Tag Archives: multichannel

Getting Started with ePhilanthropy Webinar – Wed, Jan. 21 at 7 PM EST

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Thanks to Allan Pressel of CharityFinders and Cristine Cronin of NY Charities for joining me at this week’s event at the NYC Foundation Center, Online Fundraising Strategies for Tough Times.  Over 120 attendees joined us for a two hour session on how to help our nonprofit organizations prosper, even in this difficult economic climate.  Thanks also to Charlotte Dion of the Foundation Center for hosting the event and allowing me to present.  If you could not attend, please view my slides, Ten ePhilanthropy Tips for Tough Times

As a follow up, I’d like to offer an one hour webinar, Getting Started with ePhilanthropy on Wed, Jan. 21, 2009 at 7 PM EST.  This will be the first of what I hope to be monthly online classes on how you can use online strategies at your small or medium sized nonprofit organization.  This month’s session will focus on inexpensive and easy ways you can improve your web site, utilize email marketing techniques and promote multichannel strategies.  Best of all, you can attend from any place where you have a phone and an Internet connected computer.  Register Now.

A Year End Donation Story

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With 2008 ending soon, I realized this week that it was time to finish charitable donations to maximize our tax deduction.  Although my wife and I give to many of the same organizations each year, we usually make many contributions at year-end.  Since I so often talk about the advantages of online giving, I decided to make most of our donations on the web.

Interestingly, some of the nonprofits I support haven’t learned the lessons of integrating offline and online campaigns.  Many of the direct mail pieces we received came with increasing frequency, but offered no dedicated web address to use other than the organization home page.  When I went online on one nonprofit’s site, I couldn’t find a way to join or renew my membership, nor could I find a phone number to call.  With the help of Google, I found a phone number and asked that they please not keep wasting my money on constant direct mail requests when I 1) prefer to donate online and 2) want our donations used for the nonprofit’s mission, not for mailing costs.

I’ve also found that even for nonprofits who we support, I am still a bit reluctant to receive email updates throughout the year, possibly because they also come a bit too often and don’t offer enough incentive for me to open them.

Maybe some people take the time to read long direct mail pieces, but I’m not one of them.  Nor do I want to navigate lengthy email messages.  Interestingly, none of the organizations we support asked how often we wanted to be contacted and whether we preferred online or offline communications.  Perhaps these would be good questions to add to your donation form.

There’s one day left – make sure you donate to your favorite causes (even if it’s not as easy as it should be).

Notes from Convio Summit

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This week I attended my first Convio Summit in Austin, Texas.  Probably the most valuable part was the first day, where I joined many other national accounts for an unusual opportunity to work directly with Convio’s senior management in critiquing the product and discussing future plans.  I was most gratified to hear about the firm’s commitment to improving product usability, both on the back and front end.  Since I train and support staff nationwide for my nonprofit organization, I often get questions about what modules to use for what and why the screens are sometimes difficult to understand.  A good definition for usability was provided by Jim Killion of is7: “make it easier for people to do what you want them to do.”

More highlights:

Convio’s new Common Ground is designed to ease the pain of integration by providing a platform that will support both online and offline transactions.  Although a new offering, Common Ground uses the well established SalesForce platform and is built to interface well with Convio’s online product.  However, the availability of this product does not mean that Convio will stop building integrations for other fundraising software solutions.  I also spoke with Convio’s data integration director – connecting with other systems is clearly something that Convio has devoted substantial resources to.

I also spoke at length with Convio’s new Director of Client Support, who plans major changes in how calls are tracked and handled as well as eliminating the current need for multiple login into multiple systems.

Multichannel fundraising / marketing was a major theme. CARE and Defenders of Wildlife (which won an award for their use of integrated strategies) both spoke about how they’ve seen optimal results from campaigns that span offline and online channels.  While changing your organization to operate across channels may not be easy to implement, the payout clearly seems worth the effort.

Several speakers agreed that social media may not currently result in a large fundraising impact, but that it’s still important to participate because it’s where constituents are spending time and finding a sense of community and like-mindedness.  Beth Kanter is the expert on this topic, leading Nten’s WeAreMedia.

A fascinating session on how to structure your organization for online success reviewed results from a recent survey responded to by over 60 nonprofit organizations to date.  Not surprisingly, ‘insufficient staff’ and ‘budget constraints’ were viewed as the largest barriers, followed by ‘senior management doesn’t understand value of integrated / online marketing.’  Organization structure for online strategy was mixed: 20% centralized, 39% decentralized and 41% hybrid (combination of both).  However, Marketing & Communications was named as the department which most often handles this function, followed by Development and Information Technology (agreeing with what I’ve said previously in this blog).

Many nonprofits were recognized for their innovative use of online strategies.  Particularly noteworthy was the Trisomy 18 Foundation which received an award for best overall use of Convio.

Convio’s Misty McLaughlin discussed building a ‘top notch user experience,’ offering Three Things You Can Do Today:

  1. Use analytics – in addition to Google Analytics, take a look at CrazyEgg
  2. Interview some site visitors
  3. Profile how your nonprofit is perceived by others by regularly searching for your organization on Google, by reviewing blogs, Facebook and Twitter
Judi Sohn of the Colorectal Cancer Coaliton provided a fascinating review of her creation of the microsite Cover Your Butt to spotlight colorectal cancer and to gain support for several legislative initiatives, also using a variety of social networking tools.
Thanks to Gene Austin and the Convio staff for a very rewarding conference.

