How Should Funders Evaluate Charities?

The three powerhouses, Guidestar, Charity Navigator, and Better Business Bureau, that foundations, philanthropists, and donors use to seek out information and ratings about nonprofits released an open letter to the nonprofit and foundation world yesterday. They stated that donors should not measure a charity’s performance based on overhead expenses. The letter hosted on the website www.overheadmyth.com comes on the heels of Dan Pallotta’s TED Talk and Keynote at NTC13, which sharply criticized funders and nonprofit rating service providers for penalizing nonprofits who spent what they considered too much money on administrative expenses, such as salaries, training, and benefits. Pallotta asked how the nonprofit sector can ever expect to compete with the corporate sector for talented leaders when nonprofits can’t pay decent salaries and benefits. This is a topic that Amy Sample Ward and I also discuss in our book Social Change Anytime Everywhere in the chapter on Disrupting the Nonprofit Sector. 

In the letter, the three ratings companies recommend that donors measure a charity’s performance in transparency, governance, leadership, and results. When I’m evaluating a charity for a client who is looking to make a significant donation to a nonprofit, I measure 4 key things:

1. How effective is that organization in creating real world social change? For example, if they are a local soup kitchen, how many people are they feeding every day? Do they offer job training and housing assistance for people in transition? If they are an advocacy organization, are they moving the needle around the issue they are advocating?

2. What kind of results is the organization generating? Using the example of the local soup kitchen, how many people in their job training programs are graduating and are obtaining jobs? How many of the graduates do they continue to have a relationship with? How many people who have benefited from their services come back and volunteer? These are just a few examples of data I would research to analyze their results.

3. How transparent is the organization with their data and findings? Transparency, while important, has become a big buzz word in the nonprofit community and marketing world. Every organization and the people who run them claim that they are transparent. But are they? How transparent are they with their financial data as well as their program successes and failures?

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Conference to Inspire and Mobilize Thousands of Volunteers

Next week, the Care2 Team will join more than 5,000 passionate volunteers in Washington, D.C. for the Points of Light National Conference on Volunteering and Service.  Leaders and volunteers from the nonprofit, corporate and government sectors will gather in over 150 workshops to exchange ideas and inspire one another on topic areas including National Service, Nonprofit Capacity Building, Volunteer Management and Youth Service and Leadership.

Points of Light, the world's largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, mobilizes over 4 million volunteers to take action to change the world.  "For a few days in June, thousands of people will come to Washington, D.C. to share all that’s innovative and important in the world of volunteer service,” said Michelle Nunn, CEO of Points of Light.  "They will listen and learn, teach and share, inspire and mobilize -- all to engage more volunteers in the critical task of building stronger communities."

Thousands of volunteers will convene in D.C. for this year's NCVS.Speakers will include top thought leaders like Beth Kanter, author and blogger helping nonprofits use networks and social media for social change, Jeremy Heimans, Co-Founder of open-source global activism platform Purpose.com, and Allyson Kapin, Blogger-In-Chief of our Frogloop blog and Founder of the online marketing firm Rad Campaign.

With such a wide range of perspectives on volunteer service from a variety of sectors, conference attendees are sure to learn valuable lessons from each other and think creatively about ways to unite to solve challenges in our communities.  The Care2 team will be all ears to learn how we, as volunteers, activists and nonprofit professionals, can better empower ourselves and others to create social change.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter while we report tips and ideas from the conference, and let us know what some of your tactics, challenges and successes are in volunteering and service! 

The conference takes place Wednesday, June 19 through Saturday June 22.  You can register for the National Conference on Volunteering and Service, "Like" the Conference Facebook page, follow @NCVS on Twitter and search the #NCVS Twitter hashtag to follow the conference conversation.

We'll see you there!

Should Organizations Be Sassy On Social Media?

