Marketing Awards

Its always  interesting to see who wins these awards and what they win for. In a follow up to yesterdays post I am especially interested in what won in the CSR category

http://www.aimawards.ie/2009/finalists/finalists.asp?ID=15

Attack Yourself

It is so helpful to take yourself out of the charity bubble and listen to things from the client side. I did that today for an hour and it was such a kick in the behind for me.

Despite my rants and raves about needing to stop talking like non profits and focus on what corporates want, which I do so often here…I still found myself doing it in a meeting.  I could see the person I was talking to, their eyes were glazing over!!

I sometimes think Im on the right track and sometimes I am, but today reminded me that I need to step out more often and think of things from the other side of the fence. Not just say I am or think I am but really do it.

Essentially it boils down to attacking yourself and what you are doing, find the gaps and the holes and then plugging them.

Attack Yourself.

Talking about your Impact

I had a discussion recently with a fellow blogger about this. Someone they knew had come into some money and was going to donate it to a worthy cause. A local school was suggested to them.

The person thought this wasnt a good idea as the school was going to close anyway. They thought that regardless of what they did, nothing would change that so their donation would go to waste

The reality of the situation is that €500 euro would keep a non-funded tutor in the school for a week, that’s 25 hours of 1-1 tutoring. Crucially 25 hours which might mean the difference to their ability to learn.

I wasn’t all that surprised at the donors feelings, they couldn’t get a sense of the importance of their gift, the Impact it would have.  I think this leads to a feeling of ‘it’s a lost cause’ which seems to be how that person felt about this school.

If people feel they are giving to an organisation that is a lost cause, i.e.  having no impact, then they are less likely to give. I worked an organisation 5 years ago and at that time they were saying they could only reach a certain number of people due to funding…..they are still saying the same thing!

Why would I support, as a donor, a cause that hasn’t improved or had an impact in 5 years!

 Impact is crucial.

Get showcased @ Womens Mini Marathon

 

 

 

The Women’s Mini Marathon is a wonderful fundraising event, 40,000 women raise millions for hundreds of casuses around Ireland. This year, as in previous years, they will be showcasing highlights of some of the work completed by the various charities who take part in the event .

I think this is a really great add-on to the event. You can get your charity showcased by emailing footage to flora@ogilvy.com

Always Say Thanks

Im pretty sure that anyone reading this blog doesnt need this reminder. So please dont think I am insulting your intelligence. But there is good reason for this post.

I was out over the weekend and two friends of mine commented about their experiences of giving over the past 12 months. Both had run the Dublin Marathon last October, both raised in excess of 2,000 euros via an online gving site, to two seperate (and big enough) charities.

Neither even got a note to say thanks.

They just wanted to know the money was recieved ok and that it went to some good use. How hard is that.

I couldn’t believe it. So I just had to post about it

Why dont we write how we speak

Here is a letter that was dropped into my door from a local politician who is up for election to the county council. I was actually reasonably impressed with some elements of the letter.

He signed each letter, or his team did, but they were signed and not printed with a signature. The letter was also personalised to the area of houses we live in. So he had taken the time to listen to what people were saying to him and then he spoke to us about it in his letter. Both nice touches. Although it is a shame that he didnt sign the letter with a blue pen, it would have really stood out.

But then he goes into politician speak, using words that none of use in our day to day lives….he speaks about addressing the matter with urgency, prioritising the matter, renewed energy and determination, Furthermore and please be assured!

Look these are all nice sentiments and I think his letter shows that he cares enough to listen. But why can he not speak to us like a human being in the rest of the letter. This could have been a much stronger letter than it is (and to be fair to him its one of the better ones I have seen in recent times). It baffles me why we turn into robots when we have a pen or keyboard in front of us!

I have spoken about this before, but as non profits we often fall into the trap of speaking to people with words that make sense to us or would have gotten us an A+ for grammer and use of language in school. But it doesnt make sense to the people we are speaking to, most of the time.  So try and write how you would speak. Make it feel like you are sitting at the kitchen table with the reader and you are chatting to them.

