Tag Archives: nten

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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Among the many tips offered at Friday’s session on Facebook Tactics That Get Results offered by M&R Strategic Services and Nten was the reminder that very few Facebook fans will visit your page – they will mostly see your posts in their newsfeed.  (So why invest in expensive custom Facebook tabs?)  Surprisingly, you are penalized for posting from third party services such as Tweetdeck and HootSuite (read more on why these posts are less likely to appear in your newsfeed then if you post directly on Facebook).

How do you get more engagement – i.e. likes and comments, which will give your posts more visibility?  Use different types of content, including photos and videos, and ask constituents to take a specific action – especially those that will result in providing their email address so you can build your list.  (Did you know that you lose 18% of your list each year through unsubscribes and email addresses that no longer work?).

Idealware offers help on measuring your results on social media and Frogloop advises on how well as how you can manage data across multiple channels.  Jocelyn Harmon offers some simple advice on why constituents don’t donate.

Many nonprofits rely heavily on volunteers, yet their importance has often been overshadowed by those of lucky to have ‘paid’ work.  LinkedIn now offers a section to highlight volunteer experience and causes, which will help nonprofits to find its most loyal supporters.

Sept. 11 was a sad day, marking a decade since we lost almost three thousand people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.  What can nonprofits learn when the unthinkable happens?  Here are some lessons and another view of the effect on nonprofits as we recover from a very emotional day yesterday.  Ten years ago, I worked for Cross-Cultural Solutions, which was able to help to coordinate recovery efforts in NYC after the horrible event.

7 Tips to Implement a Successful Fall ePhilanthropy Campaign

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Sadly, Labor Day is followed by fall with shorter days and cooler weather.  But it also provides an opportunity to reconnect with your constituents, climaxed by the important year-end fundraising campaign.  Here are some ways to hit the ground running when you return to the office tomorrow:

  1. Prepare an integrated communications / fundraising calendar describing how you will engage with your supporters across channels.  Balance appeals with messages showing how your organization has helped your target audience and be specific about you’ve utilized past donations.
  2. Start planning content for email campaigns well in advance, using these 7 tips for better fundraising emails and applying these best practices for enewsletters - they apply just as much for nonprofits as for small businesses (More ideas here)
  3. Take the time to analyze data on email subscribers, website traffic, Facebook ‘likers,’ Twitter followers etc. so you better understand what platforms your constituents are engaging with you
  4. Is your website consistently providing fresh content that is in synch with your other communication media?  If not, have you provided ongoing training to staff on how to utilize your content management software?  (What?  You don’t have a CMS.  Read Idealware’s Five Tips for A Successful Open Source CMS Project on a Budget)
  5. Find a few simple ways to start thinking multi-channel, even if it means changing the way your nonprofit usually works.  Get ideas from Frogloop’s  Multichannel Magic, then read about others’ successes in this month’s upcoming nonprofit blog carnival hosted by Big Duck featuring this topic
  6. Get out of your office.  If you’re in NYC, for example, you can learn how to innovate and thrive in the digital age at this month’s 501 Tech NYC event and discuss what makes successful websites at the Not-for-Profit Webmaster Round Table.  (You can also learn from your desk by taking a webinar during you lunch hour.)
  7. Optimize your online giving forms, paying particular attention to whether they work as well on mobile and tablet platforms, where more of your constituents are seeing them.
Congratulations once again to Charity:Water, which has kicked off its September campaign as another example of how to do ephilanthropy right with stirring video and constantly providing feedback on how it uses donations towards its mission of providing clean water worldwide .

Thoughts After a Hurricane

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It’s been an eventful week in New York.  First, we were shaken by a rare East Coast earthquake.  Then, we were faced with a Hurricane Irene which forced many of us to relocate to higher ground.  While not as severe as anticipated, this weekend’s storm has caused massive damage and electrical outages for many.  I was extremely lucky;  my thoughts are with those who are facing major clean-up efforts.

Is your nonprofit prepared for a disaster?  Care2 offers a webinar this week on Surviving and Thriving When a Crisis Hits.    And while this week’s events were a major inconvenience, find a way to Put Your Cause in the Eye of the Storm to tell stories about how your organization helps its target audience.  Here are some Tools to Help Any Nonprofit Tell Stories Online from Amy Sample Ward.

For yet another reason to use social media, read why Nonprofits Are Expected to Use Social Media During Disasters.  For many great ideas on how to implement a social media strategy at your organization, learn from Jereme Bivins in his Social Media Case Study on how the Foundation Center uses Thrive and other tools.  Per Pew Internet, 65% of Online Adults Now Use Social Networking Sites.

