NGOs Need Advertising Aimed at the Advertiser

Noelle Weaver writes in Advertising Age about the typical advertising agency exec's perspective on working with non-profit clients: "Nonprofits and foundations are still treated like orphan children in the advertising and marketing industry."

Sounds like non-profits need to do some improved marketing to the marketers!

Some ideas on how the non-profit sector can improve its branding in the minds of the brand-builders:

1. Send them a copy of Breakout: Social and Cause Marketing: Creating Value, Building Relationships - PRSA 2007 International Conference Blog
   
2. Point them to the successful relationship between The Richards Group and the Salvation Army
   
3. Recruit advertising execs to join our boards and form "branding committees" that are empowered with real budgets and decision-making authority;
   
4. Integrate branding as a core component of our strategic plans;
   
5. Take our brands as seriously as we take our work. The way our brands are perceived in the marketplace is directly related to how much money we can raise, how effectively we can lead advocacy efforts and more.

I would be very interested to hear your reactions to this. Please share your stories and suggestions!

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Blogging From The Top

The NonProfit Times recently released this insightful answer to the question I often receive:

"Should my organization's CEO start writing a blog?"

I would respond, but everything that I have to say is here... along with some nice case studies:

The NonProfit Times
Blogging From The Top
Donors - and everyone else - get access to the boss

Want some inspiration for your blog? Read the Top 100 Blogs in the world here:
http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/

And yes, God help us all, there are even blogs about blogging:
Top 25 Blogs About Blogging

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Nonprofit Branding Lessons from Pizza

The Integrator included a nice article by Mike DiFrisco, Founder of BrandXcellence, here:

Nonprofit Branding Lessons from Pizza
http://www.nonprofitintegrator.org/?p=174

Here is the basic exercise -- fill this in:

"Our organization is the only ________that _________."

as in

"Our organization is the only food pantry that is entirely run by the people who use its services."

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Why Bother With a Mission Statement? - Philanthropy.com

Thanks to Philanthropy.com's article, "Why Bother With a Mission Statement?," for connecting us to this great blog:

The Nonprofiteer: Of metrics and mission, and a modest proposal

The basic idea is "that every nonprofit agency spend an hour writing a mission statement in the following form: We do [activity] so that [result will occur]."

I liked the way the Dr. Jeverley R. Cook of the Communities Foundation of Texas put it to me when I first entered the field: “We do the work that the government would have to do otherwise.”

I also liked the way that Larry James expresses his thoughts on the mission of Central Dallas Ministries in light of this article: "We craft friendships with the poor because we understand true wealth."

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Stay Relevant

The PlannedGiving.com Web site recently published a very insightful -- and graciously brief -- article on the problems of inundating your supporters with irrelevant emails:

Using e-Marketing or “Spam” to Promote Planned Giving? Think Again.

On a somewhat related note, my friends at Sagax Media offer some simple but strong advice on their recent blog, "Update your site."

If you have your own website, make sure you're updating it often. Not only are you providing more information for potential customers, but you're also telling the search engines that your site is becoming more useful. The search engine spiders see an active site and they see someone that's trying to be helpful to site visitors, and they'll reward that effort with higher search rankings.

Spiders are an essential part of search engine rankings. I had never realized that the recency of page updates factored into their rankings -- it would be good practice to regularly review and update every page on your site. Even if your changing a few words or one picture, it will reflect as an updated site.

Similarly, some other things that you should do:

• Change the front page of your Web site each month, or at least have some dynamic content that will show different images each time a visitors comes to your site. You want your visitors to have a reason to come back to your site and to click around. Even if the secondary pages are the same, they have a better chance of being reached if visitors have a reason to feel that there is new information on your site. For an example, visit this site and hit refresh a few times; the main picture should change each time through a simple script embedded in the page.
  
• Update your receipt letters as often as possible; at the very least, have a paragraph that you update quarterly that describes what's happened over the past few months. This will ensure that your most valuable donors -- those who give multiple times a year -- remain interested in everything that you send them. If they begin to tune you out, you're on a downward slide that is hard to reverse.
  
