Donor Haiku

I declare this week nonprofit marketing haiku week.  Best haiku gets a copy of my book.  Submit via comments by Sunday COB:)  Here is my rather snarky submission for today.

Donor Haiku aka “Oh Well”

Cyclone drowns Burma
Earthquake follows, so much need
But gas is four bucks

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Post your ideas, get advice

Just wanted to let you know that I’m a guest advisor over at Ideablob this week.  You can post your ideas there anytime and receive advice from folks with a lot of business savvy.

Ideablob.com is an online community where small business owners and social entrepreneurs (including nonprofits!) are sharing business ideas in exchange for feedback, advice and votes from the community. Advanta, one of the nation’s largest credit card issuers (through Advanta Bank Corp.) in the small business market, awards a $10,000 monthly prize to the best eligible idea, as determined by the votes of the ideablob community.

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Synching your online & offline marketing

Here is today’s fundraising and marketing tip from Network for Good!  You can sign up to receive them via email here.

Online fundraising only makes up a portion of your overall marketing plan. It’s not a stand-alone initiative—it’s an integrated part of your communications strategy. Not only is your strategy multi-faceted, but your donors are too!

Below, check out our tips for integrating your offline and online tactics to best reach your donors across all channels in your online plan: 

Offline Mailing Tips:

•Ask your donors their preference. No, we’re not talking about pizza toppings or movie genres. Reach out to your donors and find out what communications and donation options they prefer. You may think the majority of your folks are strictly offline (or exclusively online). Don’t assume! Get to know them!

•Send a cultivation mailer to your lapsed donors inviting them to visit your website. Direct them to a special page on your site that makes an appeal for why they should make another gift. Learn how to make this landing page compelling.

•Use email to boost direct mail response. Remember: Your donors hang out in multiple channels, and you want to give them options. You can email your subscribers telling them to watch the mail, or wait for the call. You can also try following up a special appeal with an email, saying, “We hope you read our recent letter, just click here to make your donation online today. It’s convenient and saves us money.” The first renewal effort might be conducted by email, followed by the usual multi-letter series, and eventually a phone call.

•Develop a program to gradually gather the e-mail addresses of direct-mail donors who want to add email to their communications with you. Test asks in the direct mail (P.S., buckslip, reply device, etc.) and track response to find the most effective and least expensive ways to gather e-mail addresses without depressing gift response.

•Follow up with email. Email is the fastest and cheapest way to let your donors know what happened after they donated. If your donation appeal made the situation seem urgent, your donors will be left scratching their heads if they don’t hear anything else from you about it.

•Create complementary content. Entice donors reading your printed communications to visit your website for “exclusive” content. Not sure what to offer? Maybe you have educational tips (“Download 10 tips for managing your diabetes!”) or other downloads of content people can’t get from a postcard or letter.

Tips for Other Channels to Consider: 

•Events. Having a fundraising walk? Hosting an educational program? Create an email list sign-up sheet to capture in-person email opt-ins.

•Marketing collateral. Craft your call to action on your brochures and handouts—and let that action have an online option! If you’re requesting donations, give potential donors the address/directions to donate online if they so choose. Remember: Include your website on everything you print/produce. 

•Business cards. In a previous article we advised building your email list in a variety of ways, including email opt-in information in your email signature. Next time you order business cards, why not include a small call to action? (Ex: Donate online at…  Or, Visit our website to learn more…)

•Phone calls. Did you just collect a donation over the phone? Does a donor want some follow up? Try this: After you finish a telemarketing call, tell the donor, “We’d like to send you a receipt to acknowledge your gift. The most efficient way is via e-mail - that way we don’t have to waste paper and postage.” (Thanks to the great Madeline Stanionis for this tip!)

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What generations are generous?

