Tag Archives: Blackbaud

Blackbaud Will Buy Convio – My Thoughts

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Having watched many nonprofit vendors combine over the years, I probably shouldn’t be surprised by this week’s news that Blackbaud intends to acquire Convio.  But since the companies have taken such different paths with contrasting cultures, it’s hard to imagine that a merger will go smoothly and provide significant benefits to nonprofit customers.

Blackbaud’s most popular product has long been Raiser’s Edge, which provides unmatched functionality but is also beyond the financial reach of many small to medium nonprofits.  Despite efforts recently to make it more web based, RE is still primarily locally installed.  Of course Blackbaud has bought many other companies over the years which provide web options, such as eTapestry, Kintera, and PIDI, so many that it’s often hard to know how the multiple products all fit together.

In addition to its foundation online marketing platform (now Luminate), Convio took a significant risk by developing Common Ground, a web application built on Salesforce.  While Common Ground offers much less functionality than software like Raiser’s Edge, it offers the strong advantage of being able to connect well with other products due to its Salesforce infrastructure.  (Integration between platforms has been a major issue at every nonprofit I’ve worked for.)

While Blackbaud has been most active in acquisitions, let’s not forget that Convio also bought GetActive – and the transition of GetActive customers to the Convio platform was long and painful.

As many of my colleagues have said this week, it’s hard to know how this acquisition will pan out, and which products will continue to be maintained.  I have friends at both Blackbaud and Convio, and I can only hope that the inevitable personnel shakeup will be handled respectfully.

In my view, this merger may have the effect of reducing competition and innovation, which is always a bad thing.  However, this may also be a wake up call for those organizations who have not discovered the benefits of using open source solutions which are not tied to the fate of a particular vendor.

If you’re on the Progressive Exchange and Nten email lists, I encourage you to read the comments of my colleagues Peter Campbell, Michelle Murrain, Robert Weiner , Allen Gunn on Aspiration Tech and Alyson Kapin’s on Frogloop.  Also see Nten’s take and then join the free Nten conference call this Wednesday to further sort out what is likely to come next.

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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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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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.

See you at NTC This Week?

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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.

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.

Why Technology is Core to Your Mission

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Back when I was focused mostly on technology, my role was often viewed as a back end function, not really part of the core mission of the organization I worked for.   Currently, technology is no longer a niche specialty, but something that everyone is involved in through the huge influence of cell phones and portable computers.   And while I still help nonprofits to make the best use of technology, my role has expanded to include communications, marketing and fundraising.

Blackbaud’s new report, Top Trends in Technology offers a great overview of how technology now influences an organization far beyond the original emphasis of desktop and network computing.   Definitely worth reviewing in detail;  some of my takeaways are:

  • Continually evaluate how well your website is serving your constituents.  Many nonprofits still only focus on the website while it’s being redesigned, then allow it to stay dormant until the next makeover.  Remember that your web presence serves many audiences, those who already support your cause and others who are new to your organization and are seeking an overview of your services.  Give your website a health check.
  • Know who your strongest supporters are and help them to spread the word about your organization.  Most nonprofits already focus on those who have given major gifts or who are strong candidates to do so.  But many other constituents want to help you to engage others in your mission, not only by making donations.  Find out how to help with fundraising without asking for money.
  • The idea of a single supporter database is difficult to implement, but do your best to reduce islands of data that may develop when staff aren’t adequately trained to keep their data in a central, sharable location
  • Establish a culture where technology is implemented to achieve specific organization goals, not because a vendor or consultant tells you that it is a good strategy.

Fortunately, technology is no longer a back end service, but affects the overall success of how well your nonprofit achieves its mission.  Establish a partnership between IT and other departments, as suggested by how fundraisers can manage and work with IT departments.

P.S. Hope you’ll join me at Nten‘s Nonprofit Technology Conference, coming up in March in Washington DC.  It’s always a great event, and we talk a lot about these topics.

What I Learned This Week

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What’s especially nice about the nonprofit community is how generous everyone is in sharing their knowledge.  This week I attended the Westchester Chapter meeting of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, listened to webinars on Using Online Tools for Year End Fundraising, Rethinking Your eNewsletter Strategy, a session based on the recently released Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide and Engaging Donors through Social Media .  Here’s a sampling of what I learned:

  • why it’s critical to have a strong case for support to present to constituents, and to make sure all staff understand it (not just development)
  • the importance of integrating fundraising with an organization’s overall planning process
  • use social media for stewardship;  use email, direct mail and telemarketing to deliver a strong ask
  • figure out your main objectives before starting a Facebook presence – is your main goal to:
    • encourage feedback / discussion
    • drive traffic to website
    • build email list
    • attract event attendees
  • plan to spend at least two hours / week  per channel on social media, but you will need to devote more time in the getting started phase
  • Facebook will soon be making available more functionality within tabs, so visitors may have less reason to go to main organization web site
  • when communicating with constituents:
    • send fewer words more often
    • talk about the future, not mainly about past events
    • write more about them, less about your nonprofit

I also raised this issue during the AFP event: how can an organization find a balance between aggressively pursuing its mission with the hope of ‘putting itself out of business’ within a specified time, e.g. Michael J. Fox Foundation, versus long term nonprofits which has been seeking a cure for a disease for a very long time, but still have much ground to cover?   My suggestion: keep reminding donors what their help has allowed your organization to accomplish, relating specific examples of how you’ve been able to help your target audience.  And keep saying ‘thank you’ – not just when you are seeking another contribution.