• Update your grant templates at least annually: set aside time at the beginning of the year to find the latest versions of the research/statistics that you cite in your proposal so that you have the most up-to-date information possible. This is especially the case if you apply to the foundation multiple years in a row.

Staying relevant is key to staying top-of-mind with your donors. As we approach the end of the year, and all of your donors are getting buried in appeals for support, you want to stand out as the first organization that they think of when it comes to end-of-year charitable gift planning.

The Double Bottom Line

Two recent articles reminded me of the concept of the "double bottom line," in which a company looks beyond profits and to other "benefits" produced by its work. Some companies, like Ben & Jerry's, espouse a "triple bottom line" approach that integrates profits with environmental impact as well as social impact.

The articles below are some of the "next steps" along this line of thinking:

• Volunteerism As a Lever to Promote City Revitalization | PhilanthroMedia
  
• Charitable work helps a company's bottom line, too | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

The latter article makes an excellent point that must also not be forgotten:

But remember, while you are getting the knots worked out of your back, that "cause marketing is not a substitute for personal philanthropy," Hessekiel said.

"Buying a product that makes a contribution does not absolve you from contributing to society with your time and treasures."

Recommendations for a great non-profit newsletter

The Nonprofit Communications blog recently publised Five Questions about Print Newsletters, which provides some excellent guidance for what makes a good nonprofit newsletter. In summary, the author recommends that a non-profit newsletter should be:

• Focused on your specific target audience.
  
• Limited to four pages in most cases.
  
• Published quarterly.
  
• Contain articles no more than 600 words.
  
• Feature no more than two fonts.
  
• Be printed in four-colors.

Below are some of my reactions, as well as some additional recommendations for items that need to be considered when publishing a newsletter. I would love to hear your thoughts, as well.

Focus on specific target audience
This is an obvious but often overlooked point. She spells it out very well here, but I think that an even better explanation can be found at the Donor Power Blog's reaction to her post, "One thing you need to know about your nonprofit newsletter."

As with most parts of the typical non-profit donor program, a newsletter generally lacks a specific goal. Staff and board want it to bring in funds, sure, but they also drop senseless lines about how the newsletter needs to "raise awareness," "build the brand," "change people's attitudes" and "put a stake in the ground."

On all of these things, I think that NPO staff/volunteers are mostly delusional. Donors are not looking at newsletters for these things. At least, those are not the main things that they expect. They want to know:

- Where was my gift spent?
- What did my gift do? (i.e. did it have an impact?)
- Who else supports this organization? (i.e. am I a fit with this organization?)
- Why should I continue supporting this organization?

This last question is the hardest to answer, but answering it is the critical task for any newsletter. Focusing on this goal will help non-profit newsletters to focus on their core audience -- donors.

Four pages limit
This makes a great deal of sense. The cost of adding pages -- not just the printing/mailing, but the staff time required to write and design extra pages -- is just not worth it when most readers just flip it open for a few minutes at most. If you can't raise money in the first four pages, the additional two won't make it easier. Focus on the donor, with the goal of telling them why they should continue to support you.

The only difficulty is that four-page newsletters generally require folding/sealing in order to have a remittance envelope. One of the things that we are dealing with at Central Dallas Ministries is our attempt to mail our newsletter "flat" (like a magazine), so that recipients are more likely to read it. When it mails folded, half of what they see is the side with the mailing label (which is reduce to 1/4 of what they see if it is mailed flat and unfolded). The thing you want to avoid is having your newsletter be thrown away without being opened (let alone read).

Published quarterly.
Considering how much mail some of your donors receive, this seems like a maximum amount of times you want to send your newsletter. A monthly newsletter sounds overwhelming -- unless it's a two-side piece with just the bare bones.

Whatever schedule you use, be sure to deliver your newsletter reliably and regularly. This makes it easier on your staff to produce the piece, and donors will be more receptive to it.

Contain articles no more than 600 words.
Amen! I struggle with this a great deal in my work at Central Dallas Ministries. I frequently end up with articles at nearly 2,000 words and try to cut back towards half that much.

I am going to start requiring this limit for our articles. It is unreasonable to expect that donors will read more about our organization than a newspaper article that interests them.