It must be research season - the interesting studies just keep coming!  Here is another:

Donors across all generations tend to give roughly the same amount to philanthropic causes, when controlling for other factors such as income, education and frequency of attendance at religious services, according to “Generational Differences in Charitable Giving and in Motivations for Giving,” a study conducted by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and sponsored by Campbell & Company. 

Key Findings

There are some generational difference in giving, mostly between the “Silent” and Great generations and Boomer and later generations. Giving differs mostly by factors other than generation – educational attainment, frequency of religious attendance and income. To the extent that these differ by generation, they explain the observed difference in giving by people of different generations. Motivations do vary by income, race, education, region of the country and religious attendance but vary little by generation after controls for these other factors. Millennial donors are most likely to be motivated by a desire to make the world a better place. They give consistent with their income, education level, frequency of religious attendance and marital status.

The full study is here.

 

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Donor fatigue, skepticism and scale

There is an interesting AP story that just went on the wire stating that numerous disasters in a row - like the Burmese cyclone and the Chinese earthquake - create fatigue and depress giving.  But there is more to that story:

1. It’s not simply the numbers of disasters, it’s the numbers themselves.  It’s well documented that people can’t grasp huge statistics or fathom masses of people in need.  We think in terms of individuals, and so the higher the scale, conversely, we feel the effect less immediately.  Says one non-giver:

“If you thought about at this very second the number of people who were suffering and dying, I could dedicate all my resources to that and yet it would be a drop in the bucket.”

2. Donors need to believe they can make a difference.  That’s not the case in Burma, where aid is being blocked by the miltary government.  It’s more the case in China, where we’ve seen much more giving.

3. Personal ties make a difference - especially in faraway countries, where people may feel less immediately connected.

Interestingly, the story notes the Giving USA Foundation says companies are pledging relief funds for China, perhaps because so many do business there. That last fact is important.

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What Makes a Great Donation Page

Donordigital has a fascinating new study you can access from their home page.  It reveals the results of lots of testing of various donation pages.  They learned:

·      Size DOES Matter: Bigger donate buttons helped convert more donors

·      Color Can Matter Too: Vividly colored donation buttons had varying levels of impact on donation page conversion

·      Less Is More: Removing unnecessary fields from personal information forms significantly increased conversion

·      Remind people (nicely) why they want to donate: Polite header copy yielded better conversion than a more forceful call-to-action

·      Test, Test, Test: Donation page testing can help improve YOUR organization’s online revenue!

Check it out.  It’s definitely worth a read if you’re raising money.

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10 Things to Never Do with Your Website

We had a great Nonprofit 911 call yesterday at Network for Good on how to redesign your website.  I’d like to share my favorite part of Michael Weiss of Imagistic’s presentation, which you can view in full here.

Mike’s Top 10 “Never Do This” List of website redesign

10. Never think this going to take 4 weeks
9. Never think you can do this alone
8. Never skip the information architecture phase
7. Never do this without an RFP
6. Never send the RFP to more than 5 firms
5. Never choose a vendor based on price alone
4. Never ask your IT Manager to manage this process this alone
3. Never start without a budget in mind
2. Never start this process without key stakeholders involved
1. Never hire your boss’s nephew

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Jimmy Buffett is a marketing genius

Photo_05

So I’m back from Mexico, where I went on vacation and hung out with Jimmy Buffett’s brand for several days.  We’ve grown tight, because we got a lot of quality time together.  Jimmy is in the airport, where you can buy Margaritaville t-shirts or the Perfect Margarita at the Jimmy Buffett restaurant.  (I chose the drink over the t-shirt.)  He’s singing about his lost shaker of salt on the TV screens in this photo I took in the restaurant in the airport.  He’s on the beach, where airborne Cessna’s pull advertisements for a bar called Margaritaville.  He’s in hotel bookstore, having apparently penned a bestseller about a pig (“Swine Not?”).  In short, he’s ubiquitous, prolific and possessing of serious marketing genius.

He has parlayed a hit song - and its drinking-on-the-beach kind of aesthetic - into a brand empire.

