Tag Archives: Beth Kanter

Have You Seen These Recent ‘Top 10′ Lists for Nonprofits?

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Apparently, like many of us start off a new year by making resolutions, so should nonprofits.  Recently I’ve noticed many top ten lists, focusing on online fundraising, communications and technology.  Kivi Leroux Miller’s offered 10 Changes to Make in 2012, Network for Good published 10 Resolutions to Make (and Keep) for Online Fundraising and Marketing Success in 2012, and Convio provided 10 Ways to Kick Start 2012 Fundraising.

My favorite takeaways (mentioned in many of these lists):

  • Examine how your website and email communications read on mobile phones and tablets.  This is how more of your constituents are accessing your content now
  • You don’t have to recreate the wheel.  Our nonprofit colleagues are incredibly generous with their knowledge.  Learn from other people (like Beth Kanter or Nancy Schwartz) and organizations (like Nten and Idealware) that offer multiple resources to help your nonprofit succeed online (and off)
  • Learn more about your supporters by analyzing information you probably already have: website statistics, email analytics, registration forms, polls / surveys – then use this data to better segment your communications

But as Kivi said during her webinar that described her recommendations in detail, it’s not enough to just read or listen to these suggestions.  What will you do this month to apply these ideas at your organization?

How To Make Your Nonprofit Multi-Channel

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Why is it so difficult for nonprofits to implement a multi-channel communications / fundraising strategy, even though integrated campaigns have been proven to outperform single channel approaches?  In the Agitator, Roger Craver says the main problem is silos, where departments operate separately from each other – even though this is directly opposite from how most constituents view an organization.

This point was driven home a few days later during a webinar by Convio and HJC on How Nonprofits Become Integrated Fundraising Organizations, which offered these tips on how a nonprofit learn to take advantage of the benefits of a multi-channel approach?

  1. Getting buy-in from senior management
  2. Planning / investing in systems and process to encourage departments to cooperate instead of compete
  3. Remove silos from teams and departments so they naturally collaborate towards mutually developed goals
When I asked why this going multi-channel is so difficult, HJC’s Mike Johnston replied ‘inertia – nonprofits are used to doing things the way they always have.’  Interestingly, smaller organizations may find it easier to create a culture where integration takes place.

My take: start by using an integrated editorial calendar which includes upcoming direct mail solicitations, email marketing campaigns, website updates, social media etc. Beth Kanter offers this way to get started (thanks to Lightbox Collaborative)  This will at least avoid the embarrassment of saying different things in different channels.  Then, make sure results are measured for an overall campaign instead of by department or by type of outreach.  Constituents use many ways to communicate;  it’s about time we did the same.

For a great primer on how to effectively use different communication channels together, view slides from Idealware’s recent webinar.

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.

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.

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.

 

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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For best results in ephilanthropy initiatives, I’ve always advocated for an active partnership between Communications and Development.   Here’s more reasons why from Kivi Leroux Miller,  If you’re not getting the type of response you want from your nonprofit e-newsletters, Kivi also offers a free 15 day e-newsletter course at her Nonprofit Marketing Guide website. which offers many simple tips you can easily implement.

The debate continues on the new Google Plus.  Beth Kanter offers her take, as does Frogloop and TNW Social Media.  I believe there may be a benefit to adding your contacts manually, as it forces us to give some thought of who should be in each ‘circle.’  According to the Huffington Post, nonprofits are wasting no time in kicking the tires of Google’s answer to Facebook.

If your organization is undergoing a major change (as most of us do sooner or later), Peter De Jager provides many great resources on change management at Technobility.  See also Chaos is the New Normal.

Learn about fundraising and emarketing in Blackbaud’s Summer School webinar series which starts this week and, if you’re in NYC, attend next week’s 501 Tech Club meeting featuring how to get started with WordPress (which this blog uses).

As a follow-up to last week’s post on How to Make Your Projects Successful, Ben Lichtenwalner offers his Inverted Pyramid of Project Success.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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Social media expert Beth Kanter summarizes recent studies on how to increase Facebook engagement – it’s also a great way to find out what issues your constituents are most interested in.  Beth also outlines how to set SMART social media objectives.

To better understand how multichannel marketing works, read the recent DonorCentrics report and these write-ups from Frogloop, NonprofitTimes, The Agitator and Katya Andresen.  One step in the right direction – make sure your marketing/communications and fundraising are planning campaigns together.

How much resources should your nonprofit devote to a Twitter strategy?  Here’s Pew Internet‘s latest update on who’s using Twitter.  And in addition to having a Facebook like button on your website, you can add a Twitter follow button also.  Here’s also advice on the best days/times to tweet.

If you’re using integrated software like Convio, what stops you from using the tool most effectively?  Recent options like @ConvioHelp and live chat can be helpful, but my experience shows that issues with product usability often get in the way also.  My suggestion – make sure you take the time to train your staff on an ongoing basis.

Idealware also offers its own guideline on how to allocate your time between website, email and online outreach.

Attending Fundraising Day in New York this week?  If so, please look for me there.

