Tag Archives: online fundraising

The Wired Fundraiser

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Network For Good, which recently started a monthly teleconference series in nonprofit marketing and online fundraising, has now released a study, The Wired Fundraiser.  Key findings include:

  1. People listen to wired fundraisers.  People donate because they trust the messenger, not primarily because of the importance of the cause.
  2. Not every wired fundraiser excels, but some can raise thousands for the charities they support.
  3. Tools such as widgets and social networks are especially helpful in making personal fundraisers effective.
  4. Smart charities embrace the wired fundraiser rather than try to control the process.

I’ve said in the past that fundraising needs to be a joint effort of many departments within an organization, not just development.  But now Katya explains how “technology enables anyone to be a fundraiser, anywhere online.”  As nonprofits, we should give these motivated supporters everything they need to be successful because they will help us to reach audiences that we would have never been able to access, no matter what marketing strategies we use.

More details of the study are summarized in Katya Andresen’s non-profit marketing blog.

A New Day at Kintera

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Since my current organization has used Kintera since January 2005, I eagerly signed up for yesterday’s Nten conference call with Scott Crowder, who joined the firm as Chief Technology Officer earlier this year.  Although I’ve raised nearly $7 million in online fundraising revenues, working with Kintera has been a challenge, especially when trying to integrate with Raiser’s Edge, our offline fundraising software.

In addition to Scott’s arrival, Kintera also hired a new Chief Executive earlier this year, Richard LaBarbera, replacing the firm’s founder who had long held the position.  Recently, Kintera announced a new initiative - Kintera Connectwhich promised a new approach to integrating with other systems, a complete reversal from Kintera’s past strategy.  However, when few details of this program were available, I feared this was mostly talk with little substance.

By agreeing to do yesterday’s call, Scott made himself available for questions by the entire Nten community.  Although Kintera Connect was a main topic, he also addressed many other issues including one that Kintera has always sought to bury – the company’s financial viability.  After detailing many new technical initiatives currently in process, Scott described the firm’s goal of reaching profitability later this year and that they are “almost there now.”

Scott also described how Kintera no longer wants to do “everything for everybody,’ which has led to it having a product which tries to do too many things, not all which it does well.  By opening up to tie in with other systems, Kintera seems to now realize that it must focus on its strengths: e.g. CRM, CMS, advocacy, and leave the rest to others.

Other announcements included:

  1. implementation of Akamai technology to enhance performance
  2. data center migration
  3. sharp increase in capacity to send mass emails
  4. enhanced CMS, replacing current system

Although I’ve often been a critic of Kintera in the past, this conference call shows that the new management at Kintera is determined to set things right.  I’ll wait and see if the results equal the promise, but Scott’s willingness to talk openly is a promising sign.  A recording of the conference call is available at Nten’s site.

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.

Many good online fundraising tips from Canadian based Artez Interactive

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Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Paul Estey, VP Strategy at Artez Interactive, a Canadian based firm which helps nonprofits with “web and technology-based products and services that empower individuals to engage in active relationships with charities, associations, and other nonprofit organizations.”

Artez has also posted presentations held at their recent conference, including topics such as:

  • Tech Innovation in Fundraising
  • Building Better Events
  • Solving the Integration Headache
  • Empowering Third Party Fundraisers (which describes their new ‘Personal Events’ tool, which allows constituents to help nonprofits in whatever way they choose)

While Artez is not as well known in the US, it’s clear that they have many good ideas to help nonprofits with online fundraising initiatives.  I’m especially pleased that they chose to highlight the challenge of data integration, as well as the more traditional fundraising topics. 

Report from Westchester Not-for-Profit Leadership Summit

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On Monday, May 14, I attended the 5th annual Westchester Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit.  Hilary Clinton spoke at breakfast and Thomas Tierney of the Bridgespan Group presented during lunch.  I also attended sessions on the fragile relationship between nonprofit CEOs and boards as well as a nice review of online fundraising strategies.

Probably the most interesting insight was presented by Tom Tierney, who discussed nonprofits’ difficulties in recruiting and retaining executive talent.  With many nonprofit leaders approaching retirement age, this is becoming an even larger problem.  While there are no easy solutions, he offered a few observations:

  1. Nonprofits can no longer rely on the system of ‘hiring a friend.’  New pools of talent must be found;  it’s not always necessary (or possible) to find someone from another nonprofit with a similar mission that is already a senior executive.
  2. Executive Directors usually spend most of their time on fundraising, but this is not enough to insure a nonprofit’s continuing ability to achieve its mission.
  3. Nonprofits often go outside the organization to recruit talent (while corporations often hire from within).  Nonprofits must offer on the job training and coaching, as well as job rotation to develop talent

He also commented that he considered work in the nonprofit sector to be more difficult than anything he has done in the private sector;  many who switch from for-profit to nonprofit mistakenly feel that their jobs will be easier and less stressful.

More on Bridgespan’s site on The Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership Deficit

Online Fundraising Tips

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Attended a webinar on special events this week by the ePhilanthropy Foundation, led by CEO of Artez Interactive.  Many worthwhile tips for online fundraising, such as:

  • many nonprofits do extremely well with pledge based events, where participants sign up and then ask others to support their involvement.  It’s worthwhile to add a fundraising component to any online event, even those that have traditionally not involved fundraising.
  • using the formula: # participants x % who fundraise x # of people who ask x % that give x avg gift / sponsor = $ raised, there are many ways to increase event revenues.  Many will need encouragement to ask for the first gift, but most that are asked will give (but only if they are asked).
  • Most sponsors of event participants give due to their connection with participant, not due to any connection with the charitable organization (thus additional donations in the future may not happen)
  • Top 5% of fundraisers raise over 50% of pledges.  These constituents should be given special recognition to support their efforts.
  • ‘Widgets’ can be used to add fundraising tools to blogs, personal web pages etc.

Convio & GetActive Speak, New Integration Report on APIs

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Listened to an NTen sponsored call today with Sheeraz Haji and Tom Krackeler of GetActive and Gene Austin and Dave Crooke of Convio.  Both companies seemed very optimistic about their planned merger which will aim to take the best from both companies, e.g. online fundraising from Convio and advocacy / CMS from GetActive.  Time will tell how things will play out as current customers learn more about migration.

Meanwhile, the issue of how to connect data in different systems was squarely addressed in a comprehensive report on Open APIs by Michelle Murrain and Katrin Verclas, available free from NTen.  At my current organization, we’re struggling with two separate integration projects, one which involves two products from the same company.  Open APIs are important because then you don’t necessarily have to get everything from the same vendor.  While Convio & GetActive will make a good try, it’s hard for any one company to offer the best of breed for many different applications.