Our Digital Futures

Steve Bridger posted this great presentation on his Twitter page yesterday. It is a presentation he made to the heads of digital of some of the UK’s biggest charities at a Third Sector Forum. You really should take a look at it.

Major Gifts and the Internet – An Untapped Opportunity?

On Tuesday I posted an interview with Vinay Bhagat of Convio USA (you can read it here). In it he mentions an article he wrote about Major Gifts and the Internet. With his kind permission I am re-posting this, very interesting, piece….

 

Although many organizations have successfully used the Internet for direct response and special events fundraising, few have tapped its potential for major giving. The question nonprofit professionals should ask is not whether donors will give a major gift online, but whether online marketing and constituent relationship management (eCRM) can support major donor identification and cultivation.

Historically, major gift efforts have primarily sourced donors through two avenues: 1) referrals from other key donors and board members; and 2) direct mail programs. In the referral model, development officers target high net worth individuals and find ways to speak to them via existing relationships. In the direct mail model, donors who give large gifts – by direct mail standards – or who fit certain predictive model factors – such as giving tenure and frequency – are commonly screened and targeted for a major gift.

For example, in a recent article in Fundraising Success ADVISOR, “A Wealth of Opportunity,” a representative from the Heritage Foundation was quoted as saying that direct mail was its “largest source of future major donors,” specifically that “sixty percent of $10,000+ donors started out as regular direct-mail donors.” When a mail donor gives a single gift of $1,000 or more to the Heritage Foundation, the organization contacts the individual to begin building a stronger relationship and evaluating his or her potential for making a larger gift.

 

Just as with postal mail, a well-executed online marketing program can be a “feeder channel” for major gift efforts. Online marketing allows an organization to cast a wide net to entice potential supporters to learn more and become engaged. Online marketing also represents a very low cost donor education and cultivation channel that can supplement traditional in-person major donor cultivation activities. Similar to postal mail, when an online constituent demonstrates support by making a meaningful gift online, it is an indicator that he or she is worth cultivating for a major gift.

Consider the experience of The American Red Cross Mile High Chapter in Denver, Colorado. In response to Hurricane Katrina appeals in September and October 2005, this Convio client raised $1.5 million online. Two hundred and twelve new contributors gave online gifts of $1,000 or more. The organization segmented this constituency and sent a series of cultivation emails to keep them apprised of how their contributions were being spent. They also sent emails and hand written invitations encouraging these donors to participate in events. Six of these major donor “prospects” decided to participate in events; four actually attended personal tours of the chapter. In this case, online fundraising and eCRM sourced more than 200 strong prospects for major gifts and strengthened the cultivation process by enabling the organization to identify six previously unknown near-term prospects for major gifts.

Beyond sourcing potential major donor targets, eCRM also is an effective method for supporting cultivation of relationships with existing constituents. Many major gift-centric fundraising organizations arrange regular fundraising events such as galas attended by hundreds of people. Often, attendees fit the profile of good major gift prospects, but it is rare for an organization to systematically follow-up with all of them. Major gift officers generally only have the capacity to develop about 50 relationships at a time, so naturally they focus on the most easily identifiable targets.

An organization with hundreds of potential major gift prospects can use an eCRM approach to cultivate people en masse and “bubble up” the best targets for attention by major gift officers. Through a combination of personalized email marketing and Web site communications, a nonprofit can engage prospects, learn about their interests and use that information to entice them to learn more about and get involved with the organization. A nonprofit also can use this approach to stewardrelationships with existing donors – to sustain contact with them on a regular basis after a large contribution has been made so that their interest remains strong and grows. Through eCRM, it is possible to track a constituent’s activities and interests – which emails he or she opens, articles read, fundraising appeals prompting responses and survey answers. This information is valuable because an organization can both use it to personalize online communications as well as provide talking points for major gift officers as they make personal contact.

 

In summary, while online marketing and CRM will never replace the need for person-to- person contact, it can augment and support an organization’s efforts to help source new major gift prospects and cultivate constituents in a scalable fashion. Nonprofits that rely on or want to develop strong major giving programs would be wise to make eCRM an important part of their overall marketing mix.

