Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media

Entries by Justin Perkins (49)

Wednesday

07Oct2009

From Legacy to Leadership: Is Philanthropy Ready for the New Consumer?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 02:38PM | by

Editor's Note: On November 5th @ 2:00 EST, Care2 will be joined by BBMG on a free webinar: Cause Marketing - Getting the Message Right for the New Consumer. You can pre-register here, and enjoy a sneak peak into the genius of BBMG with this thought-provoking whitepaper featured below, written by guestblogger Mirm Kriegel of BBMG.

The new economy has created a reset moment that’s changing how we live and work. And it has profound consequences for philanthropy.

Over the past several months, some of the nation’s most iconic nonprofit brands—Nature Conservancy, AmeriCares, Red Cross and the Boys and Girls Club—announced sizeable layoffs and service cuts, while smaller, more nimble organizations like charity: water and Stand Up to Cancer tweeted their way into prominence, mobilizing tens of thousands of people in cities around the world.

This single snapshot speaks volumes about the challenges facing the philanthropic landscape in a world that’s adapting to radical social and economic change. Trust in our institutions has eroded while a spirit of entrepreneurship has soared.

Today, organizations are forced to re-imagine how to do more with less. To survive in this new economy and restore public confidence, they have no choice but to innovate and ask: How do we reduce costs, increase our reach and multiply our impact? Innovation is no longer the exception; it’s the new imperative.
From its roots in academic enclaves like Stanford Business School, social innovation has gone mainstream, moving into the halls of power under an administration that understands the value of collaboration and partnership.

Social entrepreneurs are breaking boundaries and blurring lines between nonprofits and for-profits, combining social purpose with financial promise as they look to create innovative, sustainable revenue streams.

To read the rest of this white paper, you may download it here.

Mirm Kriegel is Director of Philanthropy and Social Enterprise at BBMG, a nationally recognized branding and integrated marketing firm dedicated to creating innovative brands that engage and inspire today’s increasingly conscious consumers.

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Thursday

15Jan2009

Friday Webinar: Best Practices for Email List-growth and Fundraising

Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 05:01PM | by

Justin Perkins

As more and more nonprofits go online, and more and more donors give online, the leading nonprofits are finding that email is the most powerful option for online fundraising.

Listen to the recording of this webinar hosted by Justin Perkins (see note at bottom of this post - you need a password - Please call Justin at 303-475-4827 or email and ask for the webinar password), one of Care2's Nonprofit Marketing Strategists, on Friday, January 16th exploring the best practices for list-growth and online fundraising.

Justin was joined by Sarah DiJulio, Executive VP of M&R Strategic Services - one of the leading

nonprofit marketing agencies; and by Phoebe Lee, Online Communications Coordinator at the UN Foundation - a dynamic, fast-growing international nonprofit working on childrens health, climate & energy, sustainable development, technology and women & population issues.

Learn how M&R has helped leading nonprofits like The Wilderness Society grow from 50,000 email subscribers to a highly-responsive list of over 300,000. Learn how the UN Foundation raised millions of dollars through their Nothing But Nets campaign, and the variety of campaignsthey run on poverty, global warming, human rights, and international peace.

Note: Because of the proprietary nature of the data shared in this webinar, you need to work for a nonprofit, and you will need a password to view this presentation. Please call Justin at 303-475-4827 or email and ask for the webinar password. To view the webinar presentation, click here.

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Email Marketing,

Online Fundraising,

Online Marketing

Wednesday

19Nov2008

Convio 2008 Innovator Awards

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 10:26AM | by

Justin Perkins

Each year, at the annual Convio Summit, Convio honors a few of their clients who have pushed the envelope with their online campaigns. Here are the results for the 2008 Innovator Awards:

Advocacy campaign or program

Honorable Mention: National Parks Conservation Association

Winner: Freepress for their StopBigMedia.com campaign

Over 200,000 comments sent to the FCC and Senate and overturned and FCC ruling to block monopolies in media companies. Created a wall of 5,000 signers' photos.

Constituent Empowerment

Honorable Mention: Sierra Club and American Cancer Society

Winner: Children International

Used TeamRaiser to recruit new sponsors and recuited 5,000 sponsors since 2005 and sponsored over 560 children. Use of Convio's multi-lingual tools helped CI reach out to both English and Spanish speakers.

Email Communications

Honorable Mention: NRDC - National Resource Defense Council

Winner: KQED

Came up with sassy email newsletter and went against broadcasting best practices. Drove list growth and great results, in part through having a newsletter with all of the content being short and snappy and above the fold.

Email List Growth

Honorable Mention: HSUS - Humane Society of the United States

Winner: National Relief Charities

Changed from brochure to interactive website, multi-facteed file building strategy and acquired over 1000 new names per month and have converted about 1% to donors in 6 weeks.

Integrated Fundraising Campaign or Program

Honorable Mention: Human Rights Campaign

Winner: Defenders of Wildlife

Each year, Defenders sends out Calendars. This year they did something a little different. With a simple and compelling concept, they asked their supporters what calendar would like. 58,000 people voted (12% of total file) and Defenders acquired 9000 new donors, raising $50k using "soft" asks within two emails.

Online Fundraising Campaign or Program

Honorable Mention: Planned Parenthood and Freestore Foodbank

Winner: Ploughshares Fund

Offer $100k grant to organization with the most votes in their "Peace Primary." They promoted the campaign through social media sites and raised $300k online within two months.

