Nonprofit Fundraising Resource Roundup

Some interesting nonprofit fundraising resources from around the web.

John Haydon has a great post on “How to get our nonprofit’s supporters to retweet content” http://johnhaydon.com/2010/02/nonprofits-supporters-retweet-content/

Katya Andreson has a great post showing a website makeover.  Check it out at http://www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com/site/extreme_website_makeover_from_ick_to_slick/

Nancy Schwartz has a great post on How to Communicate in the Shadow of a Disaster.  In other words, how do you keep telling your story when the world is focused on Haiti?  Read it at http://www.gettingattention.org/my_weblog/2010/02/how-to-communicate-in-the-shadow-of-disaster-nonprofit-marketing.html

Oneicity has a great list of things we should be thinking about in this new year. http://www.oneicity.com/blog/npo-leadership-think-this-not-that/

GrantsandFunding.net has a free grantseekers checklist that you can download.  Get it at  http://cdpublications.com/freeresources/freedown.php?ID=38

Got suggestions for additional resources?  I’d love to hear about them!  Hit the comment link and share.

Nonprofit Fundraising Resource Roundup

Here are several resources I thought you might be interested in.

The January edition of the Nonprofit Blog Carnival is up at IssueLab’s Footnotes.  You’ll find several posts on the topic of ‘online outreach on a budget.’  Check it out here: http://issuelabfootnotes.blogspot.com/2010/01/online-outreach-on-budget-january.html

There’s a great post on the “A Small Change” blog about making your fundraising efforts go viral. http://www.asmallchange.net/how-to-make-your-fundraising-efforts-go-viral

If you’re serious about blogging and social media, check out the results from John Haydon’s 31 day challenge.  There’s some very interesting stuff here.  http://johnhaydon.com/

Network for Good has a new, free ebook called the Fundraiser’s Checklist.  Grab your copy at http://web.networkforgood.org/201001ebook

Kivi Leroux Miller at the Nonprofit Communications Blog has a great post on integrating your website, email newsletter, and social media.  Read it here:  http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/2010/01/26/integrating-your-website-email-newsletter-and-social-media-sites/

Nancy Schwartz at the Getting Attention Blog has a great post on how most nonprofits fail to connect with their audience.  Read it here: http://www.gettingattention.org/my_weblog/2010/01/nonprofit-marketing-crisis-survey-shows-messaging-fails-to-connect-with-key-audiences.html

One of my favorite authors and bloggers is Seth Godin.  Here’s a great post on his blog about spreading ideas.  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/random-rules-for-ideas-worth-spreading.html

There’s a good article on the Step By Step Fundraising site written by Marc Pitman that talks about the 80/20 rule.  Interesting.  Check it out at http://stepbystepfundraising.com/the-pareto-principle-the-8020-rule-for-fundraising/

If you know of other really interesting resources I can share, hit the comment link and let me know.  Thanks!

Sandy

Big mistake to avoid in appeals

I got a couple more email appeals yesterday from local organizations.  One made a big mistake that I wanted to share with you so you can avoid it.

Overall, it was a good email appeal – photo, update on a couple of accomplishments for the year, reminder that year-end gifts are due this week, link to the website for the Donate Now button… then they also asked for me to participate in an event.

It’s a huge mistake to ask for multiple things in an appeal.  You run the risk of people being torn about which thing to respond to.  Ask for one thing and one thing only.  Make it very simple and very clear what action you want the donor to take.  Otherwise, you may be disappointed with the response you get.

5 characteristics of a winning email appeal

I’ve received a couple of email solicitations this week from nonprofits who are trying to urge me to make a last-minute gift.  And they’re very good.  Here’s what I like about them:

• They’re short and to the point. 
• They don’t drone on about how much the organization needs my help.
• They tell a story about someone they serve.
• They include a photo.
• There’s a link to the website where I can make my gift.

Kudos to Knox Area Rescue Ministries for the best one I’ve seen this season! (Good job Angie!)

Perk up your online giving

Are you getting as many online donations as you’d like?  My guess is probably not.  Most nonprofits would like to see much more coming from their virtual donors.

There’s a great article in the November issue of Fundraising Success that covers the basics of online giving.  One thing they mention is to have a call to action.

“In addition to providing intriguing content to your audience, the main purpose of your Web site is to get your users to take action.  The best way to achieve this is to ensure that you actually ask them to do so by the use of context-sensitive calls to action.  The most notable exmple of this is the “donate now” button.”