Why You Need to Connect Advocacy with Fundraising

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When planning your integrated communications / fundraising calendar, you may offer several opportunities for your constituents to take action on issues your organization is supporting, as well as scheduling fundraising appeals throughout the year.  You probably have a department that focuses heavily on advocacy, while another group is involved primarily in development.  But as will be clearly demonstrated during the upcoming Advocacy Live virtual event, you will get the best results if you connect online advocacy and fundraising, also detailed in this white paper available from Amnesty International, Blackbaud and M&R Strategic Services.

If you examine open rates and click-thru statistics from your email marketing (you are regularly looking at these, right?), you will find that advocacy focused communications consistently outperform other types of emails such as enewsletters and financial appeals.  Advocates for your causes often feel strongly about showing their support, and may often respond favorably to a fundraising ask at the same time that they are taking action to sign an online petition.

Per the white paper, these are your strongest targets for fundraising appeals:

  1. repeat activist who took action in the last 24 hours
  2. current donor who took action in the last month
  3. “super activitist” (took 6 or more actions in last year)

As I’ve discussed here, your constituents view you as one organization, not as multiple departments with differing goals.  If you’re still operating in silos (see Beth Kanter‘s inspiring book, The Networked Nonprofit), you’re missing an opportunity to allow your strongest supporters to help you in more than one way.  Online strategy works best when its a joint effort from many parts of your nonprofit.

Many Great Reports Out This Week

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The Online Giving Study from Network for Good and True Sense Marketing offers a comprehensive look of ephilanthropy, covering a 7 year time span and a wide range of nonprofits.  Many others have already discussed its results – see Frogloop, The Agitator and Wild Apricot.  What I particularly liked:

  • online fundraising is about relationship building, just as has it was for traditional development.  This is a great reminder for nonprofits that focus only on the technology, or who treat online as a very ‘different’ channel than offline.
  • most online givers still go through the nonprofit’s own website to donate, less frequently to giving portals and social giving sites.  More importantly, those who give through the charity’s site tend to donate more over the long term than other givers.
  • recurring giving should always be offered as an option.  Perhaps eventually it will be used as often in the US as it is elsewhere in the world.
  • those who give in December have a higher long term value than donors in other months.  Do you need any more of a reason to make sure your year-end appeals go out this month?
  • ‘disaster’ givers have lower long term value and lower retention.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use stewardship strategies to build a relationship with these contributors.

Idealware’s updated Open Source Content Management Systems Report takes another look at Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and Plone.  Drupal still offers the most flexibility and has the support of a large international community.  But all of these tools are potent;  Wordpress is especially noteworthy for its ease of use and has developed into much more than a blogging tool.

Pew Internet’s first survey to focus on Twitter concludes that 8% of Online Americans Use Twitter which may seem like a low number, but nevertheless offers some interesting insights into the groups that are most active.  For example, while it may be no surprise that young people (18-29) are heavy users, the report also concludes that African Americans and Latinos are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as white users.  And even if you know if your constituents are on Twitter, their usage may differ greatly;  the report contrasts those who check multiple times / day for updates (25%) with those who never check for new content (20%).  My take: while it may have started out as a social service, that’s not the case now and your nonprofit should be using Twitter to connect with your audience.

Finally, in response to Apple’s reluctance to facilitate nonprofit fundraising on the iPhone, Beth Kanter has pledged to switch to an Android phone.  (I’m getting one too, but decided to do so before the recent controversy featured in the NY Times erupted.)  I believe the Androids will eventually overtake the iPhones, even with Verizon getting the iPhone (finally) soon.

Insights Into Developing a Social Media Strategy

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Most of us haven’t yet figured out how to best utilize social media for our organizations.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t as we build a closer connection with our constituents.  In yesterday’s Nten webinar, How to Develop a Social Networking Strategy for your Organization, Nten’s Holly Ross provided an in depth review of how she has used social networks to interact with the Nten community, joined by Jeff Patrick of Common Knowledge.

Earlier this week, I presented at Nten’s Long Island 501 Tech Club on Social Networking for IT Managers, where I tried to answer questions I often hear from nonprofits that are struggling with how to enter this new environment.

For a perspective from another organization, read Beth Kanter’s blog entry on the Independent Sector, where she discusses the value of using small pilots to get started.

One particularly interesting takeaway from Holly & Jeff’s presentation: the information about constituents that a nonprofit can derive from engaging in conversations with constituents on social networks would normally cost considerable time and money to obtain.  This data helps you to understand what your supporters are most interested in so you can communicate more effectively.

In addition, take the time to understand how to best utilize various social networking sites and make sure that you seek to have a conversation, not simply blast out information about your organization.

For more insights about Nten’s development of a social media strategy, register for next Friday’s follow-up webinar.  And if you think that your organization is too small and can’t possibly devote the resources for social media, consider that Nten has done a great job with a staff of only 7.   From what I’ve seen, small nonprofits actually can do as well or better as larger organizations since they are often better able to experiment and shift gears if their first efforts don’t succeed.

P.S. Happy birthday John Lennon – he would have been 70 today.