear our memory banks and start the process again.  Now that we’re ‘adults,’ there’s so much more information coming at us and it’s become increasingly difficult to retain the major ideas of what we’re reading.

I realized this recently when I found myself often sharing content with others that I hadn’t actually read beyond the brief Twitter summary or at best having read the first few sentences.  This became a bit embarrassing when others ask follow up questions about the content and I realize that I didn’t really understand the gist of what was said.

I recently read Hamlet’s Blackberry, which describes how many of us have become so distracted by constant access to information online that we can’t concentrate on any one article / post for more than a few seconds.  Interestingly, this isn’t a new phenomenon, but has happened every time a new type of communication channel has been introduced.

So do we turn down the spigot of information, and read less?  This can help, but more importantly, I’ve found that it helps to remind myself to focus a bit more on what I am reading online to make sure I’ve actually absorbed the material.  Especially if I want to share content and engage others, I have to be able to add my own insights to others’ thoughts.  Obviously I can’t do this if I haven’t taken the time to understand the content’s main messages.

By the way, if you’re spending this weekend on the beach and enjoying the sun and the surf, put the phone away so you can enjoy the moment.  Checking emails and the many social networks can wait.