Tag Archives: Blackbaud

An Open Letter to Blackbaud and Convio – Now One Company

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It’s official – Blackbaud has cConvio - a Blackbaud Companyompleted the acquisition of Convio.  When these plans were announced in January, I was concerned, as I explained in this blog post.  It wasn’t that long ago that Blackbaud acquired Kintera;  now only one major vendor remains.

My wish list for the combined organization:

  1. Blackbaud CEO Marc Chardon’s message mentions that integration between products such as the Raiser’s Edge and Luminate Online is high on the priority list.  But let’s not stop there – most nonprofits use products from multiple vendors, and need help in integrating data between them.  This requires a commitment to open APIs and in freely connecting to other platforms.
  2. Blackbaud now has a dizzying array of software options, some which seem to duplicate each other.  Help us understand what’s best for our organizations’ needs and then recommend the appropriate solution – even if it’s not a Blackbaud product.
  3. Be respectful of the talented Convio staff and help them integrate into Blackbaud with a minimum of pain.  Mergers are rarely easy.

Convio founder Vinay Bhagat chose not to move on to Blackbaud and left us with this inspiring message.  Fortunately, most of Convio’s management has already been integrated into the new organization.  Marc, as you have promised, show us how the combined company will help our nonprofits raise more money, engage our constituents and implement successful multi-channel campaigns.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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According to the recently released 2012 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report, the nonprofits that have been most successful have a clear strategy for social media, management support and have dedicated social media staff.   The average size of an organization’s Facebook (8,317) and Twitter (3,290) communities continues to grow yet few nonprofits are raising funds from social media.  Download your free copy.

(To kick start fundraising results, it will be interesting to see if development departments start to play a larger part in managing social networks – currently it’s usually marketing / communication that’s in charge.)

If you decide to go outside your organization for social media help, ask these 7 questions to anyone you’re considering hiring.  (My take – it’s always preferable to assign this work to a staff person who is more familiar with your nonprofit.)  And here are 10 things you may be doing wrong with social media.

Have you noticed the larger photos on Facebook’s mobile application?  Wonder where they got this idea (see new kid on the block Pinterest).

Blackbaud’s webinar series today included an important reminder that work on your website doesn’t stop after the redesign.  Websites must continue to evolve and most importantly,.must always have fresh content to keep your constituents coming back.  Need ideas?  Here are 58 ways to create great content.

In addition to checking out how your website looks on phones, how about tablets?  See 11 Nonprofit Websites That Look Great on iPads.  And what about your email messages?  Here’s how to optimize mail for mobile phones.

Finally, if you don’t have a specific campaign to recruit monthly donors, read this.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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This week’s torrent of news centered around Susan B. Komen’s decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood, the torrent of outrage which eventually caused them to reverse their decision.  What’s even more amazing is that Planned Parenthood supporters stepped in to make up the loss by special contributions, similar to in the past when funding was taken away.  Congratulations to Planned Parenthood for quickly activating their dedicated constituents;  shame to Komen for ruining its branding with such a poorly thought out decision.

So Facebook is going public.  How will this affect its relationship with its many devotees, which is expected to increase to 1 BILLION later this year?  It’s a bit sad that Convio, not long after going public, agreed to be acquired by its long term competitor, Blackbaud, apparently to take advantage of a financial windfall.  (Also see my recent blog post.)  It will be interesting to watch the path Facebook follows once its loyalties move mostly to its shareholders.

Pinterest seems to be very popular lately.  Have you used it yet?  With all the social media tools available, Small Act (via my friend Shana Masterson) suggests you choose carefully how many you can manage.  (I’m posting regularly on Twitter and Facebook, but less so on LinkedIn and Google Plus so far, trying to find content which is appropriate to each platform.)

After they donate or take the actions you request, do you make sure to thank your donors? Here are some tips from Guidestar and a quiz from Network for Good.

Are you getting good response from your email marketing efforts?  Use these 7 tips for appeals and also 5 Best Practices for Increasing Email Subscribers Engagement.  (And go here if you need help in getting them to sign up to receive your emails.)

Thinking about getting a tablet, such as the iPad or Kindle Fire?  Here’s a good article to read first.

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.