The article goes on to say that you should make your ‘donate now’ button availebl throughout your website.  You can read the rest of the article here.

My pal Gail Perry also has something to say about online giving.  She offers a list of 10 things donors want to see on your website, including

1. Can they find what they want easily?

2. Is it safe to give on your website?

Read the rest of the article here.

If you’ve been successful raising money online, hit the comment link and let us know what’s working for you (or not working).  We’d love to hear it!

Top 10 Things Donors Want from Your Nonprofit’s Website

Thanks to my buddy Gail Perry for today’s post. (www.gailperry.com)

Did you know that most donors check out your web site before they make a gift? – whether they are giving on line or through the mail.

A Kellogg Foundation study found that potentially up to 50% of your donors are going to want to check you out before they give, whether they give online or not. Here are questions you should ask about your site to see if it is hurting or helping your fudnraising campagin.

First, “your web site is now your front door,” advises Ted Hart in the 09 Year-End Strategies Telesummit. I interviewed Ted last week as part of the Telesummit and he shared a long list of things donors are looking for on your web site.

1. Does your web site represent you well? Does it tell a compelling, moving story? (i.e., photos of people helped by your organization)

2. When someone comes to your site, can they find out what they want easily?

3. What’s the call-to-action on your site? What do you want visitors to do?

4. Does it convey legitimacy and credibility?

Do you post info on your website that proves your nonprofit status? Do you post the names of your board members, i.e., members of the community who stand behind your organization? Does it say how is accountable for this organization?

5.  Are you offering people the ability to give online safely (through encryption technology).

6. Is there also a way to download a form that a donor can mail in or fax to you if they don’t want to contribute on line?

7. Are you offering people the ability to have a dialog with you? Is there some sort of interaction, such as a survey or a place to post comments? Donors want the ability to comment, to discuss, to learn more about you.

8. Do you have a physical address and phone number prominently displayed for easy access?

9. Does your web site share how past donations have been used? (This is where you can share your good news, terrific stories of what you’ve done with your funding.

10. Are you telling visitors how they can volunteer? (you certainly don’t want to give the impression that you don’t want volunteers!  But this topic is sometimes completely missing from a web site.)

Top nonprofit bloggers to follow on Twitter

VolunteerSpot named it’s top 29 nonprofit bloggers to follow on Twitter this week and guess who made the list?  You’ll find me in the #8 spot!  Woohoo!  I’m so flattered that folks find my blog ramblings helpful and worthwhile.  Check out the whole list at http://ow.ly/vlqe.

And if you’re not following me on Twitter, you can find me at www.Twitter.com/SandyRees.  I post inspiration, information, and links to resources, similar to what you’ll find here on my blog, but slightly different.  After all, on Twitter, it’s only 140 characters long!

It’s Blog Action Day!

Today is Blog Action Day ‘09!  It’s a world-wide event that aims to get as many bloggers as possible to focus on one topic to raise awareness.  This year’s topic is Climate Change.

I’m sure that most nonprofits are affected either directly or indirectly by climate change.  Environmental groups are probably the first ones to see and feel the impact, and raise the red flag.  When summers get hotter and winters get colder, people in need line up in record numbers for assistance from a variety of sources.  When there’s too much or too little rain, it impacts our food source, which can increase demand at food pantries.

So what can we do?  We can talk about it.  We can buy products and services from environmentally-friendly companies. And we can take care of our own little corner of the world.  Most of all, we just need to care.  That alone will help move us in the right direction for making a difference.

Want to read more about Blog Action Day?  www.blogactionday.com.

Want free training? Check this out.

Continuing education is a good thing.  As fundraisers, we’ve got to keep learning so we can stay up on all the latest trends.

The Wild Apricot Blog has come up with 23 free webinars happening in the month of October.  Run on over there and check them out!  http://bit.ly/4C6eSu

Are you participating in Blog Action Day?

If you are blogging, you need to participate in Blog Action Day on October 15.  It’s a way for us to all join our voices together to bring awareness to this year’s topic (climate control), but it’s also a way to bring awareness to nonprofit blogging in general.

Currently, nearly 2,000 blogs are registered to participate.  I think that’s pretty good, but more are needed.

Go to www.blogactionday.com to register and get ideas about what you can post on Blog Action Day.

