Tag Archives: Beaconfire

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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When developing a Facebook strategy, remember that your constituents don’t just want to hear about your organization.  Andrea Barry explains how she adapted Idealware’s strategy to appeal to supporters’ desire to ‘be social.’

Planning a new website?  Beaconfire reminds us to pay attention to content early, and to incorporate content into the wireframes.  Techsoup also provides this overview into the redesign process. Big Duck suggests we put someone in charge of content creation.  (Here’s my recent post on developing a content strategy.)

This week, I launched a new campaign for my organization through a combination of email marketing, website and social media strategies.  It takes a lot of coordination, but you can’t just rely on one channel to get the word out.  Read more tips on integrated marketing from Convio and EMC.

How often are you sending bulk emails?  Hopefully you have some type of communications calendar.   And don’t forget to review the statistics after your email goes out.  Is your audience actually taking the action you are encouraging them to do?  See also these ideas for email marketing to seniors.

Today is Mother’s Day.  In addition to showing your mother how much you love her, also post her picture to support a new campaign to demonstrate that our parents want to protect Medicare benefits not only for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren.

Tips from the Experts

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Took advantage of some rainy weather today to catch up on some video tutorials on optimizing donation pages and social media.

Convio’s recent presentation on Optimizing Online Donations featured Nick Allen from DonorDigital and Alisa Aydin from US Fund for Unicef.  Nick focused on how small changes in a donation page can increase the constituents who actually complete the donation process;  normally, only 10-20% of those who arrive at a donation page actually finish the transaction.  He offered examples that don’t have to cost a lot: using larger, brighter donation buttons and minimizing the number of fields included on the donation form.  Tools such as Google Web Site Optimizer can be used to test different mixes of headlines, header images, logo placement and formatting options.  Or just use A/B testing to try different types of email messages.  Alisa described her organization’s use of tangible, inspired gifts which allow constituents to designate their contributions for specific purposes, often used as a honor/tribute gift.  She gave examples of several nonprofits that are doing this successfully such as Defenders of Wildlife, Jewish National Fund, Oxfam Unwrapped and Nature Conservancy.

What I find encouraging about Nick and Alisa’s tips is that even the largest nonprofits can take small steps to follow the lead of smaller organizations such as Kiva and DonorsChoose that are allowing donors to choose how their funds will be used.

Last month, the Case Foundation recently offered a wonderful series of video tutorials on social media, Gear Up for Giving, which are still available for replay.  Below are some takeaways from sessions I listened to today by gurus Katya Andresen, Holly Ross and Beth Kanter.

  • it is so much more effective that have your strongest supporters encourage others to support your mission than just to have it come directly from the nonprofit
  • work on developing the relationship first, then ask for financial help later (build your network before you need it, my take – this is much like we should manage our careers)
  • social media is primarily a listening tool, not only a new way to distribute your message
  • let people engage wherever they are – they may never visit your main web site
  • when deciding which social media tools to use, first find out what sites your constituents are already using
  • while social media strategies often originate from marketing or communication, ultimately this should be used by everyone in the organization
  • social media isn’t a fad;  we can’t be certain which tools will be popular in the next decade, but constituents will continue to expect targeted , value-added conversations and prompt responsiveness
  • better to engage fully in a few places than to try to put your nonprofit on every social media site
  • definitely use volunteers as a way to complement nonprofits’ always constrained resources, but don’t expect them to define the overall strategy
  • segmenting your communications almost always leads to higher response rates

For more great advice on social media, consult Nten’s We Are Media project.

Lastly, as another voice for segmenting and not making every communication an ask, Beaconfire suggest that Sometimes Less is More.

Report from Online Nonprofit Technology Conference

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This week I had the pleasure of participating in Nten‘s first Online Nonprofit Technology Conference.  While on a much smaller scale than the annual spring event, the two days of online webinars featured some of our sector’s brightest stars and allowed an opportunity for much more interaction with the presenters than is normally possible at the live event.  Some highlights:

  • Network for Good‘s Katya Andresen reminded us that raising awareness of our organizations isn’t enough, it’s to ‘get someone to take an action.’    She also recommended we let the constituent be the messenger for our cause (much more effective than if message comes directly from organization).   She implored us to focus on the donor when designing our web sites, not on the organization structure, mentioning Kiva and DonorsChoose as examples of how to do this right.
  • ConmmonGood Career’s James Weinberg described how social networking sites are replacing online job boards.  As a way to encourage staff longevity, he suggested finding ways to change job responsibilities even if the position doesn’t change.   If nonprofits can’t create opportunities for staff to advance, it is their responsibility to help them move elsewhere (not sure how many nonprofits would agree)
  • Idealware‘s Laura Quinn offered a sneak peak at her Field Guide to Software, to be released later this year.  She added that the choice of donor database is probably the most critical decision (and to make sure everyone in organization is comfortable using it)
  • Beaconfire‘s Michael Cervino discussed using benchmarks from sites such as PewInternet and  e-Benchmarks-Study to measure how well our organizations are performing, also showing how Google Analytics funnels can be used effectively.  He also described how online surveys are best used frequently with few questions.  (I added this is a great way to add data to help segment your database)
  • Philantech‘s Dahna Goldstein discussed how to help staff deal with change, e.g. making sure that staff are fully involved and kept informed
  • Consultant John Kenyon and American Lung’s Rusty Burwell discussed online communications and the importance of inter-department collaboration.  See my previous post on this topic.  In response to my question, John stated emphatically that social media will never replace email as the main communications medium.

Thanks to Holly and the NTen staff for putting on another great program, and congrats also to Holly for being recognized by Nonprofit Times in the Top 50 Power and Influence!