Archive for February, 2005
February 25th, 2005 at 09:32am
Under fundraising+ Trendspotting
We have known from the times of “Band Aid” and “We are the World” musicians have been on the forefront of raising social consciousness and have been willing to lend their names and talents for a good cause. In those days all we could do to lend our support is buy the tapes. But now, thanks to improvement in technology we can do…oh so much more.
The One World Beat Global Music Festival combines technology, a love for music, and raising money for global concerns. Musicians from all different genres will be performing a series of concerts simultaneously from March 18-27, 2005. These events will be run from Nigeria, to Romania to Costa Rica. Can’t make the shows? No problem, you can log into the website One World Beat Global Music Festival and listen to webcasts of the performances, hear live interviews with the artists, download music from the broadcast, bid on auction items or make a donation to their campaign “Give a child a chance.”
Running simultaneous events is something international charities should consider doing to channel momentum, and maximize marketing opportunities. It is the logical progression to running individual events in separate countries.
By Francis Lim
February 23rd, 2005 at 11:29pm
Under Trendspotting
In his book SmartMobs, Howard Rheingold describes the ” shadow of the future” as an important factor in building trust within online trading communities like eBay. In the unregulated world of the Internet, trust is an essential foundation for all online transactions, including making online donations to charity.
Rheingold describes how Ebay’s trust system works by creating a “shadow of the future” in which
the expectation of dealing with others in future interactions … influences behaviour in the present.
The way it works, if a buyer or seller are happy with a transaction that they have participated in, they can give that person a credit (+1) , or they can give a penalty (-1) if they are unhappy. Over time, the best, most-trusted traders accumulate a lot of credits (+’s) which serve as indicator of their ‘trusted reputation’ when they encounter new prospective traders.
The idea that relationships of trust are built over time, and that actions in the present affect attitudes in the future are not new. But what is happening in these online communities is that those qualities of “trust” and “reputation” are being codified and made transparently available for all to see – and to base their decisions on.
Reputation systems are an emerging phenomenon on the internet and they are a feature on numerous on commercial websites, in the form of “user ratings” and “user reviews” for products and services. Increasingly online shoppers are able to rely on “word of month” and recommendations from other customers as factors in their purchasing decisions.
It may not be long before we see reputation systems being used to help people make decisions about which charities to support — based on “user reviews” of each organization’s record of doing good work with the donations they receive.
This may not be a bad thing for many charities. Reputation is a foundation stone of all nonprofits and is the strongest currency they have with their supporters. Individuals who open their wallets and make a donation to an organization are doing so because of their high regard for that organization’s reputation. As “satisfied customers”, donors would be the natural spokespeople to provide “user credits” (+’s) in a charity reputation system.
We may never actually see the emergence of online charity reputation systems, but nonprofits can start using reputation-based strategies right now by engaging their loyal supporters as spokespeople.
Donors can be encouraged to tell others about what motivated them to donate, and to make recommendations to their friends, relatives and colleagues to do likewise. As well, having a donor testimonial web page on your website provides supporters the opportunity to post their “user review” of the organization they have chosen to support, and in that way encourage others to do so as well.
Turning your donors into spokespeople for your cause can be an important means to capitalize on your good reputation and expand your supporter base.
By irishg
February 22nd, 2005 at 01:20pm
Under fundraising+ Learning from the South
In the aftermath of the Tsunami, after the media has left Asia, and the reconstruction has begun, what next? When such a monumentous level of community and global consciousness has been obtained how can international charities keep that donor spirit alive and engaged? While our focus has been to think of these new found supporters as donors, I suggest stewarding them for a parallel purpose, as potential volunteers.
Take for instance an example from Japan. A deadly earthquake shattered Kobe, Japan about ten years ago. Leaving in the dust and debris a society that was left having to cope with delays in relief operations. The citizens themselves distraught, but still, were willing to take action.
According to an article by Takehiko Kambayash, on the World Volunteer Web site:
Spurred by delays in official relief operations following the Jan. 17, 1995, earthquake, Japanese citizens flocked to help out. Over the next year, about 1.38 million people gave their time to getting the city get back on its feet – an unprecedented outpouring for a country where, unlike the US, there is no tradition of volunteerism.