Vinay will speak at the IFC Online Conference next week

Dry July

I’ve said it before…but here it goes again….the Aussies have a great way with words. They are also pretty good at coming up with some catchy with fundraising ideas.

This is one I saw last year and was really impressed with. Its a great idea, great name, easy to replicate (hint hint) and it works, in 2008 it raised over 250,000 Australian Dollars.

Their mission is pretty simple

Dry July’s mission is to have as many participants as possible, from all walks of life, to take on the challenge of an alcohol-free month.

Those that take part are asked to raise money to benefit the lives of adults living with cancer. A list of the charities they support is here

People register and get their own Dry July donation page for online donations, they open for registrations on June 1st. Check out their site here

IFC Online – Using the Internet to Connect with Major Donors

This May (12-14) the IFC Online Conference is taking place. I am really excited about this event “the world’s first fully web-based international fundraising conference”. Over the 3 days the conference will explore digital and new media fundraising. 

There are some phenomenal speakers taking part including:

• Mal Warwick (Mal Warwick and Associates),
• Katya Andresen (Network for Good, Author of Robin Hood Marketing & Non Profit Marketing Blog),
• Scott Goodstein (Obama for America),
• Bryan Miller (Cancer Research UK & Blogger)
• Premal Shah (President of Kiva.org) .

 Another is Vinay Bhagat, Founder of Convio USA, who will  speak about “Using the Internet to connect with middle and major donors“

I thought this was a really interesting topic as I believe most non profits don’t think Online = Major Donors.

Vinay has carried out research in the area with donors who have contributed $1000+ to a single nonprofit  in the previous 18 months. He worked with  23 major nonprofits and collated a list of about 40,000 donors and through a web based survey had about 3,500 responses.

 

This week I had the chance to get in touch with Vinay and find out a bit more about his thoughts on the Web and Major Gifts and crucially what you should be doing to make the most of it. Here is how we got on…….

 

1.       Let’s start with you! Tell me a bit about Vinay and Convio?

 I spent the first three years of my career in management consulting in Europe and Asia and then attended business school at Harvard University.  After that I joined a software company where I was responsible for helping Fortune 500 companies implement their e-commerce strategies. 

While answering the phone at a pledge (fundraising) drive at our local public TV station, I was struck by how inefficient the whole process was, and how the Web and technology could really be leveraged to help this organization.   They were not managing relationships strategically, e.g. collecting information about people’s interests and aligning appeals to them.  They were certainly not leveraging the Web effectively. So, the idea for Convio was spawned.

I left my job and spent six months conducting several hundred interviews with nonprofits, and in November 1999, I raised venture capital and started to build the companyI served as the company’s CEO until July 2003.  I then recruited a seasoned operating executive to join us to help us scale and transitioned to serve as Chief Strategy Officer,

 Today, Convio is a leading provider of online solutions for nonprofits, we have about 1300 clients and helped our clients raise $780 million online last year.

 

 2.       Why did you decide to engage in this piece of research?

 About two years ago, I started to dig into the topic of major gifts.  Most people previously believed that the Internet didn’t play a meaningful role in securing major gifts outside of providing a venue to do donor research.  I believed that the Internet was actually already playing a role with major donors, and could be leveraged much more strategically by nonprofits.

In April 2006, I wrote an article on the topic to provoke debate (A great article which I will post later in the week).  Mark Rovner, of Sea Change Strategies wrote to me saying that he agreed and wanted to collaborate on a formal research effort.  He brought an audience research firm called Edge Research in to work with us and the three of our firms collaborated together on the research.

 

3.       What was the finding that surprised you the most ?

That there was a clear “psychographic” segmentation among donors ranging from “relationship seekers who want a highly communicative, engaged relationship with their nonprofits to “all-business” donors who prefer far less communications.  This was a particularly important insight as it told us that organizations cannot take a one size fits all approach.

Our key hypothesis that major donors are active online, and influenced by their online interactions with nonprofits was affirmed very strongly.

