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Build Communities to Enhance Your Fundraising Campaigns
Adrienne D. Capps, U. C. Davis Much has changed with regard to fundraising and “friendraising” during the 12 years I have been a professional fundraiser, the most obvious being the use of technology. We are all online these days whereas in 1998 it was a much more mixed bag. One thing remains and will continue to, however: making sense of it all. How do you determine which technology, or set of technologies, will be best suited to your organization? How do you appropriately implement them? And how do you check results? In my recent chapter “Managing Fundraising and Building ...
Free Webinar September 14: Training Volunteers and Staff Members to Ask
Join Andrea Kihlstedt and GiftWorks on September 14 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time for a free webinar on how to train people to ask for gifts. Andrea's book Capital Campaigns: Strategies that Work is a standard resource on capital campaign fundraising. Her new book, How to Raise $1 Million (or More) in 10 Bite Sized Steps makes the complex ideas of fundraising simple and engaging. Andrea is a well-known teacher, trainer, and coach. Her lively and personable style makes even webinars friendly and engaging. She is co-founder of Asking Matters, a web-based resource that teaches board members ...
It's Already September? (Or: Two Thirds of a Year's Worth of Fundraising Resources)
Flickr: visit~ fingerlakesWhere I come from, there's a lake, and every year on the Saturday before Labor day when the sun goes down, everyone who lives on that lake turns off their house lights, lines their waterfront with lit red flares, and builds a bonfire. This is how we mark the end of summer (high tourist season) and the beginning of a new year. For the past few years, I've been in Portland, OR, far away from this tradition -- which may explain why it feels a bit like September has smacked us over the head, as it walked unannounced into our summer party. Regardless of how it got ...
Effective Uses of Social Media for Fundraising
Philip King, Artez Interactive There may come a day when your Facebook fan page has more traffic than your actual website. Hard to believe? Just talk to the people at Coca-Cola. A recent Advertising Age article notes that Coke has one of the largest brand pages on Facebook with 10.7 million fans (placing them in second, after Starbucks' 12.7 million fans). Consider this in comparison to their own website, where U.S. unique visitors in July fell to 242,000, down more than 40% compared to a year ago. With trends like these, it's important to consider your own approach to social ...
Where to Go When You Need to Know (If Your Site Works): Web Analytics Extravaganza
Based on the response to a couple of how-to articles about Google Analytics I've posted to the NTEN blog recently, we know there's a hunger for more information about how to understand what's going on with your organization's web site. See, the average time on page for these articles is nearly 4:00, much higher than our blog's average of 2:35, so I know folks are (probably) actually reading them. And judging by the referring sites, they're coming from all over. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Web analytics can tell you a lot of things -- what your visitors are engaging ...
In the Social Media Kitchen with TechSoup Chefs at NSAC 2010
We kicked off our tech kitchen with a presentation Social Media: Listen First. As we mentioned on the blog, TechSoup's online community staffers along with expert consultants presented at the NSAC (National Sexual Assault Conference) hosted by CALCASA (California Coalition Against Sexual Assault). The five of us social media "chefs" set up our TechSoup social media kitchen at the conference lounge, where folks could drop-in during the conference and get one-on-one help with their social media questions. Janet Fouts, Susan Tenby, and I discussed the most important part of any social media ...
How to Use Causes for Your Year-End Fundraising Appeal
Susan Gordon, Causes Planning for the year-end giving season is in full swing throughout the nonprofit sector. In 2009, giving in December alone brought in about 1/3 of the fundraising dollars to nonprofits. And in 2010, online giving is expected to bring in more donations than ever, after having seen a 46% increase in online revenue between 2008 and 2009. At Causes, the application on Facebook, we’re releasing huge improvements to our fundraising and communications tools just in time for the year-end giving season. Nonprofits have already raised over $26 million using Causes -- ...
Changes Coming to TechSoup
At TechSoup Global we've been working hard on a new round of improvements to the TechSoup.org website. I'm excited to update you on our progress and hear your feedback. A little over a year ago, we unveiled the first phase in a series of improvements to the site, including a new home page design and enhanced search functionality. Those visible changes to the site also represented significant improvement to our back end systems — both hardware and software. On September 13, we will be unveiling more changes to our site — most notably, the donation request process has been updated. ...
Lunch Is on Me and My Cell Phone
Flickr photo: shareskiHow much cash do you have in your wallet right now? As I sat in the Grand Junction Colorado airport -- which is charming -- I had a conundrum: the contents of my wallet came to a grand total of 72 cents.* This is a common situation for me, a situation that means if I need a Diet Coke later (inevitable), I will likely also be forced to buy some chips or something so that I can put the charge on my ATM card. (Those chips clearly have nothing to do with my lack of will power.) But I digress. My point is that real currency, the silver and green stuff we lug around, is ...
Brandraising: Using Technology to Grow Nonprofit Peaches
Sarah Durham, Big Duck We're all nerds when it comes to new media. No matter how many studies tell us that that the gadgets we're hooked on aren't good for us, most of us technology nerds still can't get enough. In part, it's because the technology is now so fast, easy and cheap to use that simply investing our time to figure it out seems like a pleasure. After all, I was that kid who stayed up late playing video games. (Ah, Joust... how I miss thee.) Now I'm that grown up who stays up late building communities for my obscure personal interests on Ning, and aimlessly chatting with my ...