Coordinating Online Communications and Fundraising Strategies

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Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 asked this question on the Nten elist this week: how [do] other organizations create a balance between the Communications and the Fundraising departments when it comes to online initiatives. How should Communications and Fundraising interact without having turf battles?

A fascinating discussion has resulted, which is nicely summarized by Nten.

What ideas do you have for improving collaboration between departments that have traditionally operated separately?

Integrated Fundraising – No Longer Optional

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Probably the best book explaining the benefits of ephilanthropy I’ve seen to date is Ted Hart’s People to People Fundraising.  Multiple experts from nonprofit organizations and vendors / consultants who service nonprofits offer detailed strategies on why nonprofits must begin to embrace integrated fundraising techniques.  Some memorable takeaways:

  • Traditionally an organization’s web site has been under the control of either IT or marketing.  Whereas their goals and objectives may be well intended, it is fair to say that their core focus is not development  oriented. Development is often shut out from many of the Web conversations…Nonprofit organizations need to take a much more holistic focus of who controls and contributes to the overall online presence;  marketing, IT and development are just three of the contributors.
  • Many organizations hae been quick to jump on the online bandwagon without creating an effective strategic plan.  For example, it’s easy to ask people to visit your web site or leave an email address.  But without an effective plan for how you wil use email addresses and how your online activities will integrate with your offline activities, you may be creating more problems than solutions.
  • To develop integrated campaigns, an organization may not need to restructure, but it will have to to rethink how the departments within the organization interact with each other.

Some of the book’s contributors, many which I’ve heard speak at conferences and other industry events, include Blackbaud’s Steven MacLaughlin, Convio’s Sheeraz Haji, Network for Good’s Katya Andresen as well as Ted Hart, who has long been an expert on this topic since founding the ePhilanthropy Foundation.  Many case studies from nonprofits that have successfully utilized integrated fundraising strategies are profiled, as well as many ways to take advantage of social networking sites.

If you still think that collaborative campaigns won’t work in your organization, take a look at this book and find out why it’s so important.

How Not to Integrate Offline & Online Data

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This week my wife and I have embarked on a new adventure to combine our phone, TV and Internet service to Verizon’s FIOS.  Placing the order was quite a frustrating experience, but what I found most interesting was that the information available on the Verizon web site was very different from what we were told by phone.  The web site would not allow us to complete the transaction and mentioned offers that were impossible to select.  When we asked to speak to a supervisor on the phone, we were told that they have ‘no access’ to the online offerings, and were unable to honor the promotions even when we read it from their web page.

Moral – offline and online must be in synch. When our constituents view us, they see one organization.  Presenting a different picture on a web site versus what is said by phone clearly contradicts this image.  In our case, my wife and I went ahead with the FIOS order due to the significant cost savings and the anticipated performance improvements, but nonprofit organization constituents may not be so patient when attempting to place a donation or participate in an event if they can’t get clear information.

Does this happen in your organization?

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While coming back from lunch today, I met a staff member from our finance department in the elevator.  Our office is setup in a way that finance and the president’s office are on one side of the floor and everyone else is on the other side.  I asked her if she liked being apart from most of the other staff members.  At first she said no, but on second thought she said she enjoyed the privacy and being able to focus on her work.

About a year ago, my organization decided to invest in a new accounting package that would be more compatible with our fundraising software.  It was a difficult transition, but now we have data flowing from one system into the other.  Yet at most companies where I’ve worked, the fundraising and finance systems have been totally separate.

During a webinar today, I was reminded of the benefits of integrating traditional direct marketing and online fundraising.  Yet these functions are often handled by different departments that each have their own agenda.  ‘Dual channel’ donors usually give more frequently than those who receive only offline or online marketing.  Yet few organizations have been successful in developing a truly coordinated strategy.

I used to think that doing my work well and pleasing my direct supervisor was enough to succeed.  Now I realize that it is just as important to play well with others.  While it’s good to be friendly with co-workers, it’s also important to work together with those in other departments, since most worthwhile projects require everyone’s contribution.  So for my organization’s finance department staff, being ‘separate’ may be a mixed blessing.

Direct Mail or Online Acquisition

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In a recent article in Fundraising Success, Karen Taggart of Care2 explores offline vs. online fundraising. Many points seem to point to the benefits of online initiatives:

  • Online campaigns result in higher average gifts
  • Online approaches are particularly effective for emergency / current events related campaigns
  • Online giving is expected to continue to rise
  • Online fundraising is considerably less expensive than offline efforts

But another article by Abny Santicola points out that the most effective strategy is a multi-channel approach, not using just one or the other: “Numerous studies have found donors contacted via multiple channels are more valuable and give larger gifts than single-channel donors do. But analytics and match-back for integrated campaigns can be tricky because it can be hard to demonstrate how communication through one channel affected response via another.”

As I’ve posted previously, I definitely agree that using both channels together is definitely the best solution.  The challenge, however, is to get different parts of an organization working together that are accustomed to working separately.  This will only happen if those who are responsible for online strategies also recognize the benefits of integrating offline campaigns which clearly still have much to offer in raising funds and engaging constituents.