Took advantage of some rainy weather today to catch up on some video tutorials on optimizing donation pages and social media.

Convio’s recent presentation on Optimizing Online Donations featured Nick Allen from DonorDigital and Alisa Aydin from US Fund for Unicef.  Nick focused on how small changes in a donation page can increase the constituents who actually complete the donation process;  normally, only 10-20% of those who arrive at a donation page actually finish the transaction.  He offered examples that don’t have to cost a lot: using larger, brighter donation buttons and minimizing the number of fields included on the donation form.  Tools such as Google Web Site Optimizer can be used to test different mixes of headlines, header images, logo placement and formatting options.  Or just use A/B testing to try different types of email messages.  Alisa described her organization’s use of tangible, inspired gifts which allow constituents to designate their contributions for specific purposes, often used as a honor/tribute gift.  She gave examples of several nonprofits that are doing this successfully such as Defenders of Wildlife, Jewish National Fund, Oxfam Unwrapped and Nature Conservancy.

What I find encouraging about Nick and Alisa’s tips is that even the largest nonprofits can take small steps to follow the lead of smaller organizations such as Kiva and DonorsChoose that are allowing donors to choose how their funds will be used.

Last month, the Case Foundation recently offered a wonderful series of video tutorials on social media, Gear Up for Giving, which are still available for replay.  Below are some takeaways from sessions I listened to today by gurus Katya Andresen, Holly Ross and Beth Kanter.

• it is so much more effective that have your strongest supporters encourage others to support your mission than just to have it come directly from the nonprofit
• work on developing the relationship first, then ask for financial help later (build your network before you need it, my take – this is much like we should manage our careers)
• social media is primarily a listening tool, not only a new way to distribute your message
• let people engage wherever they are – they may never visit your main web site
• when deciding which social media tools to use, first find out what sites your constituents are already using
• while social media strategies often originate from marketing or communication, ultimately this should be used by everyone in the organization
• social media isn’t a fad;  we can’t be certain which tools will be popular in the next decade, but constituents will continue to expect targeted , value-added conversations and prompt responsiveness
• better to engage fully in a few places than to try to put your nonprofit on every social media site
• definitely use volunteers as a way to complement nonprofits’ always constrained resources, but don’t expect them to define the overall strategy
• segmenting your communications almost always leads to higher response rates

For more great advice on social media, consult Nten’s We Are Media project.

Lastly, as another voice for segmenting and not making every communication an ask, Beaconfire suggest that Sometimes Less is More.