Connect with TechSoup at the National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC)
This week TechSoup staff members and expert consultants are speaking at the National Sexual Assault Conference hosted by CALCASA (California Coalition Against Sexual Assault) National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC) in Hollywood, CA. Susan Tenby and Megan Keane presented on a panel with Janet Fouts today on LISTENING online, engaging through finding, hearing and connecting with your greater audience.
Changes to the NTEN Connect Newsletter
Until this month, we've used our monthly e-newsletter, NTEN Connect, to debut new content, typically publishing the 5-7 articles we've solicited all at once. While that gives us a nice traffic spike, it's a lot to drop on y'all in one day.So, in the spirit of Holly's call for innovation, we're going to try something new. Each weekday, for the first couple of weeks of each month, we're going to post a guest article related to our monthly theme. This month, it's fundraising; next month, Tech Trends. At the end of the month, the articles you, the NTEN community, like the most -- as determined ...
Fundraising When Money Is Tight
Mal Warwick, Mal Warwick Associates Our economy is still in bad shape, and a growing number of economists is telling us that it may well get worse. So what can we fundraisers do to minimize the impact of this difficult period on our organizations, and at the same time maximize our income? I suggest a cautious and balanced nine-step approach: 1. Reassess the whole ball of wax: fundraising, marketing, communications Now’s the time to take advantage of the opportunity to put in place an intensive evaluation process that will allow your fundraising, marketing, and ...
Donald Trump Thinks You're Boring (and Other Lessons on Innovation)
Flickr photo: Gilberto ViciedoIn her book "Zilch", Nancy Lublin recounts the time she was seated next to "The Donald" at a play. They had a little chit chat, which included Mr. Trump asking her, "Oh. So you're in the not-for-profit sector. You don't find that boring?" I can now say from experience that Nancy Lublin is neither bored nor boring. (Seriously. When I met her, she was wearing a necklace made of plastic hula girls, and she WORKED it.) From what I know about you, you aren't either. As Nancy points out in the book, it's hard to be bored when ...
How To Buy Used and Refurbished IT Equipment
This is Part 2 in TechSoup GreenTech's series on buying green IT equipment. See Part 1 here. We've spoken a good deal on refurbished computers over the years at TechSoup. Here's my general take on the topic: Buying and using refurbished computers is incredibly green. This is mainly because more than 80 percent of the lifetime energy consumption of a new PC occurs before you buy it. It takes huge amounts of energy and materials to manufacture a PC. The longer these devices are in use, the better for the environment. For more on this, see TechSoup's Refurbished Computer Initiative and the ...
Things We Like (August 2010)
A monthly roundup of our favorite nonprofit tech resources. Read more posts on our blog. HBR's Dan Pallotta thinks it's unethical that your organization doesn't spend more time and money on fundraising. Them's fightin' words to a lot of commenters. We think it's unethical that this crazy yo-yo guy hasn't been worked into a fundraising campaign. He will seriously blow your mind. But we have to wonder what his parents think. Somebody find him a spokespinner job, quick! A friend posted that yo-yo link to Facebook. Adina Levin thinks Facebook's not the best place for community organizers -- but ...
How-to: Improve Your Site's Bounce Rate (Intro to Google Analytics Advanced Filtering)
If you're in charge of your organization's web analytics, you undoubtedly know about bounce rate -- the measure of visitors who enter your site, say "Enh" (or something ruder), and immediately leave, without viewing any more of your carefully crafted pages. Yeah, those people annoy me, too. But unless you're a consultant working with several nonprofit clients, you're probably working in a vacuum: you know your own site's bounce rate, but you don't know how good it is compared to other sites.I recently had the opportunity to see anayltics for more than a few other sites, including ...
Collecting Data in Low Resource Areas: How to Get Started
William (Bill) Lester, NPOKI It’s an old problem, made worse by the tantalizing potential that technology provides: how do you collect and aggregate quality data when you work in low resource areas? Imagine this scenario: You’re an NGO working in an African country to advocate for clean water. You accomplish this by educating the people of that country on all aspects of safe water, and you lead projects that help to improve the quality of the water supply. You are funded to do this by a US foundation. As proof of your success, you need to gather data from each and every encounter ...
"Google Was Our First Office": Managing a Worldwide Staff
Efrat Ben-Dor Erez, NPTech Israel Imagine a Jewish girl, selling Challah bread on a college campus in America to help support black Muslims in Darfur. This amazing project, initiated by Eli Winkelman, came to life with the help of PresenTense. PresenTense is an international nonprofit organization founded in 2006, which uses technology effectively to sustain its activities, functioning as a "start up incubator for social entrepreneurs". Their mission is to engage and inspire the most creative minds, investing their ideas and energy to revitalize the Jewish community and the ...
The Math Is Starting to Add Up: The Promise of Mobile
Matt Berg, Millenium Villages I’ve been working or interested in the space of ICT for Development (ICT4D) for about a decade now. During this time, I’ve seen a lot of exciting changes, but nothing has been exciting or frankly paradigm shifting as the wide spread growth of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks and emergence of applications that leverage the now ubiquitous mobile phone to deliver services by leveraging their ability to deliver and collect data. Achieving limited scale, chasing sustainability Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester, and one of ...
