Saturday
06Feb2010

Five Online Fundraising Tips to Raise More Money

DateSaturday, February 6, 2010 at 07:20PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Repeat after me. "I will no longer send out fundraising appeals with boring subject lines and long-winded pitches."

In today’s battle of the inboxes, tweets, Facebook updates, text messages, and banner ads flying across the screen, organizations can’t afford to ignore online fundraising 101 strategies to motivate and inspire supporters to donate money. Don’t have the budget to hire fundraising strategists to help you craft your online fundraising campaigns? No problem. Follow these five tips and you will be on your way to increasing open and click-through rates and more importantly - raising more money for your nonprofit.

1. Short, Catchy Subject Lines

Hook your supporters right off the bat with a short and catchy subject line.

Example of Bad Subject Line:

Renew Your Commitment to End Dog Homelessness

What’s Wrong with it?

Aside from this subject line being BORING, you are also intimidating your members to shoulder a very big issue – that they alone are responsible for saving all dogs. Bad idea!

Example of Good Subject Line:

Help Keep a Puppy Safe in DC’s Blizzard!

This is a good subject line because it’s focused, local, timely, and a bit emotional. Who doesn’t want to keep a puppy safe from a terrible blizzard in their hometown?

2. Short and Sweet. Tell A Story

So you hooked your members with a short and catchy subject line, now continue to engage them in the body of the text with a brief (not 10 paragraphs), straight forward appeal that tells a story.

You don’t have to be the world’s greatest storyteller to tell a compelling story to your members. Why? Because every day you work on some of toughest issues facing the world or your community. You have access to the greatest stories at your disposal around the issues you advocate for and the people you help. Now share them. Tell your members how their $50 donation is going to help X, Y,  and Z. And be as specific as you can. For example: “Your $50 donation will help feed 5 puppies in our shelter for an entire month.”

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Friday
05Feb2010

Cheap, Fast, and Good. Can Nonprofits have them All?

DateFriday, February 5, 2010 at 02:52PM | by AuthorMichelle Murrain

When a nonprofit organization is beginning the process of doing a software implementation (such as a new website, or a new CRM or donation management product,) it is often unaware of the things that might underly whether such a project will succeed, how long it will take, and how much it will cost. Since nonprofits focus on their mission, and not software projects, that is an unknown to them, and understandably so.

In software development or implementation projects, this triangle (shown below) is often talked about. Software projects can be fast (that is, done quickly), done well, and/or cheap. But you only get to pick two of those. A project can be good, and cheap, but it won't be done quickly. It can be fast and cheap, but it won't be good. It can be fast, and good, but it won't be cheap.

The truth is, in my experience in doing or observing dozens of nonprofit related projects over the years, most often, it's hard enough to get one of these. In general, "good" is the one that people want the most - they want a well-designed, user-friendly product, with lots of features that work together well. Maybe they even want to integrate that with another system.

And, of course, being nonprofits, they don't have a bankroll to spend on a project, so "cheap" is often an important goal. In my experience, these ("good" and "cheap") are probably the two that are the most difficult to get into the same project. "Good" - especially in the parlance of a nonprofit, means "easy to understand", "easy to use", "intuitive." And, unfortunately, those are always the kinds of things that take the most time, expertise, and cost to provide.

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Tuesday
02Feb2010

Care2's Community Impacts Global Change

DateTuesday, February 2, 2010 at 09:11PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Communities like Facebook, Twitter, and Ning are great networks to help brand your nonprofit, engage with your supporters, and connect with potential new members. But there’s no question you need to invest time in finding those people who are passionate about your organization's issues. With cause-based communities like Care2 (the B Corporation that started the Frogloop blog) however, it’s easy for nonprofits to connect with over 12 million do-gooders who care to make a difference in this world.

In 2009, Care2's community created more than 22,000 petitions resulting in more than 23 million signatures that drove tangible changes globally. According to Care2’s Defining Causes Report, the issues that garnered the most support in 2009 were animal welfare, the environment and human rights.

Check out the results:

  • 8.7 million signatures on petitions related to animal welfare causes
  • 5.1 million signatures on petitions related to environmental causes
  • 4.3 million signatures on petitions related to human and civil rights causes
  • 2.5 million signatures on petitions related to health
  • 2.1 million signatures on petitions related to politics

The Care2 community’s signatures not only highlighted causes, but also had a direct impact on global issues including the European Union’s vote  to ban seal products, the passing of the American Clean Energy Security Act and the release of Euna Lee and Laura Ling from North Korea.



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Sunday
31Jan2010

Nonprofit Social Media Benchmarks Study

DateSunday, January 31, 2010 at 07:28PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Interested in setting Facebook and Twitter benchmarks for your nonprofit but don’t know where to start? Check out M+R Strategic Services first Nonprofit Social Media Benchmarks Study, which includes sample research by groups such as Easter Seals, Oxfam, Human Rights Campaign, League of Conservation Voters, and more.