Most of us make presentations, but it’s always challenging to keep listeners engaged, especially when you’re on a webinar.  I participated in last week’s Nonprofits Live: Great Presentations, offered by Tech Soup.  You can watch and listen to the event here or search the #nplive hashtag on Twitter  which include many of my comments.

Help Nten to make next spring’s Nonprofit Technology Conference the best yet by tweeting your ideas to #12NTC.  Work for a really great organization?  Nominate your organization as one of the 50 Best Nonprofits to Work For In 2012.

More Lessons About Project Management

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A few years ago, I posted Lessons About Project Management and recently added tips on How To Make Your Projects Successful.  Here’s an update and some new ideas:

  • Get to know your stakeholders.  Especially if you’re in a new environment (as I am now as Technical PM at the Center for Court Innovation), take the time to learn about why the project was initiated, and how committed (or not) your colleagues are to its success
  • Project success isn’t about the technology.  As was pointed out in a recent discussion on the Nten email list, it’s crucial to understand the business processes – how things are done in an organization – before you recommend how technology should be used.
  • Remember that your project team (usually) doesn’t work for you.  As a result, you have to be respectful of their other work obligations, and set reasonable deadlines for project tasks.
  • Participate in person at PM groups like PMI and NY Spin, and online at LinkedIn (try the Project Manager Network).  Don’t just attend meetings to earn PDUs;  ask other PMs what they’re doing to manage projects successfully.  Also review Lou Gasco’s Top 10 Obstacles to Project Success.
  • Don’t forget about training.  If you roll out a wonderful online application without planning for ongoing training and support of your user population, you haven’t completed the job.
Is your nonprofit unfamiliar with the basics of project management?  Learn the basics in my Nten presentation Project Management for Nonprofits.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

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If you missed this week’s Social Media for Nonprofits NYC event, you can get a great summary from Big Duck’s Farra Trompeter, who presented a great step by step tutorial on implementing Multi-Channel Campaigns.  (More session slides from this and past events are available here.)  See also Kivi Leroux Miller’s post highlighting Convio’s recently released Multi-Channel Marketing Report.

Coming up with strong content is the key behind any online strategy.  As I and many of my nonprofit colleagues around the country do, I try to find the most worthwhile posts to share with my followers.  Beth Kanter explains that Content Creation is Listening and Engaging, then followed up with this look at Scoop.It as a way to organize your content.

How can you make your website more ‘social’?  Debra Askanase explains how and gives several examples of nonprofits that are doing this well, and will follow up with a Nten webinar next month.

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen says you must focus on essential content when writing for mobile platforms.  If you’re new to email marketing, learn about Email Marketing 2.0, then learn how segmentation can help you to get better results.

Finally, if you’re trying to find a format to send to your management to summarize social media and results of other online activity, Beth offers this guest post highlighting the Smithsonian Institution’s in-house dashboard, then suggests using a small pilot project to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media.

 

You Don’t Need to Recreate the Wheel

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Trying to figure out how your organization can be more effective online?  There are many nonprofits that are already succeeding that you can learn from.  Probably the most publicized success story in recent years is the astounding growth of charity: water, featured in a recent post by davidconnell.net.  One particularly interesting point is how charity: water has partnered which local organizations that actually do much of their core work (the nonprofit didn’t build an infrastructure to do it themselves).

In addition, when charity: water communicates with its supporters, the focus is on the cause, not the organization.  If your organization does many different things and you’re having difficulty what to focus on, take Katya Andresen’s suggestion to make modules out of your mission.  Not all of your constituents will care about everything you do, but there is probably some program or activity that particularly interests them.

Hearing a lot about mobile?  Nten‘s Holly Ross discusses 5 Nonprofits That Are Innovating with Mobile.  Even if you decide that you don’t have the bandwidth for a mobile approach yet, don’t forget to test outgoing emails on cell phones since so many more constituents are reading emails on cell phones.

The old model of technology focused on getting support from product vendors.  While I still work closely with my vendors’ customer support staffs, I also rely on checking in with my colleagues across the country, many who are asking the same questions as I am.  (Some issues I’m currently working on are how can I increase engagement with my organization’s Facebook followers and how can I integrate online forms from my vendors in social media platforms – since this is where many of my constituents are spending time online, never reaching my nonprofit’s website).

Another way to learn from others is to follow the most frequently used nonprofit hashtags, as nicely summarized by Kerri Karvetski.  (Don’t forget to use these hashtags when you post on Twitter!)