Special Events Fundraising

Honorable Mention: CauseForce and Project Bread - The Walk for Hunger

Winner: National Philanthropic Trust for the Susan B. Komen for the Cure race.

They created a creative online check-in process that allowed people to check in for the event online and pledge to complet fundraising post-event. They used conditional content in the participant center and emails, and allowe people to self-organize their own training events and peer to peer fundraising.

Best Website

Honorable Mention: Canadian Wildlife Federation and UNICEF

Winner: United Nations Foundation

Created a sleek new website and has seen 9,000 new registrations since their launch in September. They have multiple, creative opporunities to engage through online quizzes, polls and games.

Best Overall Use of Convio

Honorable Mention: ASPCA - raised $7 million online from about 700,000 subscribers

Winner: Trisomy 18 Foundation

Organization started with only $50k annual operating budget and now raises close to $10k per month using Tributes, TeamRaiser and Fundraising tools on Convio. They receive over 400 new registrants per month and has grown their traffic from 8,000 visitors per month to 20,000 in one year.

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Misc.,

Online Advocacy,

Technology,

Trends

Friday

08Aug2008

Webinar: Using Email to Engage Activists, Cultivate Donors

Friday, August 8, 2008 at 03:47PM | by

Justin Perkins

Email remains the most reliable method for engaging supporters and raising money online. But it’s not always easy. Care2 Senior Campaigner Natasha Nummedal and Maureen McGregor, Oceana’s Manager of E-Activism and Marketing share some of their keys to success in maximizing email response rates and converting email subscribers into donors. Join them for this webinar and online discussion brought to you by Care2. To register, please click here.

Date: Thur, Aug 21, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM EDT
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: Free
Registration: click here

Natasha Nummedal is Senior Campaign Manager at Care2. Natasha has a background in field organizing and grassroots organization from 18 years of volunteer and work experience in the human rights movement. Prior to joining Care2's campaign team, she worked for Amnesty International USA's Urgent Action program and the YMCA of Boulder Valley.

Maureen McGregor is the E-activism Director at Oceana. After graduating with a degree in marketing, Maureen decided she would rather "sell" a cause than a product and started her career at Greenpeace. She spent three years on the Greenpeace web team before moving on to Oceana. She's been running Oceana's WaveMaker since 2006.

Your host will be Eric Rardin, Director of Nonprofit Services at Care2. Eric has more than seven years experience with running integrated advocacy campaigns for environmental nonprofits. Most recently, at the Marine Fish Conservation Network (MFCN), Eric helped lead a coalition of 190 organizations to successfully reauthorize the national law governing fishing in U.S. ocean waters. 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.

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Email Marketing,

Online Advocacy,

Online Fundraising

Thursday

24Apr2008

M+R and NTEN CMS, Email, Fundraising Benchmarks Study

Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 11:33AM | by

Justin Perkins

NTEN and M+R Strategic Services have released their 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study at http://www.e-benchmarks.org/.

The study presents data from January 2006 through December 2007, covering 21 major nonprofit organizations that use four different major CMS platforms. Here's what you'll find:

Email Messaging:

Current benchmarks for open, click-through, response and page conversion rates
Email List Size:

How much 'churn' should you anticipate and how quickly are email lists growing?
Online Fundraising:

A look at growth in online giving, yearly patterns of giving, average gift size, monthly giving and fundraising messaging rates
Online Advocacy:

How are advocacy open, click-through, page completion and response rates changing and what impact are super-activists having?
Reference Sheet:

Keep the benchmark rates at your finger tips with this handy reference sheet!

More benchmark articles can be found here.

MySpace.com: A Place for Donors?

Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 01:46PM | by

Justin Perkins

Post co-authored by James O'Malley and Justin Perkins.

With estimates up to 200 million members globally and 12% of all internet traffic, MySpace certainly earns the title of the "top dog" of social networks. Despite the more recent shift of attention to Facebook in the past 6 months by the nonprofit community, there are still remnants of a goldrush by nonprofits over the last year to build a presence on the uber-popular site. But was there ever any gold? And is there any left? And what is the optimum combination of videos, pictures, text, friends, and other widgets? And is it even worth it?

Á la our Causes analysis awhile ago, we examined 150 nonprofit profiles on MySpace to see which functions people were using, how those features were working, and how much money their profiles were raising.

Whether you've stacked your profile with all the cool widgets, videos, and badges or you're still trying to figure out who "Tom" is, read on to learn what others are doing and how you can maximize your MySpace, or see if you even want to spend your time there.

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Trends

Tuesday

24Jul2007

The Long, Long Tail of Facebook Causes

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 11:03PM | by

Justin Perkins

Post co-authored by James O'Malley and Justin Perkins.

If you've missed the launch of Facebook Apps Platform almost two months ago, you're already way behind the times. The technology "enables anyone to build any application that...Facebook could build." The result has been innumerable neat applications that allow you to give free gifts to your friends, watch videos on Facebook, and even manage an imaginary stock portfolio. A couple of Care2 staff favorites, of course, include the Care2 Stickies and Petitions.

The Causes application by Project Agape enables anyone with a Facebook account to support and engage their Facebook networks to support a "Cause" - be it "Save the Seals!," "End Global Warming!," or "Fight Hate". All of the Causes have to be attached to a Guidestar-verified 501(c)(3).

We took a sampling from all of the Causes to get a sense of what the potential is.

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