Tag Archives: Big Duck

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.

 

Why Everyone is in Communications

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If you’ve followed my blog for awhile, you’re probably familiar with my theme that if you work for a nonprofit, you should be involved with fundraising, even if you don’t work in Development.  In my work with nonprofits for over ten years, I’ve helped to raise money online by project managing online campaigns and have worked directly with many fundraisers.  Although I’ve usually focused on technology, in my latest gig I’ve been part of a Communications group.

This week’s post by Big Duck on Embedding Communicators in Your Nonprofit explains how the role of Communications has changed as many more staff members are now speaking publicly about their organizations in blogs and in social media platforms.  So while Communications may still be considered the ‘official’ voice for channels such as the organization’s main web site, press releases, enewsletters, annual reports etc., there are many more opportunities for staff to spread the word about their nonprofit’s work. Rather than something that needs to be ‘controlled,’ this should be viewed as an opportunity to increase an organization’s outreach.

This trend also points to the importance of developing a social media policy, which I mentioned in this post earlier this year, so nonprofit staff have guidelines on how to talk about their nonprofit both online and off.

I’ve noticed that the most successful nonprofits often have environments where staff routinely collaborate, regardless of what department they work in.  This is especially important when implementing online initiatives, which require the participation of technology, communications and development staff.  It’s no surprise that this is most easily done in smaller nonprofits, such as Charity:Water, which I recently profiled, and Harlem Academy, which this week won the main prize at the New York Times Company 2011 Nonprofit Excellence Awards.   (Congrats also to City Harvest and Sanctuary for Families who were also recognized, as well as semi-finalists City Parks Foundation, Heart of Brooklyn and NYC Outward Bound.)

Recommendation – don’t think that only Development raises funds and only Communications represents your organization to the public.  It may have been that way in the past, but not today.

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.

Social Media for Social Good

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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.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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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.

Report from NYC 501 Tech Club Meeting on Brandraising

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At this week’s monthly NYC 501 Tech Club meeting, Sarah Durham of Big Duck offered highlights from her recently published Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications.  Here’s a few tidbits to encourage you to buy the book and to attend the upcoming Nten webinar series which begins next week:

  • Nonprofits communicate for fundraising, programs and advocacy
  • Positioning is the differentiating idea you strive to get across to target audiences
  • Personality is the feeling you want people to associate with your organization
  • Big Duck’s Brandraising strategy suggests a consistent approach to developing materials, strategies and campaigns for your organization  (best done after you have completed a strategic planning initiative)

What’s the best way to get management buy-in (for this and other types of projects)?   Take small steps, don’t push your agenda, and show how your organization’s competitors are already implementing the strategies you are advocating.

Does a Brandraising campaign would stifle staff who are accustomed to doing things in their own way?   According to Sarah, making available templates and consistent communications materials actually makes it easier for staff to do their job since they don’t have to keep recreating the basics and can apply their creativity in other ways.

How can an organization devise an approach to appeal to many diverse audiences?  Sarah recommended that a nonprofit must be willing to differentiate itself;  an approach that tries to appeal to all will ultimately fail (similar to why it’s so important to use segmentation when developing email marketing campaigns).

How can you tell when a Brandraising strategy has been successful?  When an organization’s messaging is more cohesive and staff can more easily communicate key ideas to new and existing constituents.

My favorite remark from the evening: how consultants often repeat what staff have told management all along, but the organization only pays attention when the recommendations come from a consultant.  I’ve been on both sides of the fence, and have had this experience.  The lesson for nonprofit management – ask your own people for advice before you spend money on an outside resource.   Not only will you save money, but you’ll show your staff that you value their opinions.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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Social media expert Beth Kanter updated her list of listening, monitoring, engaging and management tools.  It’s not easy to measure the results of social networking, but it’s important to pick at least some of these programs, most which are free, to evaluate your efforts.   Here’s some questions to help evaluate your social media initiatives.   (Thanks also to Harish Rao for highlighting this topic for GrassrootsCamp at a live event this week in NYC.)

Network for Good‘s Katya Andresen explains why you can’t just focus on older donors, even though they have traditionally been the most reliable givers.   Older constituents are also getting more active in social media , per reviews in The Agitator.net and the Chronicle of Philanthropy of a recent Pew Internet report.

It’s challenging to change the name of a major event, but the March of Dimes used a variety of strategies to rebrand its major fundraising event (not all which worked well).

