Strategic Online Communications for Nonprofits

Posts Tagged ‘online fundraising’

November 17, 2009
8:30 am	to	4:30 pm

This workshop is designed to help participants envision and plan realistic online strategies to increase fundraising and better reach beneficiaries and other stakeholders. The full-day workshop will cover new technologies, best practices from other nonprofits, and a series of exercises tailored to the needs of workshop participants. Participants should emerge from the workshop with an online communications plan to increase their organization’s impact.

Topics to be covered:

• Website Strategy – Messages that make or break your site
• Constituent Relationship Management Systems – Making the most of your pool of contacts
• Reaching out – Using social media and online marketing tools to attract and engage constituencies
• Online fundraising – The strategy that supports your online giving page

Presented by Elizabeth Beachy and Osvaldo Gomez of Upleaf LLC.

Upleaf is an Albuquerque-based consulting firm dedicated to empowering nonprofits to increase their impact through strategic online communications.

Fees: $50

Where: Center for Nonprofit Excellence at United Way of Central New Mexico
2340 Alamo SE, 2nd Floor
Albuquerque, NM 87106
United States
Contact Phone: 505-247-3671
Email: info@centerfornonprofitexcellence.org

REGISTER NOW

Online fundraising success doesn’t come easily.  It requires time and effort, and most importantly—a clear strategy—supported by the right tools.

There are tools available to nonprofits that can turn a small team of three employees into a fundraising powerhouse.  The key is to synchronize and automate as many activities as possible, which helps maximize the efficiency of each team member and multiply the impact of every message.

At Upleaf we promote a four-part strategy, where each strategy builds upon the previous one:

1. Constituent Relationship Management System. The foundation of any online strategy is a CRM system—i.e. the technologies and processes that help an organization manage its constituents (donors, members, stakeholders, volunteers, and even beneficiaries).  Most CRM tools can help you:

• Segment target audiences for tailored messaging
• Automate thank-you notes, membership renewal reminders, end-of-year IRS letters for donors
• Consolidate contacts across an organization and track interactions with all contacts
• Automatically upload contact info from online donors, Facebook fans, newsletter subscribers, and other constituents your organization interacts with online
• Monitor results with detailed custom reports

2. Build an Online Community. By “Online Community” we mean creating a space where people associated with your cause or your organization can interact with you and also with each other. Creating an open forum helps build long-term loyalty, attract new constituents, increase your impact, and learn more about your supporters and how they feel about your issues.  It also builds powerful allies and partners in promotion, who can spread your messages to their own social networks.  Some of the most effective ways to build an online community include:

• An interactive website. This means creating space for people to comment on your content, participate in a discussion forum, submit a guest blog post, or share content with friends through social networks at the click of a button.
• Social media applications.  Here Facebook, YouTube, Change.org, Twitter, or even custom social media applications can be highly effective ways to build your interactive community quickly.
• Advocacy.  Action alerts, petitions, or other online advocacy tools get people involved with your cause.  Systems like Democracy in Action make advocacy campaigns easy to manage.
• Online support groups. Many nonprofits serve people who would benefit from being able to interact with each other online. This strategy can increase the number of people reached without increasing staff or overhead.

3. Launch a Targeted Campaign. Once you have established a robust online community and CRM to manage your relationships, you can embark on a targeted campaign.  This requires clear and compelling messaging based on best practices of writing for the web, an appropriate mix of fundraising pitches and showcasing of results, and of course, some creativity.  You’ll want to launch coordinated messages through a strategic mix of:

• Your website (make sure your campaign messages are front and center)
• Email blasts (one of your most powerful tools to call for quick action)
• Social media (get your online community to join in, and also endorse your cause to their friends)
• Google Ads (free to nonprofits through a Google Grant—can bring in new supporters)
• Public Relations (there are some great online PR agencies that can help reach your audiences)

4. Collect Your Revenue. Now that you’ve done the work to get your message out and convince people to donate to your cause, become a member, or buy a ticket to your big event—you have to make sure that it is as easy as possible for them to do so. A couple of tips can go a long way:

• Put a “Donate Now” or “Become a Member” button on your home page and on every single page of your online presence (website, email blast, Facebook cause, etc)
• Enable one-time and recurrent donations
• Encourage donations to specific programs, and clarify what $ amount can make a difference
• Recognize your donors, members or contributors, to keep them coming back

Finally, you’ll want to capitalize on your reach and get creative with your fundraising—set up contests with prizes for your biggest fundraisers, an online store, online auctions, or a Facebook or Twitter challenge.  And most importantly, get your online community involved.  Often they have fresh, new, powerful ideas that a development department would never think of!

If you haven’t yet launched your online communication strategy or need some help sharpening it up, Upleaf offers free initial consultations to nonprofit organizations.  Contact us to set up your free consultation now!

Posted by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder

Audience segmentation is one of the most important keys to any successful marketing or communication campaign.  But you must know your audience well to decide whether you should segment by behavior, interests, or demographics.

Segmenting allows you to effectively target your message, to appeal directly to the specific concerns or aspirations of your audience.

While many nonprofits know a lot about their offline target audiences (including donors and top contributors), many don’t know as much about the people interacting with them online.

People react and interact differently online.  The segment of your donors that goes online may be very different from the segment that doesn’t.  Here are a few interesting statistics to get you thinking about online audiences and online donors in particular:

Who is giving online?[1]

• Less than 15% of all online donations are from older generations of 70 years or above.  They usually give offline, and prefer to give offline;
• 50% of online donations are made by baby boomers.  They are active web users, and often give both online and offline;
• 30% of online gifts are made by Generation X’ers.  They rarely give offline.  This is a great generation to tap into now, and cultivate relationships for the future.

What are the preferences of online donors?

• According to the “Wired Wealthy”[2] study, most wealthy donors prefer just to receive email a few times per year from an organization they donate to;
• Almost all online donors want to see a tax summary report at the end of the year to know that their donation was well spent; they also want to receive a tax-deductible donation letter from the organization at the end of each year for their own tax purposes;
• Some online donors are interested in receiving action alerts or success stories (as long as they don’t arrive too frequently).

If you want to learn more about your online audience here are a few ideas:

1. Develop a short email survey to send to a randomly selected sample of your email list, with a few key questions that will help you craft your next campaign.  You could use an online survey application that tabulates answers for you, or you may even be able to administer the survey through your constituent relationship management tool.
2. Set up a poll on your website.  This can be fun and interactive—most people like being able to see the results right away.  Many content management systems have this feature built-in or available through a plug-in.
3. If you’re on Facebook causes, take advantage of the tools available to you. You can view your best donors or fundraisers in the “Hall of Fame”, and build a personal relationship with them to learn more about what motivates them.
4. Use your Analytics! Google Analytics can give you lots of great information.  How are people finding your site? What geographic region of the country generates the most visits? How often are they viewing your mission or your donation page? What are the most trafficked sections of your website?

Posted by Elizabeth Beachy, Upleaf Co-Founder

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[1] 2006 Donor Centrics Internet Giving Benchmark Analysis

[2] The Wired Wealthy: Using the Internet to Connect with your Middle and Major Donors. Convio, Sea Change Strategies, and Edge Research. March 2008