How do I get me some of that?

While sipping on my airport margarita awaiting my flight home, I snapped this photo and contemplated this question.  And here’s what I concluded are the three cornerstones of Jimmy’s brilliance.

1. Simplicity: He stands for one thing.  To me, that thing is life as a margarita - carefree, hammock-lying, drink-sipping relaxed happiness with a little salt around the edges.  From his music (Cheeseburgers in Paradise, anyone?) to his restaurants to his books.  Which brings me to his…

2. Consistency: It’s about the margaritas as life, folks.  Always.  Visit his website.  The name? Of course it’s margaritaville.com.  Note: excellent lead generation on the page with the email sign-up.  Nice touch.

3. Hopeful: The allure of something happy is strong.  Remember that when you tell stories.  If you go dire in the telling, remember that people want hope and happiness as the punchline.

I can hear you now.  You’re thinking, that girl had one too many margaritas in Mexico.  I’m saving the world, not slinging drinks.  Yes.  I know.  I am too.  But while I know it’s easier to sell margaritas or pigs than it is to promote the end of poverty, the principles remain the same.  Stand for something compelling and hopeful.  And stand for it over and over, over time.  It works.

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Harness the Web for Social Good (and win $10,000)

By Jono Smith

Do you believe in the power of the web to help nonprofits create social change? Do you know a talented Web strategist or developer interested in coming up with new ways to use the Web for social good? The Case Foundation is sponsoring two $10,000 prizes for Web enthusiasts who do just that.

Network for Good, NetSquared, and the Case Foundation have come together to challenge developers to mash-up the Network for Good online donation processing API with another Web service to either (a) enhance the online donor experience or (b) revolutionize a nonprofit’s ability to fundraise online. As if changing the world was not enough, the two winners will each receive a $10,000 prize.

Full details here: www.netsquared.org/mashup/donatenowchallenge

Mashup? Mash what? Learn more here.

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On vacation

I will be on vacation (including a blogging vacation) through next Tuesday!

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Social media success stories!

Check out this nice summary at Wild Apricot blog, which hosted the latest nonprofit consultants’ carnival.

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Five-Minute Facelift for Your Website

This is product placement, but it’s a well-intentioned plug: If you’re not already signed up for Network for Good’s weekly fundraising and marketing tips, I encourage you to do so here.  Here’s a sample of the types of tips we feature from editor Rebecca Ruby:

Why isn’t your website performing better? Where are all those online donors? Is this creating the urge to completely revamp your site?  You may not have to start from scratch!  Here is a way to give your website a five-minute facelift:

Make your Donate button easier to find. Grab a friend or relative, sit them down in front of your website home page, and count how many seconds it takes them to find and click on your Donate button. If it takes them more than two seconds, you need to place your button in a far more prominent position. Make it central to the page. Make sure it is above the fold. Make it big. Make it colorful. Make it impossible to miss. Here’s an example of an easy-to-find Donate button.


Frame the Donate button in a more compelling way. Now think about why someone should click on your Donate button. Your financial needs are not enough. Create an appeal around the button that is focused on donors, their interests, and what they get in return for their donation. What tangible change will result if they give? How is that tangible change relevant to them personally? Will it feel good to make the donation? Is clicking on the button fun, touching or compelling? Here’s an outstanding example of framing.


Add a sense of immediacy. You want to inspire someone to give right now, but that can be hard to do if it’s not December or if there’s not an urgent crisis to address. Create a sense of urgency for donating by creating a campaign with a goal and deadline, matching grant, or appeal for specific items or programs that are highly tangible. Here’s an example of bringing a sense of urgency to an appeal by making it clear what the donation does (it buys a bed net) and tying it to a popular show.