Fortunately, the nonprofit sector is a very open, sharing community.  Instead of struggling on your own, take the time to learn from what other organizations have already done, and ask for help if you need assistance in making your nonprofit shine online.  And don’t be afraid to fail.  As I was recently reminded by social media superstar Danielle Brigida, most of us are still figuring things out, especially since online products / services are constantly changing.

Social Media for Social Good

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This week I had the pleasure of listening to a panel of social media experts at the Foundation Center’s Social Media for Social Good event.  Speakers included Renee Alexander from US Fund for Unicef, Julia C. Smith from Idealist, Farra Trompeter from Big Duck and Nten‘s Amy Sample Ward, preceded by a presentation by Small Act‘s Casey Golden.

As might be expected during an event on social media, there was an active stream on Twitter, which you can review with the #SM4SG hashtag.  Below are some highlights:

  • Mentioned several times this week and also by Danielle Brigida who recently spoke at the NYC 501 Tech Club, social media involves a lot of trial and error and experimentation.  Often you will have to try different tactics before you find what will work best with your audience.   Don’t be afraid to fail.
  • Engagement = stimulating a conversation and encouraging constituents to take action on issues.
  • Developing a social media policy for your organization will help guide your staff how to speak about your nonprofit online – look at the social media governance policy database and the social media policy generator for help.
  • Your social media policy should be a fluid, living document that is reviewed with staff and updated regularly, not in a book that is stored on a shelf.
  • On Twitter, in addition to sharing ideas from others you find worthwhile, make sure to include your own ideas too – the best Twitter streams have a mix of links, no links and original content.  See this example of a Twitter engagement formula.
  • If your management is still uncertain whether social media is worth the effort, show what your competitors are doing online to engage and build their constituent base.

Want more resources?  For a step by step process on how to use social media, download Idealware’s Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide.  For more guidance on developing a social media policy – Big Duck’s Measuring Your Impact and Creating Policies for Social Media.  And for general tips on Twitter, read Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book

Social media is sexy, but don’t forget the online basics: make sure your website and email marketing program is in place.  Social media works best when part of an overall communications strategy that includes any way you connect with your constituents, whether online or offline.  Focus not only on your organization’s programs, but on the issues which your organization (and constituents) is most focused on.

Thanks to the Foundation Center’s Vanessa Schnaidt for moderating the discussion and to social media guru Jereme Bivins (who manages the Foundation Center’s Twitter stream) for planning this event.

The New World of Mobile – Smartphones and Tablets

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For a long time, I resisted getting a smartphone, preferring to stay with my trusty desktop computer.  I didn’t want to have to work with a small screen and keyboard, and also balked at having to add a data plan to my cell phone bill.  I did have an Itouch, but was limited to using it online when wi-fi access was available.  When I was given a netbook for work, I enjoyed the convenience, but still spent most of my time online at my desktop connection.

Late last year, I got my first Android, and was able to sign up for a plan which included phone, texting and data at a fixed price which was less than what I had been paying for voice only.  Now I use it mostly for social networking, still preferring to use my desktop at home and at work when possible.  But as shown in A Mobile Word: How Your Supporters are Using Smartphones and Why You Should Care, many of our organizations’ constituents have taken the plunge to mobile, yet we often develop websites and sending emails as if everyone was still primarily using a desktop computer.

In Walt Mossberg’s recent laptop buying guide,  he suggests not buying a laptop now, which was the device that was supposed to be the replacement for desktops, and to consider whether a tablet may fit your needs.  I haven’t used a tablet yet, but my boss does and he takes it everywhere he goes and ‘loves’ the device.

Recently I received an email newsletter that had this link on top: view on mobile device, reminiscent of when we were told that every email should have a ‘print friendly’ link. Now, fewer people regularly using printers, but practically everyone has a smartphone and possibly a tablet as well.  So it’s critical that we design our online communications to be brief, viewable in narrow columns, and that we test on the most common platforms that our constituents are using (you can find this out through your web analytics or by surveying your audience).

There’s also the additional questions of whether to develop a mobile friendly website or a mobile application, or possibly a tablet specific or Facebook application.  As a first step, however, make sure your website and email blasts can be viewed well on smartphones.  Even if you have mostly ‘older’ constituents, this is a change that you must start preparing for now.  If you need help, look towards Nten or firms that specifically work on mobile strategies such as MobileActive or consulting firms such as Common Knowledge.  Also review Five Must-Have Characteristics of Nonprofit Mobile Websites.