Feature no more than two fonts.
This is pretty clear. Featuring too many fonts looks very unprofessional, like you just learned how to download new fonts and are trying to take advantage of your new skill. Allow fonts to become an unnoticed but effective medium for your message.

Be printed in four-colors.
I actually disagree with this point, in some cases. At Central Dallas Ministries, we are often accused of producing direct mail that looks too "fancy." For a social services organization -- particularly one the deals with poverty -- it can look wasteful to produce a full, four-color newsletter with beautiful photos. Donors want to see that their money is being spent on feeding the hungry, not buying ink.

It's the opposite for arts organizations. They are supposed to look slick and cool, and cutting corners to save a few bucks implies that they don't have the capacity to advance the arts. The nature of your mission should determine the look and feel of your newsletter: everything from paper quality to ink colors.

A few final thoughts
Some additional things to consider when looking at your newsletter:

• Build Your Newsletter Around Images, not Words. Tell your story with pictures whenever possible. Never use the same photo twice, however compelling it is (readers will think that they've already read the piece). Have a photo on every page. Integrates charts and graphs, as well, since different people are drawn to different images.
  
• Small is Big. Don't talk about 10,000 starving orphans; talk about one whom you were able to feed. Don't talk about needing $1 million to meet your annual budget; talk about needing $1,400 to pay your supply budget. Allow your readers to see how they can fit into your organization by providing manageable opportunities for them to get involved.
  
• Consider using postcards instead of newsletters. Their printing/mailing costs are dramatically cheaper, and there is no concern about whether or not donors open them. The problem is obviously space and lack of remittance vehicle, but a postcard can deliver a targeted message that drives readers to your Web site for their desired action (i.e. donation, registering to volunteer, etc.)

I'd appreciate any feedback that you have on this topic. What are your own do's and dont's when it comes to newsletters?

Beware Publicity ... but also give me some!

Guidestar recently released a great article on the role of publicity/media in a major gifts effort... (with an important reminder about the costs and problems of relying on special events!)

GuideStar - News - Articles - Beware Publicity When Raising Big Gifts

So yes, publicity can be bad... but I have two initiatives that need some.

---------------

The first is CDM's car donation program, which was just launched at:

www.CDMcars.com



Unfortunately, when you Google "Central Dallas Car Donation," the site doesn't come up. CDM's own www.CentralDallasMinistries.org site appears, but this is below the national www.DonationLine.com site that we used to use. In order to get more "GoogleJuice" for our site, we need to get more publicity for CDMCars.com. If you have a blog or Web site, we would greatly appreciate you linking to this site!

(And if you have a car, truck, boat, RV or plane that you're not using... send it our way!)

---------------


The second thing I need publicity for is to help get the word out about "Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference", a great book from Criterion Ventures. I spent some time the other day speaking with the folks from Criterion about their book and how we might help get the word out about it... anything you could do to help pass on the word about this wonderful text would be greatly appreciated.

Know any Book clubs? Youth Groups? Service organizations? Please send them a link to this book, which is well worth reading.

Your Brand: Is it really in the details?

A few articles today about how you can build a strong brand for your organization:

Our friends at Donor Power Blog say "You are not the brand." For all of your work on ensuring consistent messaging, your donors develop their own version of your brand that is customized to themselves... and tapping into this brand is your strongest resource. The article also has some links to some "co-created" brands that engage their customers in an effective manner.

Meanwhile, Fundraising Success Magazine tells us "Why Integrating Fundraising and Awareness-Generating Media is Essential."

Fundraising Success also offers the following tips:

Tips for Improving Constituent Communications

Eight Ways to Raise Money and Keep Donors Happy

Seven Strategies for Building Meaningful Major-donor Relationships

Speaking of branding... this is an extremely powerful image from WWF that I could not help but show.

Sharpening Your Internet Prowess: Using the Web to Fundraise and Further Your Mission

I originally published the following article in Inspire Change, May 2007. Please visit http://www.inspirechange.net/ for the full journal.

Sharpening Your Internet Prowess:
Using the Web to Fundraise and Further Your Mission

In March 2007, Netcraft.com reported that there were just over 110,000,000 Web sites on the Internet. A month later, that number had climbed by over 3.2 million. In a world this saturated with data, how can you find what you need quickly and efficiently?