Writing to meet the challenge

I’ve been participating in a writing challenge this Spring called “100 Article in 100 Days.”  It started in March and the challenge was to write roughly an article a day for 100 days.  The challenge is over on July 1 and I’m happy to report that I’ve written 89 articles so far!  And all of them are about some aspect of fundraising or nonprofit operations.

If you’d like to read some of them, you can find them here: http://www.ezinearticles.com/?expert=Sandy_Rees

It’s been an amazing challenge and I’m so glad that I’ve hung in with it.  There have been days that I couldn’t string two words together coherently and other days when I was able to crank out 3 or 4 articles.  Now that I’m in the groove, I’ll continue to write on a regular basis (although I don’t think it will be daily!).

Well, back to my writing.  I’ve still got 11 articles to go to meet the challenge! 

Cool resource for fundraisers

If you haven’t found it yet, check out Network For Good’s Fundraising Learning Center at www.fundraising123.org.  There are lots of good articles, free trainings, and answers to lots of questions you might have about all things fundraising.

They have a cool piece  for marketing campaigns that you should check out while you’re there and a new guide to email campaigns.

Sunday Resource Roundup

Here’s some recent blog postings I found interesting and thought you might enjoy them, too.

Oneicity had a good post about ways to get people to your website.  http://www.oneicity.com/blog/get-people-to-your-website/

Step By Step Fundraising has a post about live auctions. http://stepbystepfundraising.com/live-charity-auction-circus/

The Accidental Marketer has a great story about getting a Thank You phone call from a Habitat affiliate. http://theaccidentalmarketer.blogspot.com/2009/05/direct-connection.html

ImpactMax has a good article about celebrating your organization’s anniversary (or not). http://impactmax.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/guest-post-its-your-nonprofits-anniversary-who-cares/

Nonprofit Marketing Zone

Here’s something new and cool you’ll want to check out.   It’s called the Nonprofit Marketing Zone and was started by some of the top ladies in the nonprofit marketing world:  Nancy Schwartz, Kivi Leroux Miller, and Katya Andreson.

In addition to marketing, you’ll find all kinds of information about fundraising, Boards, and all things nonprofit.

Check it out at http://www.nonprofitmarketingzone.com/

Friday Freebie

Here’s a cool freebie I ran across this week.  It’s a Fundraising Campaign in a Box from Network for Good.

Grab it here: http://www.fundraising123.org/article/fundraising-campaign-box

And let me know what you think about it!

Nonprofit Blog Carnival!

Here’s the April edition of the Nonprofit Blog Carnival. This month’s theme was Raising Money Online. 

So many nonprofits are looking to the internet as an inexpensive tool for raising money.  While it can be a great technique, there are definitely things that work and things that don’t. Here are some nuggets of wisdom about raising money online.

Oneicity has an some good tips in Steve Thomas’ post “Optimize Online Fundraising.”

Joanne Fritz has a great post about optimizing your website called “What Online Donors Want to See On Your Website.”

Jeff Brooks has a good post pointing out some critical mistakes in his post called “How nonprofits fail their donors on the web.”

Kivi Leroux Miller had a whole week on Online Fundraising at the Nonprofit Marketing Guide.  Check out “Super Online Fundraising, Step 6.”

My pal Sandra Sims has some great advice on the Step By Step Fundraising site called “Accepting Donations Online: Three great Service Providers.”

Katya Andreson has a post called “Nonprofit websites even worse than government ones.”

Abny Santicola posted a great piece from the AFP Conference in New Orleans.  It’s called “Six Best Practices for Balancing New and Traditional  Media.”

And here are some social media-specific posts that you might find interesting:

Mark Pitman has “A Case for Twitter, Facebook, and social media for healthcare fundraisers.”

Beth Bates at the Good Works Grapevine has a an interesting case study about fundraising with Facebook.  Her post is called “Has Your Organization Benefitted from Facebook Causes?”

Britt Bravo talks about philanthropy on Twitter in her piece called “Hugh Jackman Makes $100,000 Donation Using Twitter.”

Marion Conway talks about fundraising with Facebook in her post called “How Facebook is both horrible and ninja for fundraising.”

Jeff Brooks has an interesting perspective on the use of Twitter for nonprofits called “Twitter better for birds than nonprofits.”

Do Facebook Causes work?

There was an article in the Washington Post this week that talked about Facebook Causes and basically said they aren’t any good.  I finally got to read the article today and it made me mad!

Here’s my response:

I think the results we’re seeing with Facebook Causes can be attributed to two things: first, supporters are gathered by dangerously easy-to-accept invitations from friends and second a serious lack of communication.

