Donor Cultivation and Management

Five Things You Can Do To Become a Better Fundraising ProfessionalRead one thing related to your job a day (news article, blog post, or white paper)Participate in one webinar a monthAttend one local networking event or conference each quarterAttend at least one national conference a yearParticipate in other fundraising events as often as you can

One of the things she focused on was creating your own benchmarks so you know how you are doing by your own standards and can better understand why you are above or below the industry average when these reports come out.

She suggests beginning with email performance by creating a report on all of your emails from the past year. Gather these numbers:

Number deliveredNumber of opensNumber of clicksNumber of actions/donationsNumber of unsubscribes

Then calculate the average rates for all messages. If you want to know your average open rate, take how many opened emails you had and then divide them by the total of all emails delivered.

 

For example:

You delivered 10,000 emails
2400 were opened

2400 divided by 10,000 is 0.24

 

Your open rate would be 24%

This would be your benchmark open rate. Then do the same for your other metrics – click-through, actions, etc.

 

A Follow Fundraiser is when you donate money to an organization or a cause per new follower on your social media platform. This fundraiser is a win-win because you gain followers and the organization/cause benefits from your donation. I have had 2 successful Follow Fundraisers. One for Wyatt's Wish and recently for Autism Speaks. 

1. Pick a platform that counts followers such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, or Twitter.
2. Note your starting follower total.
3. Decide how long you are going to run the fundraiser. 
4. Set a monetary goal. Ex. $1 per Follower.
5. Design an Image or Ad to display on your website and on your chosen media platform. You may want to publicize your goal and state your limitations such as: $1 per new follower up to $100. 
6. Ask friends and encourage your current followers to share your Follower Fundraiser on their social media accounts. 

7. Post about your fundraiser on all your social media platforms. Follow up with reminder posts. 
8. Make sure your platform has content. No one wants to follow a twitter account that has only tweeted twice in the last 2 months. 
9. Once you reach your end date for the fundraiser count the difference between your starting follower number and your ending follower number. The difference equals your donation. 
10. Announce through your social media and website how much money your raised. 
11. Thank your new and old followers for supporting the organization/cause. 
12. Follow through and show your followers you really did donate.

When you’re trying to create impact in the world, it may seem like there’s not enough time in the day to do everything that you need to do. The term “lifehacking” came about from those working in tech startups needing to find ways to prioritize tasks and maximize the hours in the day to get a quality output from your time and effort.

 

I have always been drawn to the innovative ways that both startups and nonprofits solve big world problems with minimal resources. At Scoop.it, my job is to show people how our platform can help them easily find and share great content on the Web without sacrificing the quality and integrity of their communication. To maintain this quality and maximize on your time and effort, we’ve combined technology and the human touch because sometimes when you let robots do all of the talking, it can lead to a bad outcome. Shortcuts are only good if they don’t compromise what’s important – your impact.

 

Think about how you handle social media for your organization. A lot of time and effort is spent on selecting the right content to publish and distribute. This is where Scoop.it can help you “hack” your social media strategy so that you can focus on changing the world.

 

 

What is Content Curation?Since the beginning of time, human beings have collected the best humanity has produced in art, literature, science; we invented the museums, the libraries, the Encyclopedia and  have written essays and done research. We have always looked at those ones, the curators who were knowing the right sources of that knowledge, to which being able to access to will have solved our needs. Content Curation is the online expression of something, which is in the same nature of human beings: the need to collect and catalogue only the most interesting things about a subject so to share it for the common benefit.
This is especially needed in the Internet era. And, as Rohit Barghava wrote in the Content Curation Manifesto, Content Curators will bring more utility and order to the social web. In doing so, they will help to add a voice and point of view to organizations and companies that can connect them with customers – creating an entirely new dialogue based on valued content rather than just brand created marketing messages.Actually five kind of Content Curation types are classified:Aggregation, which consists in curating the most relevant content about a topic into one single location. This is the most common way of curating content, and it is at the base of the majority of the content curation services actually present online;Distillation, which purpose is to distill the overall noise about a topic to its most important and relevant concept. The best cases of social content curation can be catalogued into this definition;Elevation, when curators draft a more general trend or insight from a mass of daily musings;Mashups, or to merge different content about a topic creating a new original point of view of the same;Chronology, which could be defined as historiographical content curation. Usually it consists in presenting a timeline of curated information to show the evolution of a particular topic.