Thankfully, the Internet is not just growing: it’s evolving. In the world of “Web 2.0,” there are many tools available to help you sift through the massive amount of information available. Below, I focus on four general types of tools that go a step beyond what is offered through most basic browsers and search engines. These tools can provide fundraisers, donors and community leaders with the ability to maximize their time online so that they can be the most effective offline (where, we must remember, the majority of the real work gets done).

Public Information
This first type of Web site is one that aggregates specific types of public information into useful packages. Generally aimed at meeting the needs of niche audiences, these sites provide specific information about certain groups or people. They can be immense time-savers while frequently providing the best data available. Examples include:

• GuideStar.org: This free service provides Form 990s on foundations and non-profit organizations. They also offer fee-based services that provide more data and that allow deep searches of Form 990s; comparable services are also offered by groups such as FoundationSearch.com and FoundationCenter.org (the latter of which also has some nice free features).
  
• DCAD.org: This site provides the value of any home located in Dallas County. A nice way to get an important data point for gauging donor capacity (and also for helping find addresses).
  
• TAD.org: Similar to the site above, it provides the value of any home located in Tarrant County.
  
• OpenSecrets.org: One of many sites that provides a list of political contributors. A good resource to see which side of the political spectrum your major prospects fall on.

Deadlines
Unfortunately, far too few grant-makers even have their own Web site, let alone one that clearly lays out their interests, priorities and relevant application guidelines. There are dozens of companies that offer subscription services that provide notices of RFPs as well as reminders of upcoming deadlines: if your organization has the capacity, these services frequently come bundled with the services mentioned in the section above. However, the following are two free resources that should provide more than enough opportunities to fill any grant writer’s calendar:

• “Don Griesmann's Grant Opportunities,” hosted by Charity Channel at CharityChannel.com/enewsletters/dggo/
  
• “Deadlines,” hosted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy at Philanthropy.com/deadlines/

News and Articles
If you’re like me, you receive more magazines, newspapers and eNewsletters than you’ll ever be able to read in this lifetime. However, we all have our favorites that we try to keep up with regularly (i.e. Robert Miller’s column in The Dallas Morning News is a virtual must-read for non-profit professionals in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area). There are several ways to keep up with what’s going on in the media:

• RSS Feeds: Short for “Really Simple Syndication,” an RSS Feed appears more daunting at first than it really is. Basically, a news site or a blog posts its articles to an “RSS” service that allows its content to be sent the content automatically. For example, rather than browse to Robert Miller’s column every day, I have it emailed to me along with several dozen other “feeds” that are of interest. Best of all, they are all included in a single email. I use the free FeedBlitz.com service, but there are many others (i.e. Google Reader allows you to post all of your RSS onto one page rather than have them emailed to you).
  
• News Aggregator Sites: There are many Web sites out there that pull stories from all over the world that address a specific niche. For the non-profit world, the best ones that I’ve found are the Foundation Center’s “Philanthropy News Digest” (FoundationCenter.org/pnd/news/) and The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “Philanthropy Today” (Philanthropy.com/news/). Both are also available as RSS Feeds.
  
• News Alerts: The single best way to ensure that you stay connected to the issues that matter to you is an alert service such as Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts). These services will automatically email you whenever any Web site, blog or news items mentions your search. For example, you could have Google email you every day with a list of the Web sites that mentioned your organization today, or even your top donor prospect. Be careful – this can quickly result in dozens or hundreds of emails, depending on your search. Thankfully, these services can aggregate all of the “hits” into a single email on a daily or weekly basis.

Blogs
According to Technorati, there are over 50 million blogs on the Web . . . and 15,000 more are created every single day. Short for “weblogs,” these blogs are revolutionizing the worlds of media and journalism. Blogs are also going to play an enormous part of our industry’s changing future, both as hubs of information for professionals as well as communities for donors/clients. There are many types of blogs being used in our sector:

• Personal Blogs: These include staff writing stories of their struggles, clients writing about their successes and everything in between. Blogs can be highly effective means of engaging the general public in discussion related to your mission, and can also be leveraged to raise significant funds for your agency. For example, Larry James’ Urban Daily (UrbanDaily.org) ran a campaign in 2006 that asked readers to donate to Central Dallas Ministries; the effort raised over $75,000 in a little over four months. Be warned – blogs also require an incredible commitment of time and energy from their author. They are not worth doing unless you can commit a few hours per week to writing and replying to comments.
  