 

 4.       Would it be fair to say that a lot of fundraisers wouldn’t think Online = Major Gifts?

Absolutely.  Mainly because they think of online, as online donations and email solicitation, versus strategic engagement and communications.

 

5.       What can we or should we do to change that mindset?

I’ve actually found that major gift officers/leaders have been pretty receptive to the message.  I think the more people we can get to read the research, and start to embrace the recommendations, the better.  Online marketers need to include major gift/development people in their Internet strategy development, and major gift officers need to ask for a seat at the table.

 

6.       You speak about the Wired Wealthy’s online expectations not being met. What do organizations need to do to meet expectations?

Treat the Internet as a strategic channel and assess investments not just in terms of online revenue potential, but the potential of the Web to influence offline giving, and source new donors and prospects.  Make sure your Web presence represents your organization effectively.  Make it navigable, easy to find key financial and mission impact related information.  Make sure it’s adequately inspiring.  Let donors control their e-relationship with the organization – managing their email subscriptions in terms of frequency and content.  Make sure that email communications are well written, impactful and resonate.  Invite major donor feedback.

 

7.       After the online gift are donors being contacted in other ways, for example is the major gifts office contacting them over the phone?

Candidates are identified due to either making a large online gift (>$1000+), or a series of moderate gifts over a sustained period of time, followed by wealth screening to indicate capacity.

 

 8.       If this is happening is it ok with the donor?

 Yes, in a vast majority of cases.  Usually, the call is a thank you followed-up by an invitation to an event.

 

 9.       Did you come across any examples of donors who had been moved further up the donor pyramid?

 I don’t have many great examples to share yet as this is an emerging strategy.  A Red Cross chapter we work with received over one hundred $1000+ online gifts in response to Hurricane Katrina.  It followed-up with those donors in an integrated multi-channel fashion, encompassing tailored email outreach, phone contact and an invitation to tour their facility.  I don’t know what the strategy yielded in terms of subsequent larger gifts though.

 

 10.   Can this happen online?

 Online marketing can play a significant role in major donor cultivation and stewardship. Human contact will always be important, but a lot of donor engagement and intelligence gathering (learning what’s interesting to donors) can be done via the Web.  Doing so, leads to large efficiencies gains.

 

 11.   Who is doing the best job online in your opinion?

In terms of supporting their major gift operations via the Web, Conservation International is doing the best job I’ve seen.  I will be featuring a case study about them in my presentation.  Defenders of Wildlife is doing a great job of sourcing new major gift prospects online, and reports that 1/3 of all new major donor prospects are being sourced by their online marketing efforts.

 

12.   Do you think organizations can achieve their online objectives just as effectively with a blog instead of a website?

No.  A blog can be a good part of an online communications strategy that engages people in a cause and helps create a more personal connection, but donors expect a well structured, compelling website, coupled with well written email updates.

 

13.   If you had 3 top tips to give to a charity what would they be?

a)      Upgrade your Web presence.  Eighty-six percent of Wired Wealthy donors will visit a nonprofit to donate prior to making a gift to a new organization.  Make sure your Website adequately reflects your organization – clarity around your mission, your impact/ return on donor dollars invested.  Make sure it is easy to find key information in particular financials; to donate; to manage email subscriptions. 

b)      Focus on quality vs. quantity for email communications.  Don’t communicate for the sake of schedule.  Make sure what you send out is compelling, inspirational.

c)       Provide more control to donors.  For example, let them manage the frequency and type of content they receive via email.

 

14.   What can we expect to hear during your IFC Online session?

a)      A high level review of the key findings from our research. 

b)      Practical and actionable recommendations that nonprofits can immediately begin to implement.

c)       An early case study of one organization that’s embraced the key recommendations of the Wired Wealthy research.

 

Some Useful Links 

• Check out the IFC Online Conference information here and you can still register
• Here is a link to the Convio Site
• Here is a link to Press Release about the Research Convio carried out

Fundraising Discussions on Linkedin

There are a good few Fundraising Discussion forums on Linkedin. Fundraising Ireland has started its own so please stop by and add to the discussion. Check it out here 

And guess what….you dont have to be from Ireland to join the discussion.

