Strategic Online Communications for Nonprofits

Posts Tagged ‘nonprofit’

Many large nonprofit organizations have been using powerful petition tools for years to mobilize their supporters toward action through quick sign and forward applications.  Now Change.org is shaking things up by making their tool available to anyone– including individuals or small nonprofit organizations– who previously were unable to afford such applications.

The petition tool is free, easy to use, and the directions are simple.  Change.org walks you through the process of setting up your target (elected officials, business leaders, etc), your messaging, and your promotion strategy.

The tool includes some great features to increase visibility:

• Integration with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
• Embeddable widgets to promote the petition on other sites
• A ‘leaderboard’ to show how many people each reporter has recruited to sign the petition
• Visibility through Change.org, whose top petitions are sent weekly to half a million activists
• Capacity to send follow-up emails to everyone who has signed the petition
• Allows petition signers to opt in to your email list (great way to grow your list quickly!)

To get started, visit www.change.org/petition and start making changes today!

Posted by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder

This free webinar offers an overview of online communication strategies and supporting technologies designed to better reach constituents and leverage new sources of funding. The one-hour session proposes an integrated strategy that can turn a small development team into a fundraising powerhouse, and help nonprofits build and make the most of online communities.

Presented by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder

Upleaf LLC is a consulting firm dedicated to helping nonprofits increase their social impact through strategic online communication.

REGISTER NOW

One of our greatest struggles in the nonprofit sector is how to maximize our social impact with limited resources. We’re usually gifted with a tremendous empathy for the people we serve and a passion for what we do—but few of the technology tools we need, because the funds simply aren’t available.

Several generous companies have made their world-class technologies available for free to nonprofits with 501c3 status in the U.S.  These technologies can completely transform the way we do business, and increase our impact exponentially.  They include:

1. Salesforce. Salesforce is a powerful constituent relationship management (CRM) tool that can help nonprofits organize, track and evaluate all interactions with donors, partners, media, and even project beneficiaries.  It is an excellent tool for fundraising, project management, monitoring and evaluation. The Salesforce Foundation typically donates 10 licenses per organization for an annual value of $15,000.  The application is hosted by Salesforce for free, and only requires some customization.

2. Vertical Response. One of the most popular mass email tools on the market, Vertical Response offers user-friendly templates and powerful evaluation tools to measure the impact of email messaging. Vertical Response integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, and is free for qualifying nonprofits for up to 10,000 mass emails per month.

3. Google Apps. The Google App package includes email, calendars, word processing, spreadsheet and collaboration programs, among other features.  Google Apps is designed to replace the costly Microsoft Office package and is free to nonprofits with less than 3,000 users.  Organizations can establish their own email addresses (name@organization.org) with almost unlimited storage.  It is all hosted by Google which means HUGE cost savings:  internal servers are no longer needed so you can say goodbye to server maintenance fees and email downtime caused by internal server problems.

4.  Google Ads. Google Grants is an in-kind donation program that offers free AdWords advertising to qualified 501c3 organizations. The program helps nonprofits promote websites or campaigns through advertising on Google, at a value of up to $10,000 per month.

With so many remotely hosted state-of-the-art technologies available for free, nonprofits can slash IT costs and upgrade to powerful packages that increase productivity, efficiency and visibility.

To learn more about free or affordable technologies and services available to nonprofits, contact Upleaf.