• Industry Blogs: Some of the most important discussions of the future of our sector are taking place online at blogs like www.GiftHub.org and www.DonorPowerBlog.com. When you find a blog that you like, look at their “blogroll” – the list of links to other blogs. Or, use a search like Google’s Blog Search to scan the blogosphere for conversations related to your hot issues. Most blogs allow you to comment without creating a user identity, so you can jump right into the conversation.
  
• Connector Blogs: These blogs, such as the one I recently launched, do not seek to provide their own content as much as they seek to connect their readers to content that might interest them. One of the best connector blogs available is “Give and Take,” from The Chronicle of Philanthropy (http://www.philanthropy.com/giveandtake/).

It is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of opportunities available online for people involved in non-profit work. This article is offered as an attempt to help you utilize the Internet as a powerful source of gathering the information necessary for you to make the best decisions in the real world.

Good ‘net, and good luck.

Charity makes an IPO

More and more non-profits are beginning to adopt the language of business in their pitch to donors and their marketing to the community.

"Investing in our services provides a great return not just to you, but to the whole community," they promise. Although this return is seldom valuated in financial terms, donors seem to be responding to the idea that their gift is a social investment. The increase in demand for organizational accountability, performance measures and program outcomes are all an out-growth of this venture philanthropy model.

It's now gone even further. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that Homeward Bound of Marin has just sold their first "share" to Warren Buffett.

Philanthropy Today: Warren Buffett 'Invests' in Charity's 'IPO'

You've got to hand it to them... this is quite a slick strategy. Congratulations to Homeward Bound of Marin for their innovative marketing, and for securing Mr. Buffett's support!

I just wonder: does all this language take us away from the fact that donations are, in fact, NOT investments... but gifts of love? of compassions? of charity, given without expectation of return?

I blogged about this earlier post about social enterprise:
http://theraiser.blogspot.com/2007/05/digging-into-social-enterprise-mud.html

What are your thoughts?

Unpolishing the Apple: Branding the Non-Profit Organization

There is a strange phenomenon in non-profit branding that I call the need to "sell by underselling."

Look at your typical donors. In their consumer profile, they overwhelmingly prefer products that have strong branding campaigns (i.e. that spend a lot on advertising) to quieter brands (i.e. the "store brand" in grocery stores). They are swayed by slick packaging and are not offended when a store clerk tries to sell them something. They buy stock for companies that perform the best, without ever questioning how much the companies spent on advertising.

And yet, in their charitable profile, it's almost the opposite: they don't like to see non-profits "waste" money on advertising, they are turned off by marketing pieces that "look expensive" and don't like organizations that ask them for money. One of their primary questions to non-profits is how much they spent on fundraising.

In order to meet the needs of donors, non-profit organizations have to walk a thin line. They have to achieve brand recognition without spending money on advertising, they have to tell their story effectively without spending money on marketing pieces and they have to raise enough money to stay in business without spending too much to do so.

Beyond that -- they have to find a way to ask for money without asking for it.

Given this situation, I am amazed at how some non-profits can continue to thrive year after year while their brand grows stronger and stronger.

DISCUSSION: What are the unique challenges faced by non-profits when working to build their brand?

Are Special Events worth it?

I have been asking this question ever since I ran my first event (an auction that took me several months to plan, on which we spent about $40,000 in order to get a net return of $25,000). However, my boards and chief executives have always justified the events by "the intangibles":

• Public awareness of our work,
  
• Bringing in new money,
  
• Rewarding current donors (i.e. building relationships).

However, this new 2007 Special Events Study from Charity Navigator provides some very interesting data to answer the question of: "Are events worth it?"

Here is a sample graph that shows how inefficient these special events are compared to other forms of fundraising:


I do believe that there are benefits to special events that go beyond the bottom line. However, as fundraisers, we must consider this bottom line -- and if we are going to justify events because of their long-term impact, then we need to look at the annual return for our organization. If we justify an event by saying it creates long-term returns and yet our annual fund is not increasing every year, then we are kidding ourselves.