Backing up the case for doing DM.

This time the case is more to do with sustained giving/regular giving. But two are linked (or should be). So just in case you needed more convincing after Mondays post from Damian,  Jonathon from Pareto posted something very similar on his blog last week. Combined the two make a compelling case.

I hope they are useful to you as you make your case…you are making a case for doing DM and regular giving arent you???

Cash is King.

…. let’s face it, when it comes to generating new charitable direct response donors, cash really doesn’t stack up anymore.

Consider this: when we look at the balance of cash versus monthly givers recruited through the benchmarking we undertake at Pareto Fundraising invariably we find the balance stacked heavily towards more cash donors recruited.

Often up to five times as many cash donors are recruited in a period than ongoing, monthly donors.

Yet when you compare the retention rates, even those channels delivering the lowest retention rates (typically street/door recruited donors, followed by DRTV) still retain around 75%-80% of monthly donors per year.

Contrast this with cash recruitment. When we recently looked at this the average 2nd gift rate (I.e. those donors who gave a cash gift and then gave a subsequent cash gift) it was as low as 30%. In other words, around 70% never gave again.

Of course the obvious rebuttal is that monthly donors are much harder to recruit and the cost per acquisition is higher, but the pay off long term is a no brainer.

In other words, you might pay more for a monthly donor upfront, and it may be bloody hard work finding them, but when you do, it’s difficult to find a case for recruiting onetime cash donors through your direct response program.

So cash might be king when balancing the books, but it ain’t when finding your next group of donors.

P.S. I hope Jonathon dosent mind me re-posting, I tried to comment on his blog asking if its ok, but couldnt submit the comment…sorry!

Astral Media’s Radiothons – Canada

Today is Astral Media’s Day of Caring for Kids. With one-day radiothons for children’s health in 28 cities and on 50 radio stations across Canada, in support of 15 children’s hospitals and health care facilities.

In the next few minutes the Radiothons will start broadcasting live from children’s hospitals. Its well worth tuning in. All this is being done as part of Children’s Miracle Network’s Radiothon programme (yes the, by now mandatory, declaration of a vested interest!)

Astralare hoping to make a difference in the health and lives of children and parents who need this care. I expect millions of dollars will be raised today.

Check it out here. Also Sick Kids in Toronto has a Blog today, check it out here

The Official Sponsor of Birthdays

This is genius….I saw it on Damian’s twitter page and just had to post about it. The American Cancer Society wants to be the Official Sponsor of your Birthday! Here is the idea behind it, from their site.

Creating a world with more birthdays

To most people, birthdays are just a reminder that they’re getting older. But at the American Cancer Society, “Happy Birthday” is a victory song, because a world with less cancer is a world with more birthdays. And that’s definitely something to celebrate.

More than 11 million Americans who have survived cancer-and countless others who have avoided it-will celebrate a birthday this year, thanks to the progress we’re making together to help people stay well and get well, to find cures, and fight back.

Join the movement for more birthdays-declare the American Cancer Society the official sponsor of your birthday-and together we can save lives and give people more candles to light.

Didnt I say it was Genius!! 

Great Ad too….

Free Wills Month

This is a good idea. I knew there was a Legacy Promotion group started in Ireland, although I havent seen much of them and Im not sure if this is part of the same?

Free Wills Month Ireland brings together seven Irish charities that provide vital services to the community to offer members of the public aged 55 and over the opportunity to have their Will written or updated free of charge by using the services of local solicitors in five towns and cities.

Between 1-30 April 2009 participating firms of solicitors in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Wexford will be offering their specialist Will-writing services to members of the public, with the seven Free Wills Month charities paying for the work to be done.

Shame the solicitors arent waiving fees! Hope they are doing a good deal on fees. I wonder will they extend the scheme, its almost the end of April and its the 1st I have heard of it (thanks to Paul Artherton)

The 7 charities sponsoring Free Wills Month Ireland are Age Action Ireland, The Children’s Medical & Research Foundation, Irish Heart Foundation, Irish Hospice Foundation, MS Society Ireland and Oxfam Ireland and the RNLI.