Whew, what an NTC! Now that we've had a chance to catch a cat (dog?) nap and dusted the snow off, we want to share the huge outpouring of blog posts, videos, pictures, and other media from the NTEN community.

We've been reading, reflecting, getting inspired, and learning a lot from all of you. Our hope is that you can do the same with this compilation.

All of you - the community - are the special sauce that makes the NTC the amazing event it is.

 

If we missed your post, our apologies! We would love to share it, so if you see any media we missed, please let us know in the comments!

 

NTC in Numbers

It just wouldn't be a post-NTC update if we didn't share some of the highlights in numbers!

Number of:

Registered Attendees: 1671Speakers: 250Online NTC Attendees:147Countries represented: 13 (US, Canada, UK, Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Ireland, Nepal, Mexico, and Ghana)13NTC tweets during the conference: 3000 from 806 unique tweeters from over 128 locations (thanks, Chris Tuttle for these cool visual charts)Karaoke songs with NTEN staff embarrassing themselves: 2Puppies that made it there despite the weather: 1 (and a cute one as you can see)

 1. Immediately—Get Off Auto-Pilot 2. Immediately—But Don’t Go Dark Either 3. Immediately—Activate Your Relevancy Lens4. Immediately—Show You Care & Offer Right-Now Help5. Immediately—Pause Scheduled Outreach Till You Review6. A.S.A.P—Review Your Marketing & Fundraising Plans for the Next 10-14 Days7. A.S.A.P.—Share Your Revised Approach With  Colleagues & Ask Them to Share What They Hear8. Next 10 to 14 Days—Move Forward With Your Ear Close to the Ground9. By End of April—Craft a Crisis Communications Plan That Includes Shared Tragedies Like This One

There have long been debates about the federal budget as a “moral” document that simultaneously reflects and molds our nation’s priorities. The discussion of morality in the federal budget disintegrates as competing definitions come to the fore: whether it is better or worse in moral terms to have a long term deficit, or whether observers think that specific budget lines comport to their personal or family views of morality. In this Cohen Report, following last week’s review of President Obama’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2014, there are no high-minded statements of morality. Rather, we ask what the budget says on a number of variables, often overlooked, critical to building the capacity and productivity of the nonprofit sector.

 

While nonprofit leadership organizations, for reasons that are increasingly difficult to understand, attempt to galvanize the nonprofit sector to laser-focus its attention around potential modifications to the charitable deduction, this analysis asks what government and society plan to do with, and for, bellwether budget items for nonprofits that address the needs of poor people. It’s that simple.

 

This analysis is based on the conception of nonprofits as something other than temporary gap-fillers mitigating some of the dysfunctional elements of the private markets. To the contrary, nonprofits reflect values deep in American society about organizations motivated by something other than profit-maximization and multi-million-dollar CEO salaries. Nonprofits deliver what the private markets on their own simply won’t and don’t, and in some cases they partner with private investors to put private capital into productive, socially significant uses. What does the Administration’s proposed FY2014 budget say to Americans about President Obama’s (or President-Obama-plus-his-executive-team’s) vision of what government should do and provide to nonprofits?

At last week’s Engage Conference presented by Fundraising Success (you can see the presentations here), my colleague Kevin Schulman and I were both struck by an observation made in the wrap-up session by Tom Harrison, the CEO of Russ Reid.

 

“Why are nonprofits mad at about 50% of their donors at any given time for donating in the “wrong” way? And why do they persist in attempting to convert them to behaving differently?”

 

Apparently — and fortunately — Kevin wrestled with these questions long after the conference ended. His musings resulted in Stop Trying to Convert Donors  – a piece that appears in the current issue of The DonorVoice Newsletter.

 

I urge you to read the article in its entirety. Kevin asks and answers the question: “So what gives with all the effort time and wasted trying to convert donors who give in one way, even predictably so, to another way?”

 

Here are the key takeaways:

Unlike sophisticated commercial marketers, the nonprofit sector treats ‘conversion’ as a process that takes a new donor with at least some small relationship and connection to the organization and then systematically destroys it by barraging the donor with inordinate amounts of direct mail. (Kevin doesn’t put it this gently.)“If the same energy, resources and time were put into building legitimate product extensions and upgrades — a mainstay in the commercial sector — then the nonprofit sector and the causes supported by it would be immensely better off.”