Here are some additional considerations that need to be included within any analysis of events:

• Compensation provided to event staff who work on the events. If your event raises $100,000, but your Development Director spends 30% of their year working on the event, then you need to deduct her salary from the return.
  
• Compensation provided to executive/administrative staff. Any event will likely pull away time from the CEO, the Controller, and other staff. These costs should be reflected as well.

Additionally, we need to consider the possible downsides of having an event:

• Opportunity Costs for Development Team. Rather than writing grants or meeting with donors, staff are busy picking out table decorations and working with vendors. The amount of "lost fundraising" is an opportunity cost that must be considered.
  
• Opportunity Costs for Volunteers. Although events provide volunteers with a great opportunity to bring their friends into the mission, they are also a great "out" for Board members (i.e. "I bought my tickets to the gala, so I don't have to donate" or "I filled my table at the breakfast, so I don't need to recruit any new donors."). The end result could be less successful cultivation than if every board member were responsible for leading one tour per year for their contacts.
  
• Negative brand impacts. Donors don't like it when organizations spend money on fundraising. When you have a big flashy event that nets less than 50% of its total revenue, you are going to make some people mad -- particuarly sophisticated donors who dig into your financials.
  
• Negative messaging. Big flashy events do not connote need. They convey an image of financial strength. I have heard several donors say that they "did not know that we needed money." Literally, those were their words. This is hardly what I want them to think at the end of the year when they are thinking about which organizations to support!
  
• They're a beating. Staff and volunteers can get worn out from doing an event. Every year, we have a big event right around the time when our United Way proposal are due. By the time we get through everything, the development team wants to take a month off... which is not exactly the ideal scenario, particularly towards the end of the year when we need to make our big push to close gifts from donors.

And yet, despite all of this info, it is rarely the fundraiser's call about whether or not to have an event. Our Boards still want them, and our Executive leadership still wants them.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Few Good Web Analytics Tools

This is a great article from Tech Soup:

A Few Good Web Analytics Tools

And for those of you who are involved in marketing and Web design, this article points out the amazing Google Analytics tool:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

This service is totally FREE -- and provides far better data than the service I currently pay for through BraveNet!

Models of Transparency: Food For The Poor

I received an email from "Food for the Poor" this week which brought a delightful surprise -- not a request for funds, but a report on how funds had been spent.

Annual Report - Food For The Poor

The report happened to be very attractive, as well, which is a nice touch. They have a clear layout of expenses by service area, laced with tales of the impact of their work.

At CDM, we usually publish our annual report at the end of year as a nice fundraising piece. However, this puts nearly 12 months between the end of our last fiscal year and the day that our donors receive the report.

This year -- inspired by Food for the Poor -- we are going to send out a preliminary financial report to our donors as soon as the audit has been completed. Our goal is to increase the level of transparency in our organization, while also cultivating stronger relationships with donor who want to know where their money was spent.

DISCUSSION: Any other ideas on how to share financial information with donors?

CDM's Urban Ministries Prayer Event: FORUM FOR OUR FUTURE

This morning, my organization hosted a prayer breakfast in which we invited the leading seven candidates for Mayor of Dallas to present their plans for addressing poverty in our community. Over 1,100 people attended our event -- one of the highest in the 12-year history of the breakfast, which has previously featured speakers such as then-Governor and now-President George Bush, Senator John Edwards, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and others.

We hosted the event for several reasons. Financially, the event's goal is just to break even (we gave away as many tickets as we sold). The primary motivation for the event is to create a forum in which we can discuss the issues that matter most to our mission. This supports our long-term branding of focusing on the root causes of poverty, while also focusing the future mayor's attention on the issues of poverty.

Audio from the event is available here, thanks to our local affiliate of National Public Radio -- KERA 90.1 (whose incredibly talented reporter Catherine Cuellar is one of the hardest working people in radio):

KERA: Central Dallas Ministries Mayoral Candidates Forum (2007-04-26)

A great event....