It’s no secret that social media has experienced incredible growth over the last couple of years. 67% of online adults use social networks, according to Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. In addition, almost all nonprofits have a social media presence. Unfortunately, the old rule - good content is still king, seems to have been forgotten by many organizations on social media, particularly on Twitter. Yes, the 140-characters can be limiting, but as campaigners working on creating social change on the ground it’s critical that we use online channels like social media to raise awareness, debunk myths by the opposition, and inspire people to take action. And that means we need to get super creative and sometimes even sassy, funny, and show emotion (you know be human) when talking to our community on social media.

Last night my colleague Danny Brown, co-author of Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing shared this hilarious conversation on Twitter between three major brands, HTC, Samsung, and LG. The conversation started with @HTC_UK tweeting “Last night we won the “Hottest phone of 2013” at the Mobile Awards” It then linked to a picture and they ended the tweet with “#ouch @SamsungMobileUK.

HTC accomplished two important things here. They announced a big award the company won to their community and then took on their competitor Samsung by using humor and a bit of sass. Samsung and LG responded with funny comebacks – the best one being from LG. They mocked up a great photo with text overlaid that said “Calm down dears. It’s only a phone.” Check out the screenshot that documents the conversation exchange between all three brands, courtesy of GeeksAreSexy.net.

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How Millennials are Changing Social Causes

With more than 80 million Millennials in the United States, this generation is challenging the status quo, redefining the way that people traditionally get involved with organizations.

The ways that Millennials are connecting, participating, and giving to organizations requires nonprofits to question the old logic and adopt new approaches that build relationships with this dynamic generation.

Join Derrick Feldmann, co-author of the new book Cause for Change: The Why and How of Nonprofit Millennial Engagement, to discuss how Millennials are transforming philanthropy and engagement with social issues. He will discuss the research from the Millennial Impact Project, a research initiative of more than 10,000 Millennials conducted by his agency Achieve with support from the Case Foundation.

How Millennials are Changing Social Causes
Thursday, 6/13 at 2pm ET

In this webinar you'll learn:

• How Millennials connect with causes - using social media and different peer methods to engage as volunteers and donors
• How Millennials participate in various service programming from micro-volunteering to leadership programming
  
• Millennial giving habits and how to enhance solicitations for increased response
  

This Expert Webinar is FREE but space is limited so make sure you register today!

About the Presenters:

Derrick Feldmann — CEO, Achieve
Derrick Feldmann provides overall leadership for Achieve, a research and fundraising firm, provides strategy to clients, and overseees the creative development of all work. He also leads the research team for the Millennial Impact Project, an initiative to understand how the Millennial generation connects with, and gives to, social causes. He organizes and produces MCON, a national conference on Millennial engagement, and he is the coauthor of Cause for Change: The Why and How of Nonprofit Millennial Engagement (Jossey Bass, 2013).

Eric Rardin — Senior Director of Nonprofit Services, Care2
Eric is senior director of nonprofit services at Care2.com where he helps hundreds of nonprofits connect with donors and supporters online. At Care2 Eric advises nonprofits on email acquisition and multichannel conversion strategies. He has contributed to integrated conversion efforts on behalf of nonprofits in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Eric serves on the board of directors of two national nonprofit organizations. Prior to joining Care2 Eric designed and executed integrated advocacy campaigns for environmental nonprofits including the National Environmental Trust, the Alaska Oceans Network, and the Marine Fish Conservation Network. Eric has an MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University, an MA in Government and International Studies from the University of South Carolina and a BS in Political Science from the University of Wyoming. In addition to his work in the environmental advocacy arena, Eric has extensive experience working on political and issue campaigns from Wyoming to South Africa.

REGISTER to attend this FREE Expert Webinar on THURSDAY, JUNE 13th at 2PM ET

Kiss Vanity Metrics Goodbye

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at Politico’s Emerging Tech Leaders series with Politico journalist Jessica Meyers. During our discussion, Jessica and I talked about nonprofit and political campaigns obsession with vanity metrics. As social media becomes a bigger part of our online communications and outreach, the nonprofit and political campaign community has become way too focused on numbers rather than real engagement. Why is engagement important? Because engaging people and mobilizing supporters to advocate for social justice and policy change is how we help move the needle.