 

Note from Beth: I just knew that I was going to start obsessing about charts and graphs after my Excel spreadsheet obsessions started.  I thought if I set up a tumblr blog curating great nonprofit spreadsheets, but the next logical step is create visualizations of your data.  What better way than in Excel.    I got into a wonderful conversation with Stephanie Evergreen, another nonprofit datanerd who loves spreadsheets who offered to write up this guest post about how to create the perfect graph.

 

Six Steps to Great Graphs By Stephanie Evergreen

Low budget? No programming skills? Me, too! Great data visualizations don’t necessarily require an expensive software package or a programmer on staff. Here is how you can work with what you already own, Excel, to increase the impact of your data visualizations. Let’s start with one basic dataset – a count of the number of followers, advocates, and donors for a non-profit over the last 6 years – and rock the graph so it is clear and compelling.

Ask Joshua Reeves about his online payroll service, and the last thing he'll want to discuss are its features and algorithms and software code and all that other cold jargon that usually comes pouring out of the mouths of Silicon Valley engineers.

 

No, what Reeves really cares about is what he hopes you will feel when you use ZenPayroll Inc.:

 

Delight."That's the effect we're trying to achieve," said Reeves, whose company has applied to trademark "delightful payroll." "We talk about how to create that 'aha moment,' that feeling the first time you use it where you just stop and say, 'This is amazing. Why weren't you here 10 years ago?'

 

Yes, delight. A squishy, subjective, hard-to-pin-down term. So daringly unquantifiable, so proudly immeasurable. And now, suddenly, all the rage in data-driven Silicon Valley.

 

Like so many other things in Silicon Valley, the word is a legacy of Steve Jobs, the Apple Inc. co-founder who often spoke of wanting to "surprise and delight" people.

Unless you have the budget for a Super Bowl ad, trying to advertise to the masses is probably not in the cards for your organization. But there is an important lesson to take from TV: its content balance.

 

Sure, you complain about the amount of commercials on TV, but if the networks treated its viewers like some brands or nonprofits treat its Facebook followers, they would show nothing but commercials.

 

“Special two for one sale this Saturday! Tell your friends and receive an extra 15 percent off,” goes the generic sales post.

 

How much is $1 worth?

Even an initial $1 donation is a critical step within the overall journey as a supporter. They’ve self-identified as the lifeblood of your organization: People that are willing to part with their money.

In other words, building an army of people that actually donate is more important than the dollar amount they contribute. A handful of seeds eventually will become a forest.

Here are three simple ideas to make the most of your small donors:

Say thank you. Saying “Thank You” to a new donor increases the likelihood that they will donate again, and that they’ll give more! Make sure you give these people a remarkable experience by doing things like sending handwritten notes.Use social media to identify big opportunities. Small Act allows you to see what these first-time donors are talking about on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. With this information, you can identify bigger opportunities. For example, CARE uses Small Act to find ‘key influencers’ for full relationship management that focuses on long term value, regardless of the short term payoff. Sign up for a free account SocialVision to see what SmallAct has in store.Use email marketing to encourage future actions. People who donate for the first time, even if it’s just $1, should be added to a specific email list. This way you can send messages that will be more meaningful and therefore more effective. After you set up your list,create a drip campaign designed to deepen your relationship with them by encouraging small commitments, like signing a petition or sharing content on Facebook.

And yet another reason why your nonprofit can not ignore Google+… the Google Knowledge Graph which now prominently features information about nonprofit organizations on the right-hand side of Google Search results. Data is pulled from multiple sources including Wikipedia,GuideStar and of course Google+ Pages.  As a result, nonprofits must ensure that their Wikipedia Page and GuideStar Profile are current and understand that simply being active on Google+ makes it more likely that your nonprofit will gain new Google+ followers and increased exposure in Google Search. Finally, for those nonprofits that are using Google+ Local, your reviews and location details are now prominently featured in Google Search results as well.

The hot new concept in data visualization is “data storytelling”; some are calling it the next evolution of visualization (I’m one of them). However, we’re early in the discussion and there are more questions than answers:

Is data storytelling more than a catchy phrase?Where does data storytelling fit into the broader landscape of data exploration, visualization, and presentation?How can the traditional tools of storytelling improve how we communicate with data?Is it more about story-telling or story-finding?

