Tag Archives: givemeaning

New Competition for ‘Traditional’ Nonprofits

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While reviewing an online donation form recently, I came across this default question: “keep me informed about how my gift is being used.”  This seemed like an opportunity to find out exactly how a donation would be used by our organization. e.g. to support research, to sponsor an event, to provide constituent service.  However it turned out that this question was actually intended as an opt-in for email communication.  Needless to say, I advised that we revise the language so the constituent isn’t promised something that we aren’t prepared to deliver.

Yet in a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article, Give and Take (subscription required), many new nonprofits were profiled that can tell donors exactly how their funds are used by allowing constituents to contribute directly to a project of their choice.  This trend is referred to as ‘direct giving’ or ‘peer-to-peer philanthropy’ and is utilized by organizations such as GlobalGiving, Kiva, DonorsChoose and ModestNeeds.

These nonprofits are maintained through mostly optional fees added to the donation, although GiveMeaning is trying the advertising route. Since none of these organizations are self-supporting yet, it’s unsure whether this concept will survive and, if so, which of these charities will remain.  However, the ability to donate directly to a cause is an area where many traditional nonprofits cannot compete, especially when donations for specific causes are discouraged so funds received are not ‘restricted’ in their use.

Without the Internet, this type of philanthropy would not exist.  Make a donation to one of these organizations and see how your constituent experience compares to what you’ve received from most traditional nonprofits.  For a profile of these types of sites, visit Peter Dietz’s Social Actions

Using Social Networking Sites to Attract Constituents

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At the quarterly Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table meeting this week, I initiated a discussion on social networking, stimulated by Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article, A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy. In addition to the popular MySpace and Facebook sites, the article mentioned many new ways in which our supporters are finding to raise money for their favorite causes.

David Milner, who has run the webmaster group for several years, raised an interesting question.  If pages are created on these new sites and successfully generate interest in the organization, this will hopefully increase traffic to the nonprofit’s main web site.  But if the nonprofit maintains the MySpace and Facebook sites while neglecting its own web site, how will this come across to the constituent?  I also asked – how does the nonprofit decide which content to put on these sites while making sure there is consistency with its own web site?

The social networking sites present an interesting opportunity for us to engage a new audience.  It is likely that visitors will seek out an organization on these new networks before visiting an organization’s main web site.  So we’ll need to make sure that our nonprofits have a presence on these new sites while also keeping our own web sites fresh.  This will be a challenge, but it’s easier to go where our constituents are than hope that they’ll find our organization web sites.

In addition to MySpace Impact and Facebook’s Causes, other sites mentioned in the article that are attracting interest especially among younger constituents include Change.org, DoSomething, Firstgiving, GiveMeaning, Kiva and SixDegrees.

Group Fundraising – converting donors to fundraisers

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Peter Dietz, micro-philanthropy consultant, hosted a Nten webinar on group fundraising last week, reviewing many new services which allow constituents to do their own fundraising for charities they support.  Although funds raised in this manner still represent a small portion of online fundraising, this is clearly a growing trend that nonprofits should take full advantage of.  Major points:

  • There are currently about 20 services of this type, all which have widely different revenue and commission structure, ranging for 0% for GiveMeaning (which is sponsored by corporations) to some that charge up to 10%.  It’s best to review what each offers and choose one to focus on, rather than confusing constituents with multiple options that work differently
  • Chipin and FirstGiving heavily use widgets which allow placing fundraising buttons on pesonal web sites / blogs;  many of the other services will probably add this capability
  • Group fundraising works best when funds are being raised for a specific purpose and the nonprofit organization makes it clear how the donation will be used
  • Other differences between the available services:
    • whether they can be used only for 501c3 organizations or by anyone
    • whether they are intended to raise money for specific targets or for any purpose
    • whether they share donor data with the recipient organization
    • some are setup as for profit organizations, others are nonprofit
    • whether or not a fundraising goal can be established

More is available at Nten’s web site.  This is an area that should be explored by all nonprofits.  As Peter suggested, ‘give them (supporters) what they need,’ then ‘get out of the way.’

Innovative ways to use technology in nonprofits

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Spent some time recently at the Foundation Center (a great resource for information about nonprofits) and scanned articles from the Chronicle of Philanthropy.  (While the web is wonderful, sometimes it’s nice to be able to read through a written publication.)  Below are some organizations using technology in interesting ways, some which have been around for many years and others that are new:

  1. Change.org – 2007 – social network for variety of causes
  2. Donors Choose -  2000 – helps school teachers
  3. Genocide Intervention Network – 2004 – end genocide
  4. Give Meaning – 2005 – donations for specific projects
  5. Invisible Children – 2004 – helps kids in northern Uganda
  6. Kiva – 2005 – small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries
  7. Nothingbutnets – 2006 – ‘send a net to save a life’ in Africa
  8. Rednoseday – 1988 – comic relief in UK & Africa
  9. Takingitglobal – 1999 – online community for young people

Also see Squidoo’s list of the 59 Smartest Organizations Online, which includes some of the above nonprofits.

These are great examples of how to raise money and support social causes with technology in new and exciting ways.  Take a look.