Courtesy of Big Duck’s blog, use these tips to revitalize your email subject lines.  (Sorry, email is still a valuable way to reach constituents, despite the rising role of social media.)

Finally, TechSoup asks what does your organization look like from the outside, reminding us of the importance of clear, consistent messaging across our online (and offline) communications.

Have a safe and restful Labor Day weekend.

Can You Afford to Ignore Facebook?

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In addition to having long maintained this blog as a way to share my ideas with the nonprofit community, I’ve also used LinkedIn to keep in touch with my professional network and my Twitter feed as a way to share thoughts and resources that I learn about in between by (usually) weekly blog posts.  But I haven’t paid as much attention to my Facebook page, figuring that this is more of a ‘personal’ site and doesn’t specifically relate to my ephilanthropy work.  (I’ve also been concerned about the occasional privacy issues that have come up with sites such as Facebook, addressed in a recent Nten webinar.)

But in ignoring Facebook, I’ve made the same mistake as many nonprofits that are beginning to use social networking tools – not going where the constituents are.  Facebook is approaching the 500 million user mark, and is expected to go much higher.  Clearly, it is fulfilling the need that our supporters have to be connected to each other.  I’ve also noticed more of an overlap between personal and professional posts, an issue that my friend Farra Trompeter of Big Duck has often spoken about.  While I’m not suggesting that you share details of your personal life for the world to see and comment upon, it is a good idea to show more than one dimension of your personality.

What does this mean for nonprofits?  The more you can get to know about your constituents, the better you can develop your relationship.  You can find out by analyzing which of your web pages are most popular with Google Analytics, by taking surveys or polls with tools such as SurveyMonkey, or by simply asking what their most important priorities are.  You can also learn from listening and by using simple tools such as Google Alerts.

Even if you don’t fully understand why it’s become such a phenomenon, you can’t afford to ignore Facebook.  But make sure you review your privacy settings so you understand how your information will be shared. For a detailed description of Facebook’s brief but remarkable history, read David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect.  For help on deciding what to put on Facebook vs. Twitter vs. other social networking sites, see my post earlier this year, What Content to Post in Each Channel.

Addendum 7/15/10 – I will be featured today on Nten’s Facebook page.

Notes on Meetings Near & Far

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The NYC 501 Tech Club returned this week with a new format – presentation + networking.  Big Duck’s Farra Trompeter moderated a discussion on multi-channel fundraising – a topic I often discuss, joined by Simon Moloney of Npower NY and Rebecca Willett of Planned Parenthood.   Also this week, Convio held its annual Summit in Austin, TX.

For those in the NYC audience who don’t yet integrate multiple channels in fundraising efforts, Farra asked that we strive to break down silos within our organizations because “donors see us as one nonprofit.’  So there shouldn’t be a competition between money raised by direct mail versus email marketing or other online fundraising tools.  Multichannel appeals are most effective, especially this time of year (make sure you plan to email your donors on Dec. 30 / 31).  Farra also asked the attendees who we blend personal and organizational priorities in social networking content;  this may be addressed further in a future meeting.  (My take – a personal touch breathes life into a blog posting or tweet, as long as the focus isn’t removed from the nonprofit’s mission.)

Rebecca reviewed Planned Parenthood’s multi-channel strategy which she described as a ‘collaborative effort of the national office and affiliates.’  In response to my question on what content to put on each channel, Rebecca suggested first finding out which audience(s) are on each channel, then asking ‘what are they looking for’?  Planned Parenthood has some interesting enhancements planned, such as a 24×7 chat / text hotline, as well as a mobile phone application.

Slides from the NYC 501 Tech Club gathering on Multi-Channel Fundraising are available on SlideShare.  (Thanks Farra)

While I missed seeing other Convio users at the Summit, I was pleased to see Convio’s Nonprofit Live TV – an attempt to bring the event to me.  Congratulations to those nonprofits that were honored for innovation in in Online Marketing, Fundraising, Advocacy and Email Marketing.

Online tools make it easy for us to keep in touch with colleagues and friends, but it’s still nice to connect in person.  At the 501 Tech Club gathering, I met someone from Catholic Medical Mission Board, an organization I worked at while I was in college – long before I joined the nonprofit community full time.  Although many people I worked with have moved on, it was still nice to make a new connection.  Thanks to Nten and to organizers Charles Charles Lenchner and Thomas Negron for getting our group back in gear.

Addendum 11/24/09 – Here is Farra’s write-up of the 501 Tech Club event.