Many of the bright minds in the data visualization field have started to tackle these questions — and it is something that we’ve been exploring at Juice in our work. Below you’ll find a collection of some of the best blog posts, presentations, research papers, and other resources that take on this topic.

Note: I’ve excluded a lot of excellent sites and articles that use the phase data storytelling, but treat it as fresh way to talk about data visualization.

More than $20 million — and counting — has poured into One Fund Boston in the week since twin bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon, and the goal is to get that money into the hands of those in need as quickly as possible.

 

Checks have arrived from around the globe, with businesses donating millions and children donating dollars, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said Tuesday, hours after meeting with bombing victims.

 

“It’s so important to keep those affected by this tragedy as our number one priority,” Menino said. “We’ll get through this together. We’ll help you move forward. We’ll support you during these difficult times.”

 

The $20 million will help the 264 people injured when two bombs made from pressure cookers blew up, piercing stomachs, heads, arms, and legs with projectiles. The money will help victims cope with the financial cost of recovery. Limbs were amputated. Eardrums were punctured. Psyches were smashed. Three people died in the blasts.

Boston Marathon Bombing Victims FundsThere are several movements afoot to collect funds in relation to the Boston Marathon Bombing. None of them, so far, are in connection with charities that have received high ratings from Charity Navigator. We list them here, with the information we have been able to obtain about each, to help inform potential donors. However, we caution that gifts to these funds carry more risk than gifts to a well-established, fully vetted charity. TUGG This fundraising appeal promises that “all proceeds will be donated completely to programs working with victims of the attacks. We are consulting with the Mayor's office, the hospitals that cared for the patients, and other responder teams to assess the most pertinent needs and to deliver funding directly to those impacted”TUGG is a 501 c 3 public charity, but it is too small yet for Charity Navigator to rate.In 2011, TUGG spent $84k on fundraising and nothing on administrative fees or program fees (this is the category that charities show their spending on their charitable mission).The charity is missing many of our Accountability and Transparencymetrics including (but not limited to): no conflict of interest policy,  it hasn’t completed an  audit by an independent auditor with an audit oversight committee, does not have at least 5 independent voting Board members, the Board members aren’t listed on its site, no financial statements orForms 990 found on its site and we could find no evidence of a donor privacy policy on its site. While it may not be unusual for a small charity to not have all of these items in place, we do think it is important for donors to know that TUGGs is missing many of these good governance policies and procedures which help ensure the ethical behavior of charities and proper stewardship of donor dollars.The One FundThis fundraising effort was established on April 16th by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino “to help the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred in Boston on April 15, 2013.”The group has applied for nonprofit status, but does not yet have it.  Thenotice about the fund’s creation does properly note that “although the Fund cannot guarantee that the IRS will make a determination that the organization qualifies as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity, if approval is received within the expected time frame, the determination will be retroactive to the date of the Fund’s formation.” Readers of this blog know that the IRS hands out nonprofit status like it is giving away candy so it is highly likely that the fund’s nonprofit status will be approved.We’ve seen similar efforts after other disasters, including Superstorm Sandy in which the Governor of NJ and his wife started a fund. At the time, it too did not have nonprofit status (it does now). It has been the subject of some criticism – which Governor Christie has responded to.We generally recommend that donors not support brand new charities in a time of crisis, but we recognize that many donors will want to support this fund. Hopefully, the caliber of the leaders who have created the fund, in combination with the media scrutiny it is sure to receive, will help ensure that the fund does as it promises it will do.And to recap yesterday’s blog, here are some things to keep in mind in your efforts to support a Boston Marathon Bombing related fund:
Collectively, we donors have the power to hold these funds accountable for distributing the funds to the victims in a timely manner! That’s not to say we don’t want the funds to take enough time to ensure the money is going to real victims in need, but we also don’t want years to pass before the funds are released.Be suspicious of online appeals – especially in light of the fact that 100s of new website URLS have popped up since the bombing that use keywords related to the tragedy.Seems silly to have to say, but remember, a victim isn't going to know your personal email address to send you a direct appeal for help. This happens after every tragedy and sadly, some people, giving from their heart, don’t stop to think before they click on an email and give their personal financial information.