Just because you have 500,000 followers on Twitter doesn’t mean your organization has 500K people who are advocating for your issues. I would much rather see organizations have 5,000 people who were committed to their campaign then 500K people who weren’t really engaged on the social justice issues your organization was advocating.

The other problem with relying on vanity metrics is that it dilutes social media’s real purpose – to be social. These days I’m seeing a lot less socializing and conversations and more promotional content such as blog posts, press statements, fundraising appeals, etc. This is one way communications and there is nothing social about it.

Is your organization caving into vanity metrics like focusing your social media goals on generating FB Likes and Twitter followers instead of much more important and strategic goals like fostering relationships with your community and  mobilizing your base? If you answered yes, it’s time to reassess your social media goals and how you measure success. Here’s a few suggestions to start thinking about as you begin to plan your new social strategy. And remember the best analytics is the human brain - meaning you are going to have to spend time analyzing and documenting metrics yourself. Don't just rely on tools and expect it to give you the full picture.

Focus on Target Audiences

Are we fostering meaningful conversations with target audiences?

Focus on Influence

Do the people we seek to reach look to our organization as a leading authority? Do they come to us first for the latest information and resources?

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Organizations: Learn to Connect the Dots

A new study of 244 nonprofit participants by Avectra and NTEN show that nonprofit organizations are either tracking a lot of engagement metrics ranging from email open rates to activity on Facebook or don’t do it all. Unfortunately, many of the organizations tracking engagement metrics are not applying the data to make informed decisions about their programming, online strategy, fundraising, and outreach.

1 in 10 survey participants said the reason that their organization did not measure correlation was because they did not how to determine it related to fundraising, event participation, donor retention, etc. Another reason why organizations may not be focused on measuring the correlation is due to limited staff capacity. 80% said they had less than 1 FT staffer focusing on this work. This is one of the reasons why a social CRM system like Small Act can be helpful to nonprofits. About 25% of the organizations said they would invest in a social CRM or related product to help collect and analyze this data.

Check out some of the highlights in their infographic based on survey data.

• 88% of organizations track email open rates.
• 86% of organizations track Facebook activity and 72% track mentions on Twitter.
• 69% track sharing and their social media reach.

When organizations were asked what kind of an impact these metrics had on their strategic outcomes.

• 23% measured it in connection with their free events.
• 20% measured it in connection with their open rates.
• And from a social media perspective 16% said that that they measured it in connection with their organizational Facebook page.

Nonprofit Benchmark Study Shows Nonprofits Are Raising More Money

Last month we reported that online fundraising response rates declined 27% between 2011-2012, according to the eNonprofit Benchmark study. The latest Blackbaud Online Marketing Benchmark Study for Nonprofits that analyzed data from 500 organizations using the Luminate platform also indicated a steep decline in fundraising response rates. According to the report, response rates on appeals declined by more than 18%. “Declining response rates illustrate a saturated channel with undifferentiated messaging and campaigns, said the report. “This is present in direct mail, telemarketing, and face-to-face solicitation.”

The average online gift was $89.

While open rates were 14.72% (slightly up from the previous year), the average click rate on online fundraising appeals were .7%

Online Revenue and Advocacy Growth

On a more positive note, median online revenue grew by 11.6%. Online fundraising was driven primarily by recurring donors and repeat donors, which grew 27 percent and 20 percent, respectively. First time gifts grew 3%.

Advocacy saw an 8.7% increase in actions taken and 11.9% of advocates that also made a donation online. It’s worth noting that Jewish organizations experienced an increase of advocates by 23.6%, and environment and wildlife had an increase of 22.46%. This illustrates that that if cultivated properly advocates can also be converted to donors.

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