Recognize that getting clicks requires cultivation. While you want someone to donate right away, it’s important to remember that it takes time to cultivate donors. Be sure your website includes a way to capture the email addresses of visitors so that you can build a relationship with them and turn them into donors in the future. Think beyond a newsletter sign-up. Here’s a nice example of an innovative approach to capturing emails. 


Tweak your DonateNow page. (This is step is particularly easy if you have Network for Good’s service.  Yes, NFG is my employer, so I’m biased!) Take a hard look at your donation form/page. If you are asking too many questions, potential donors may abandon the form. This page may also need some increased messaging and reinforcement of why and how donations are important. Remember: This page has the last copy a donor is going to read prior to actually giving you money—you don’t want to lose them in the home-stretch!

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Donor Research Roundup

Here’s a nice summary of recent donor research by Nonprofit Communications guru Kivi.

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Six Steps to Social Media Success

Here is my May column for Fundraising Success.

Put down your iPhone, close your Facebook profile and stop Twittering for just a second.  I have something to say to you, head to head and heart to heart.

Technology is cool.  It can be incredibly effective way to promote your cause.  But hard wires don’t necessarily create human bonds.  Your social media strategy can’t simply be a toolset – it needs to be a conduit to living beings.  “Java” doesn’t inspire people unless you’re talking about the kind you get from Starbucks.  Technology doesn’t compel people.  People do.

I’m taking this precious space to make this point because I think it goes in the forgotten fundamentals category that is the focus of this column.  It is all too easy to fall in love with all the sexy social media tools out there and forget WHY people are attracted to social media in the first place.  If you don’t stay grounded in the basic human needs that fuel the success of those shiny tools, you will be – in the words of Nicole Engelbert from Datamonitor – a fool with a tool.

There are a lot of lengthy and overwhelming definitions of social media, social networking and Web 2.0 out there – pick your jargon.  I will not quote them here.  Let me give you my definition.

All that social media stuff is simply people using the Internet to:

1. Be seen and heard
2. Connect with each other

That’s it.  And that’s as basic and human as you can get.  Social media is about the social, not the media.

Here are some examples.

Bloggers and vloggers want a platform for personal expression, and they like connecting with people who care about their content.  (In case you’ve been living off the grid for the last few years, blogs are personal online journals/columns.  Vlogs are video blogs.)  Everyone can be a pundit in the world of social media.  Even I have one.

Social networkers want a platform for personal expression (think a MySpace page), and they want to connect with others (think online “friends”).  So do people (including your kids) who love instant messaging.

Being seen and heard and connecting are the emotions that drive social media, and they should drive your online outreach strategy.

This should be a relief to all of us who think we lack the technological chops to successfully participate in the online world.  You don’t need to be under age 20 or an IT director, you just need to grasp what makes it work.

Here’s a six-step way to make that happen.  And you need to make it happen.  Why?  Because online outreach is a cost-effective and efficient way to reach people at a time when we’re all low on resources.  Because it’s a way to find new constituencies and reach a new, younger generation of donors.  Because giving up control of the message and having a conversation can strengthen your relationship with the people with support you.  And if none of that moves you, remember that people tend to donate more money online.

The Six Steps to Winning Hearts and Minds on Web 2.0:

1. STOP!  If your Executive Director is commanding you to start a blog or get a Facebook presence today, stop right there.  Spend a bit of time thinking more strategically.  You want to figure out WHO you’re trying to reach online, WHERE they are, and HOW to best communicate with them.  If starting a new blog (and there are already tens of millions of them), you want to be sure there’s a case for it. 

2. LOOK AND LISTEN!  The beauty of the Internet is you can quickly find the people online that are predisposed to your cause.  In a world where there are active online communities of people fascinated by medieval pottery or support groups for people struck by lightning (really), there is surely is a constituency that loves your cause, somewhere out there.  Find those people, watch where they are congregating and listen to what they are saying.  This is very easy to do by setting up simple alerts so that each time someone mentions your organization or anything related to your cause online, you will be notified.  Check out http://www.google.com/alerts and watch lists on http://www.technorati.com

3. SEE AND HEAR!  Start acknowledging what potential supporters are saying.  Post friendly comments on their blogs with constructive thoughts and useful information, openly identifying who you are and your organization.  Bloggers love those kinds of comments.  They like having an audience!  Do the same on online communities, MySpace pages, etc.  Give online communities useful tools and interesting content from your organization.  Be generous.