Volunteer and citizens’ groups also began to spring up throughout Japan. Now, experts say, volunteerism has woven itself into more people’s lives.
“The changes that volunteerism has brought to our society is enormous,” says Takeshi Jitsuyoshi, who helped in Kobe after the disaster. The wave of volunteerism, he adds, “has slowly given rise to a quiet revolution in the country.”
If a society with no concept of volunteering was able to flourish with the volunteering spirit from the rubble of a disaster, thinking on those lines, it should be possible to engage volunteers after the Tsunami disaster. Whether this could be initiated directly in the countries affected, or even outside of that area, where people have stretched their dollars to help out, perhaps they will be willing to stretch out their hand to help as well? Keeping your supporters active will ultimately help to build your donor base.
When approaching your new donors to renew their gifts it is important to also offer them the opportunity to volunteer.
By Francis Lim
February 20th, 2005 at 08:52am
Under Trendspotting
Many nonprofits rely on small-donor fundraising, and much of that fundraising is done using direct response techniques. We’re all familiar with the format – a letter or phone call from an organization telling you how important their work is, and asking you to make a donation to support them. Direct response fundraising is a long-standing practice that many fundrasers (myself included) continue to rely on. However, it’s not the only way for nonprofits to engage their donors.
Alex Steffen posted a commentary recently on the worldchanging.com site reminding us all how limiting, and at times insulting, direct response fundraising can be. Here’s an excerpt:
Right now, most advocacy NGOs consider their members like you and me mostly as a source of small donations. By and large, they couldn’t care less what we think, how we act, who we know and how strongly we’re committed, as long as we keep writing those $35.00 checks for our “memberships.”
Ouch. The truth hurts sometimes …
The Howard Dean campaign for the US democrat nomination was one of the first large successful demonstrations of how things could be done differently by applying a social network model to standard fundraising practice. What was so interesting about the Dean campaign fundraising? It was the way that many of the donation pitches were delivered – from one friend or family member or colleague to another – using online word-of-mouth (word-of-mouse?) and peer-to-peer fundraising tools that made it easy for individuals who were committed to the campaign to go out and round up more donations from within their own social networks. Both the Kerry and Bush campaigns made extensive use of online social networking tools for fundraising and also for Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) efforts.
Social network fundraising is being used in non-political fundraising as well. One example is the Night of 1000 dinners, where private individuals use an online registration and invitation tool to hold a fundraising dinner party in their own home and invite their friends, family and neighbours to join (and make a suggested donation to support the global anti-landmine movement). It has also been used successfully in charity marathon/walkathon events.
Social Network Fundraising is a powerful fundraising model because it super-charges the “pitch” – it adds the power of the personal relationship between the “asker” and the “askee” on top of the message being presented by the organization, and in fact, many of those donations to the Dean campaign were likely made not because of the campaign message in itself, but rather because of the messenger who delivered it.
It makes sense when you look at psychological and social models of how people form political opinions and loyalties to causes — we rely very heavily on the influence of our peers and immediate social circles – so when a campaign/advocacy/fundraising message originates from within those relationships – it’s very hard to resist.
In fact, relationship fundraising (which is another term being applied to this kind of approach) is not new at all – it’s an old model of fundraising that was in widespread use when people lived in communities where you actually knew your neighbours and had regular contact with other people in your immedate surroundings. My mother, for instance, used to be a volunteer with the “Mothers who March” and raised money each Easter for the March of Dimes. She went door to door around the town, talking to friends and neighbours and asking them to make donation. And by all accounts she was a pretty convincing fundraiser — well known in the community, and a prominent member of the local United Church. I can’t help but think that when the March of Dimes centralized all their fundraising in the 1970′s and started relying on direct mail and telephone appeals, that they lost a powerful salesperson…
By irishg
February 16th, 2005 at 01:05pm
Under fundraising+ Trendspotting
One of the lessons for fundraisers in the aftermath of the Tsunami is to look at what triggered the huge global giving response. Why did the urge to donate to this particular disaster catch on and become so big, so quickly, all around the world?
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell considers how big social ideas and trends get started and how they “tip” – specifically, how they cross a certain threshold where they catch on and then spread quickly throughout our culture.