Report from Chase Charity Insights Event in NYC

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A stellar panel from Facebook (Matt Jacobson, Head of Market Development), Mashable (Zachary Sniderman, Social Good Assistant Editor), Nten (Holly Ross, Executive Director), and Twitter (Jack Dorsey, CEO/Co-Founder) shared thoughts this week on nonprofits’ use of social media at the Chase Charity Insights event in midtown NYC.

Jack Dorsey, who recently announced he will return to the helm of Twitter, began by recalling the now familiar story of Charity:Water, and asked that nonprofits:

  1. focus on design and storytelling – tell stories about the people you’re helping, not only about your organization
  2. measure results and listen to constituents
  3. use ‘simple tools’ to engage followers through ‘constant outreach’ to stay in touch

(Jack’s most recent project is Square, an amazing credit card reader which plugs into mobile phones, allowing organizations to accept donations / payments anywhere.)

Jack noted also that many charities are addressing the same issues, asking that we find ways to work together towards common goals.

Matt Jacobson explained how a simple gesture of agreeing to pay for someone’s groceries led to the $93 dollar club which has raised over $120,000 to fight hunger.  He offered a few websites to help nonprofits get the most from Facebook, such as Non-Profits on Facebook and Facebook Pages.

My friend Holly Ross gave a quick review of the Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report, recently released at Nten’s Nonprofit Technology Conference (and which I recently blogged about).  The most interesting takeaway – how organization size doesn’t matter – any nonprofit can benefit from using social media.  But Holly pointed out that online represents only about 5% of total fundraising and that direct mail still brings in the most money.  She also asked that we look past statistics and focus on telling good stories and building relationships.  During the Q&A session, Holly reminded us not to talk at people, but to seek to engage in conversation.

Zachary Sniderman offered several examples of creative nonprofit social media initiatives such as Earth Hour, Living Philanthropic and would you believe, World Poopin’ Day.

Today’s event was sponsored by Chase Community Giving, which recently extended its philanthropic program by two years and $25 million and will soon begin another contest to select charities to support.   There was some controversy over this program last year but nevertheless, learning from our colleagues on how to creatively use social media at our organizations is very worthwhile.

Notes from Latest Benchmark Reports

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Two major benchmark studies were released at the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference: the e2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study (#11NTCbenchmarks) and the Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report (#11NTCBench).  If you haven’t yet had a chance to digest their contents, below are some major takeaways:

  • When analyzing email marketing statistics, a high unsubscribe rates will often be accompanied by a high response rate.  With overall open rates of emails declining, it’s a continuing challenge to get subscribers to open and read your email messages.   So look at all your statistics;  don’t panic if you suddenly see a rise in unsubscribes
  • Do you give an option for monthly gifts whenever you ask for one-time donations?   Other than by large nonprofits which seem to do the best in this area, many US based organizations seem to neglect this strategy – or forget to pay special attention when communicating with these donors
  • 9 of 10 nonprofits now have a presence on Facebook, but use of Twitter seems to be leveling off (my take – what’s good for other nonprofits may not be best for you.  I’ve seen Twitter often succeed better in creating a buzz and raise visibility than relying mostly on Facebook)
  • While most nonprofits aren’t raising significant funds on Facebook, many of the organizations that are doing the best in raising money are small.   So if you dedicate the budget and staff, you can get good results
  • Many nonprofits focus on commercial networks such as Facebook and Twitter; only 13% of those surveyed have private / house networks which are used mostly for program and service delivery (my take – even though they’re initially harder to create, house networks have the strong advantage of being totally under your control;  Facebook can and does change its rules often, and still makes it  difficult for you to extract email addresses of those who like your page.)
  • Few organizations have yet shown concrete hard benefits from measurements such as ROI to validate the use of social networks;  soft benefits such as increased organization visibility and non-financial supporter engagement are mentioned more frequently.

How can you use these statistics to tweak your online strategy?  With an overall email churn rate of 18%, it’s critical that we always be thinking about ways of building our supporter base.  While website and email marketing still predominates, it’s clear that the most successful nonprofits use a variety of techniques to engage current constituents and to attract new supporters.  Social media can help, but it shouldn’t be done in a vacuum.  Pick a few channels to focus your efforts, test some new approaches to see how they work, and get ideas from what other nonprofits are already doing successfully, especially others in your vertical.  As both reports show, results often very dramatically between sector, e.g. international organizations whose results are often skewed by fundraising for emergencies.

For even more statistics, review the Online Giving Study, also presented at the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference.  Many slides and recordings from the event sessions are now available at Nten’s NTC page.