Please vote on which sessions you’d like to see at  Nten’s 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference and pick your favorite slogan in the Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards.

For an example of how powerful video can be in communications, watch this incredibly touching one minute video by ALS Society of Canada.

Taking a New Approach to Donor Stewardship

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This week’s installment of the Blackbaud webinar series Cultivating Lifelong Donors:  Stewarship and the Fundraising Pyramid presented by Lawrence Henze focused on how nonprofits have traditionally focused on entry level giving and major donors, but have not paid attention to mid-level donors.  Interestingly, I had lunch with a friend who is a director of corporate giving for a NYC nonprofit, and he mentioned the same issue.  A few takeaways from this session:

  1. Identify what giving levels are ‘mid-level’ for your organization – will vary depending on your constituent base
  2. Focus on patterns such as how long these donors have been supporting you, at what time of year, and what age or life stage they are at (there are ways to append this information from other sources if you don’t usually collect it)
  3. Develop stewardship strategies to develop closer relationships with these supporters, e.g. personalized thank yous or opportunities to interact directly with organization staff.

To do this effectively, you must have a central database which everyone uses, and where you enter each ‘touch point’ you have with a constituent.  The product you select doesn’t have to be expensive, but you need to develop an organization mindset where staff are accustomed to tracking and sharing information.  This can sometimes be a greater challenge than finding the right product.

I asked these questions during the Q&A session:

  • Who in development should be assigned to mid-level donors?  The first response was ‘whoever is willing to take it,’ but generally it should be given to those who work with major donors.  After all, the hope is that many of these mid-level contributors will eventually advance to the major donor level.
  • What about having the same person work with a donor as she/he rises through the fundraising pyramid, providing continuity and allowing a solid relationship to be built?  Lawrence said that he hasn’t often seen this in over 30 years of working with nonprofits, and that it might be difficult due to the high turnover of development staff.  But he added that if it could be done, it would most likely be successful.

Think of how you feel when you get to know a salesperson when preparing to buy a software product, then as soon as you make the purchase, you have to deal with the normal support staff, who then have to learn all over about your organization’s needs.  Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable if you could continue to work with the person you started with?  Try this with your constituents and see if it encourages them to move further along the fundraising pyramid.

Getting the Most from Social Media

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Attended two events this week on social media, one live and one over the web.  Bonnie McEwan of Make Waves presented ‘U R What U Tweet: Social Media for Career Enhancement‘ at the NYC Foundation Center.  Blackbaud‘s Frank Barry presented ‘Donor Engagement through Social Media.’

At Bonnie’s presentation, I replied to an audience question about how does someone show that they are  ’social media savvy’?  For an individual who wants to establish their professional brand, start with LinkedIn and then a blog – if you can maintain it regularly.  For an organization, Frank suggested selecting a few social networks to start with, preferably those where your constituents are already speaking about your organization and/or cause.  Don’t try to be ‘everywhere’ or by simply using the same messaging.

Should one try to maintain separate professional and personal profiles on sites such as Twitter?  Bonnie said no, that it’s better to ‘be who you are.’   I agree – but make sure that at least 75-80% of your posts are related to your brand.  Bonnie added that every nonprofit should have a social media policy – see this example.

How do you find out what others are saying about your organization.  Frank summarized these tools, only one which is paid:

If you are on social media, you need to engage your audience in conversation, not just send out information.  Frank suggested several ways to enhance your Facebook presence:

  1. use custom tabs
  2. create calls to action (e.g. sign up for our enewsletter)
  3. provide direct links to other social networking sites
  4. customize your logo
  5. take advantage of Facebook’s built in photo sharing tool (or use Flickr)
  6. post updates on your events
  7. use third party fundraising tools
  8. allow others to post on your wall
  9. use video to connect with supporters
  10. include content from your blog

Here’s another perspective on designing social media engagement from Debra Askanase.

Don’t forget to learn from those nonprofits that are actively using social media to build their supporter base;  Patrick Kwan and Carie Lewis at the Humane Society;  Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross, and the National Wildlife Federation‘s Danielle Brigida.  (As Frank pointed out, it’s best to put someone in your organization in charge of your social media efforts.)

Is social media worthwhile?  In my view, it’s important to measure your success not only by the financial contributions your organization receives, but by the level of commitment supporters demonstrate to your mission.  By maintaining an ongoing conversation with constituents in social media, you will ultimately benefit by both measures.