It’s way to easy to accept a Facebook invitation to join a cause. How often do we join causes that we only remotely care about just so we don’t offend our friend who is asking? It doesn’t require anything of us to join, so we do.

Communication is also an issue. The nonprofits who are using Facebook are not doing a good job of developing relationships or communicating with people who are Facebook supporters. I wonder how many of us have joined so many causes we don’t even remember which ones we joined?

These two facts go directly against the grain of basic nonprofit fundraising principles. No wonder we’re seeing dismal results with Facebook causes! We have people joining causes who don’t really care about them then there’s no real effort to stay in touch with them. How many donations would we get with our offline fundraising strategies if we followed the same strategies?

Facebook causes could probably see some seriously different results if the nonprofits using it had a solid strategy in place instead of jumping in as a knee-jerk response simply because ‘everyone else is doing it.’ A well thought-out plan with a specific goal in mind would no doubt bring different results.

What do you think?  Have you raised money with Facebook Causes?  I’d love to hear your story or your opinion!

Write, write, write – Surf the Wave of Web 2.0

This is a guest post from my fellow fundraiser Barbara Talisman, President of Talisman Associates, Inc., in Chicago.

If you want your message to get noticed, be sticky, passed along or retweeted, you have to write about it.

AND just writing it isn’t enough, you have to find the forums to share what you have written.

AND each of those forums requires a different format.

Here are some quick and easy ways to get your message noticed. Your message(s) should:

1. Be urgent, interesting and engaging

2. Include a call to action

3. Ask others to help you push your message

So where to get noticed?

You have your own website. Be sure to start there and make sure all your messages are current and consistent. Sometimes it is easier to update your Facebook page and forget about your website. Ideally, pushing everyone to your website is the way to go. But it doesn’t always work that way. So you need to have different communication streams. Does your organization have:

· Facebook page, causes, groups

· Twitter – multiple accounts for different parts of your organization including your Executive Director

· MySpace – page

· Blogs – same as Twitter, different people within your organization should have their own blogs.

All of this should be linked to your website or your website to them.

Set a reminder for yourself. You and staff need to write good content often to get noticed. It is a little busy out there. Plan on blogging variations of your message 2-3 times a week. Twitter at least 5-7 times a day and update your Facebook page, group or cause page at least once a week. The good news is you can use http://Ping.fm to post on update to all your social networking sites.

So now you are writing – you need readers! Well you have a built in audience of donors, friends, volunteer, staff and all their friends, colleagues and acquaintances! Ask them to join you as:

· Friends on Facebook and MySpace

· Followers on Twitter

· Readers and commentary on your blogs

Some of these your folks are using Web 2.0, some not. You can be sure those who are have no intention of stopping. And don’t be fooled, while the under 26 crowd tends to be the majority using Web 2.0, there is a growing number of folk over 45 using it as well.

Get on the surfboard, start paddling and ride the wave.

Nonprofit Blog Carnival Coming!

That’s right!  I’m hosting the Nonprofit Blog Carnival  on April 30 right here on the Get Fully Funded Blog.

If you aren’t familiar with the Carnival, it’s a highlight of blogs written for and by nonprofits.  Each month, the carnival is hosted by a different blog and features blog posts from a variety of blogs around different themes.  Our theme this month is Online Giving.

Want to participate?  Write a blog post between now and April 30 about Online Giving and let me know you’d like to have your post considered for the carnival (either post a comment here or shoot me an email or submit it to the carnival).  Be sure to include the link to your blog post.   I’ll be choosing about 10 posts to highlight.

Read more about the Carnival here.

Got questions?  Click on the comment button and ask away!

Hugh Jackman offers $100,000 on Twitter

I saw this late last night on Twitter:

Hugh Jackman is offering $100,000 to a nonprofit that can passionately explain their cause in 140 characters or less.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/twitter/5156504/Hugh-Jackman-makes-10000-charity-pledge-on-Twitter.html

I think this is a great exercise in being laser-focused, concise and compelling.  It sounds easy at first, but once you start working on it, you’ll see how difficult it is to work with only 140 characters (for those who don’t know, a character is a letter or a number or a space or a punctuation mark).

Want to join in?  Get a Twitter account if you don’t already have one www.twitter.com.  Send your response to @RealHughJackman  That’s it.

I’m working on one for a client that could desperately use the money. I’d love to hear if you’re planning to participate and what you come up with.

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