I know, I know... for someone who recently blogged about how much he doesn't like special events, it's odd for me to plug one. However, I have a great deal of respect for Share Our Strength, and their Taste of the Nation event is always a highlight of special event season here in Dallas:

Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation: Dallas

In addition to being a successful fundraiser, the event is a great form of cause marketing... for both the non-profit beneficiaries as well as the corporate sponsors. It is also a great advocacy and awareness piece that gets out the message of the prominence of hunger in our community.

Thanks to American Express for their support of this program, and to chef Stephan Pyles for leading the team of chefs that gather to make this event a success.

(Now, if only I find a way to get CDM added to the list of beneficiaries....) :)

My Daughter the Fundraiser

Looks like fundraising runs in the family!

Madeleine Gregg's Fundraising Page



This is part of a pilot for a larger program that we'll soon be launching at Central Dallas Ministries to turn our donors into fundraisers. Over the past two years, we have dramatically expanded our communications program -- especially our online efforts. However, we have been surprised to see that there has not been a very significant impact on dollars in the door. More specifically, our growth in individual giving has only been slightly above our previous three-year trend.

Brand-building is a long, slow process. I truly believe that the efforts we have undertaken will have positive impact on the organization for generations to come (assuming that we consistently delivery high-quality communications). I also believe that these efforts have opened the door for our upcoming capital campaign.

However, like most organizations, we need annual operating funds today. What to do?

We have developed several strategies to address our need for immediate funding, including significant revisions to both our institutional as well as our individual giving programs. Within the latter, we have three main goals:

1. Increase average donations from current donors;
   
2. Improve engagement with current donors to retain them year after year;
   
3. Increase number of new donors.

We have determined that the primary way to accomplish all three of these goals is to work on turning our donors into fundraisers. This will not only help us bring in new donors, but it will make our existing donors feel more connected to the organization (thereby increasing their likelihood of donating larger amounts year after year).

We discovered the aforementioned Active Giving program as a potential tool to accomplish this task. We are still looking at other ways to do this offline, but we believe that this is a strong online solution.

So far, I have been REALLY impressed with Active Giving -- everything from the initial solicitation, to the signing of the contract (which we had to negotiate back and forth a few times), to the training. Our customer service rep, Jason Chicoine, has been a delight to work with.

If you are looking for an affordable solution for online giving, I HIGHLY recommend checking out Active. If you'd like more info, add a comment or shoot me an email, and I can let you know more.

In general, the process works like this:

• We set up our fundraising page through Active's very easy back office software (see it here: http://www.active.com/donate/cdm);
  
• We put a link to the page on our own Web site (or, you can just email a link to the page to your contacts);
  
• I contacts can then click to get to create their own page, which takes only a matter of moments to set up if you want a fairly basic site;
  
• They can also quickly and easily upload their own photos to Active's server (no Web design experience is necessary);
  
• They can either use Active's tools to email their page to their contacts, or just put the link to their page in their normal email (Outlook, Yahoo, etc.);
  
• Their friends then make a donation very quickly and securely!

I've looked at dozens of online programs for getting donations. Although we pay slightly more for this service than others (i.e. 5-6% compared to 3-4% at the lowest end), the added value of the "Be a Fundraiser" component promises to be very valuable.

In addition to putting it on the Web site, we will soon promote this service to our supporters through an email blast, through our CEO's blog and also our print newsletters. I think that this service has great capacity to both engage current supporters at deeper levels while also recruiting new donors.

DISCUSSION: What other programs are you using online to turn donors into fundraisers?

Back to basics: 4 web site tweaks

There is a great article called "Back to basics: 4 web site tweaks" on Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog.

The only problem with this article?

Every time I read one like this, I begin coming up with ways to re-design my Web sites. After a while, I think that you just have to come up with a design and go with it.

Pick your target

A strong article from... of course... Donor Power Blog (one of the best blogs on the 'net):

Donor Power Blog: Everyone should know about this!

I love their straight-forward and honest commentary:

"No matter how cool your mission is, it's not of interest to everyone. Frankly, it's only of interest to a small slice of everyone. And even their interest level is only passing compared to yours."

Every fundraiser should subscribe to Donor Power Blog.