4. CHOOSE!  At this stage, you’ll have a growing sense of whether there’s a need for you to blog or participate more formally in a social network.  Be strategic about concentrating your efforts in a few high-yield areas.

5. BE EASY TO FIND!  Part of social networking is going out and connecting to people.  Also make sure you’re easy to find so people can connect to you.  Be sure your website can be easily located via search engines.  If you decide to have a social networking page, give it an obvious name.  Don’t be so clever you don’t show up in search.

6. ASK!  Once you have relationships with supporters on social media, give them different ways to help you – not just by giving money, but telling their story, spreading the word and expressing their opinion about your issue – in their own words.  Turn the conversation into collaboration for social change.  Give up control.  You never had it anyway.

 

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Changing the Messenger

Pursuant to my post yesterday, I want to show two wonderful examples of establishing the trust triangle with unlikely yet completely authentic messengers for an important cause.

Read these stories and ask yourself, “Who should be my messenger?”  No matter your marketing talents, there is probably someone better than you to speak to your cause - especially someone helped by it!

STORY ONE - MEN BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

David Stoker of Ashoka wrote me today to say:

Read your post today about trust and the power of trust between friends in combination with a cause.  That is really the underlying mechanism that drives the idea of, what we call, a Citizen Base.  When citizens own, operate, and market to other citizens, the cause becomes rooted in the community at a level of connectivity that makes it more likely to succeed and grow.  A great example we’ve seen in this regard is Men on the Side of the Road in South Africa.  The personal connection they forged between individuals was the key to their success.  I find it quite compelling in terms of building trust between segments of the population that would perhaps look at each other with suspicion.

Here’s the story, in Ashoka’s words, about this project:

MSR was created when Ashoka Fellow Charles Maisel devised a way to employ the 18,000 males who gather at roughly 180 sites throughout South Africa waiting for a day’s labor. Through a national marketing campaign, MSR initiated a massive tool drive for old, unused, and even broken tools, which can then be repaired and used by the day laborers. Instead of having to go to anonymous drop-off points to donate, citizens are asked to call MSR, who then sends out these day laborers to pick-up these tools directly from the community, thereby building a human connection.

Imagine if the next time you donated something, a person who was benefitting collected it from you!  Wow.

STORY TWO: THE DOG WITH A BLOG

Pets for the Environment has a brilliant new spokesperson—a dog.  Here is Eddie’s story (he has a blog, too, natch):

I’m a dog on a mission.

When nonstick chemicals from a frying pan killed my buddy Feathers, and my feline friend Cleo and I found out that we’re full of chemicals too, I was barking mad. Did you know that the humans’ government doesn’t make companies test chemicals for safety before they start using them in our toys, furniture, or even our food? And where do you think all those flame retardants, mercury, and perfluorochemicals end up? In us! And I know because I was tested. The chemicals in me are the same kinds of chemicals in people, and scientists think that other cats and dogs—and horses and birds and bunnies and snakes—around the country are full of them, too.

That’s why I started Pets for the Environment. The humans have made a mess, and they aren’t doing anything about it. I need your help educating our humans and getting their government to pass toxic chemical reform legislation. They’ll never listen to just one pet, but all of us barking and meowing and cawing and squeaking together can make a lot of noise. Join Pets for the Environment and help me make a difference!

Check out the site, where you can find the blog, a wall of cute (dog photos sent in by fans) and other great examples of messaging with the right messengers.

Trying to reach pet owners?  Speak through a pet.

 

 

 

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