In brief, Gladwell suggests that three rules of social dynamics play a critical role in making a social phenomenon “tip”:
1. Law of the few: Like the spread of disease epidemics, a new social trend can be triggered by a small number of individuals who are able to effectively package an idea and deliver it to the best audience in a form they can understand.
2. Stickiness: For an idea to catch on it must have a memorable quality – it must stick in the audience’s mind. It should have an emotional “hook” as well as a rational meaning.
3. Context: The environment in which an idea is embedded plays a important role in launching a social trend. It’s about being in the right place at the right time. Small shifts in the context can make the difference in whether an idea becomes big, or remains small.
The global Tsunami giving response is an excellent example of an idea or “meme” that tipped. Here are my own Gladwell-inspired thoughts on why the Tsunami disaster became a global flash philanthropy event
1 – Law of the few: The world started seeing reports and images from the tourist resorts in Thailand within hours of the Tsunami. These tourists were able to quickly get reports of their personal experiences of the disaster out into the world’s media. They had the tools (video cameras, mobiles phones), and the connections to make this happen much more quickly than if there had been no tourists affected. By comparison, the news of the full scope of devastation from Aceh took nearly two weeks to get out.
2 – Stickiness: Those film clips and personal accounts of the disaster from tourists were exceptionally compelling, and framed the disaster in the form of a personal experience that the middle-class global media audience could identify with.
3 – Context: Over the past few years ecommerce has moved into the mainstream, and that has been accompanied by the development of online giving tools by many NGOs and charities. However, online giving has not yet been widely adopted by donors (online giving currently makes up only a small percentage of the total money raised by most organizations through traditional direct mail/telephone/etc.) so I thnk that the potential for a massive unleashing of online giving had been building – just waiting for something to release it.
I also want to add that as an online fundraiser by profession, I can’t help but think we haven’t been doing a good enough job of tapping into the growing potential of online giving. We should be redoubling our efforts to engage potential donors and motivate them to give.
We have now seen that it can happen on a massive scale when everything comes together correctly.
By irishg
February 14th, 2005 at 03:10pm
Under fundraising
The ePhilanthropyFoundation reports that Andrew Mosawi, Director of Nonprofit Services at online payment gateway IATS Ticketmaster has published the results of a survey of some 1000 nonprofits in Canada and US, to compare online and offline giving averages. The result – online gifts average about 25% higher ($116 online vs. $89 offline) for American NGOs, with a narrower difference in Canada.
View the full article here.
By irishg
February 11th, 2005 at 04:49pm
Under fundraising
For those of you who have been watching closely how the International Aid Organizations are managing under the global outpouring of support towards the Tsunami relief efforts, I thought it was of particular note how MSF Canada is taking charge of the funding situtation.
Not only did they ask donors to refrain from sending in further Tsunami donations or to channel the donation to another area of crisis, but now they are saying they will be calling donors back to ask if they can unrestrict funds. For more information see the January 31/05 press release link.
http://www.msf.ca/press/2005/013105_tsunami.htm
By Michael Johnston
February 10th, 2005 at 11:01pm
Under fundraising
Here’s an inspirational story to kick things off .. a profile of a Canadian cancer nurse Patricia Purden who went to Egypt seven years ago for a six-month stint at a cancer hospital but who decided to stay and helped launch a major fundaising drive to build the first hospital in the Middle East and Africa solely dedicated to children’s cancer, a high-tech facility that would treat all kids for free.
Here’s a quote from the story:
“I wanted it to be the best hospital in the entire world,” Pruden says. “I wanted it to be a place filled with magic, the most beautiful place because kids with cancer have so much pain and suffering.”
So the nurse took on an additional role as a fundraiser, helping to set up a charity that in a few years has become the most successful fundraising effort in the history of Egypt.
A small team did it by tapping into a generous Egyptian spirit in ways no one here had seen before: the first mass mailings, the first television campaign and an annual festival that has filled Cairo’s soccer stadiums.
All of their efforts have raised nearly $100 million.
The new Childrens Cancer Hopsital is now under construction in downtown Cairo.
Here is a link to the hospital’s website:
http://www.57357.com/engmain.asp
(English version)
Also here is the website for the annual festival to raise money for the hospital:
http://www.57357.com/57357/index.htm
By irishg