Facebook Key Findings:               

  • Organizations posted to their Facebook Pages about six times weekly.
  • 2.5% of each organization's Facebook fans took some sort of an action weekly such as contributing wall posts, "likes," or comments.
  • Generating a high fan rate is important, since news feeds carry that activity to potential new fans.
  • Facebook fans grew by 3.75% monthly. However, it’s important to note that 2% of Facebook fans either removed themselves or chose to hide the news feed monthly.
  • The overall fan churn rate is 24% per year, which is higher than the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study email churn rate of 19% per year.

Facebook Recommendations

  • M+R recommends that nonprofits find their Facebook fans' "sweet spot" between too many and too few posts.
  • Measure your organizations stats and engagement now and focus on improving those results over time.
  • Engage and provide interesting and useful info to your fans.

Be sure and also check out Frogloop’s "Five Tips to Ramp Up Your Nonprofits Fan Page."

Twitter Key Findings

  • Organizations tweeted four to five times daily.
  • Twitter followers grew by 9% monthly, much higher than average monthly growth on both Facebook fan pages at 3.75% and nonprofit email lists at 1.4%.

Click to read more ...

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Wednesday
27Jan2010

Webinar Recap: Connecting Advocacy to Fundraising 

DateWednesday, January 27, 2010 at 06:47PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

On Tuesday, Care2’s Justin Perkins moderated the webinar Connecting Advocacy to Fundraising for Maximum Impact. Steve Daigneault, former Internet Director for Amnesty International, and Blackbaud’s Mark Davis discussed how activists on nonprofit’s email list are seven times more likely to donate money to organizations than non-activists are. However, according to M&R’s eNonprofit Benchmark study, 61% of online activists take action one-time. This is why nonprofits need to identify and cultivate super-activists. The best strategies to hook activists and turn them into donors are to:

  • Tell compelling stories that inspire people to take action and donate.
  • Be relevant and timely. No one pays attention to old news.
  • Tie action items and appeals to specific news. This can yield double the response rate.
  • Follow up with constituents. Show success and movement
  • Integrate advocacy and fundraising. For example, after someone signs a petition, send them to a landing page containing a short and sweet fundraising appeal with different donation levels. Amnesty International tested this approach and raised $13K verses sending out a traditional fundraising appeal which only raised $6K within the same time frame.

 Click here to download the entire presentationor you can view and download the slides via slideshare below.

Care2 Frog Loop Advocacy M+R Strategies Final
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Monday
25Jan2010

Online Communications Planning for Nonprofits

DateMonday, January 25, 2010 at 06:17PM | by AuthorSuki Lee

Is building your nonprofit's online community a priority for your organization in 2010? What about expanding your outreach? Here are my top seven ideas to consider implementing this coming year.

1. Blogs: Building Your Online Community
If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you should consider launching one in 2010. Search engines, Facebook and Twitter reward valuable blog content with expert status and donor support. As your organization’s communicator, you may want to appoint yourself the Editor-in-chief of your blog. Take Frogloop’s Editor, Allyson Kapin, as your muse and build a community of bloggers. Start with your nonprofit's team. Having a venue from which your organization can share its knowledge will expand your audiences, and build a robust internal culture. If writing doesn’t appeal to everyone, you may want to enlist your colleagues to publish photos, audio or video.

2. Building Your Nonprofit’s Community on Twitter
One of the most important roles of a communicator is to build community around your nonprofit. A
good place to focus your efforts is search.twitter.com, where you can see what people are chatting
about, trending topics and join in on the conversation. Developing relationships should involve talking about the great campaigns that other nonprofits are working on as well and responding to @replies. That will make it more likely that others will want to spread the word about what you’re working on, and collaborate with you.

3. The Perfect Match: Social Media Relations and Traditional PR
Success will come to those communicators who engage in both new and traditional communications
channels. Consider building a Social Media Release (SMR) in which you consolidate photos, embedded
video and presentations.

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Friday
22Jan2010

Does Your Nonprofit Need a Social Media Guide?

DateFriday, January 22, 2010 at 12:22PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Guess what one of the biggest challenges nonprofits face today when adding a blog to their website or diving into social media? Giving up control.

Does this sound familiar?

  • Should blog comments be moderated?
  • Should we even allow public comments on our blog?
  • How do we handle negative comments? Just delete them?
  • How do we deal with trolls?
  • What if the opposition takes our tweets and twists our words?
  • What happens if some of our Facebook fans disagree with what we have to say in one of our status updates?

These are all valid questions and concerns and point to why it’s important that nonprofits develop and implement guidelines for blogging and managing social media. However, it should not be a guide someone in HR or Communications drafts and then distributes at a staff meeting. It should be a living document that is flexible and empowers staff to:

  • Blog or tweet about policy issues that your organization advocates or analyses of upcoming legislation.
  • Talk with people on Twitter or Facebook about the mission of your organization.
  • Respond to constructive criticism online.

Click to read more ...

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