Archive for March, 2005
March 24th, 2005 at 05:30am
Under fundraising
I recently read an interesting article from the NP Advisors about what can happen when the United Way was targeted in a phishing scheme.
A phishing scheme is essentially a type of identity theft. But instead of stealing your name, date of birth, and social insurance number, the thieves want your banking or other financial information. It starts when unsuspecting people are sent emails with links to a web site designed to mirror a legitimate web site. By clicking on these links people are directed to the cloned site where they are prompted to enter their bank account information, or credit card details. This data is then captured with the intent to commit fraud.
The article mentions some important steps charities can take to prevent being targeted in a phishing scheme. For instance, you can start by simply checking out what similar domain names have been registered, and to whom. This includes searching your charity aliases based on the .net, .org, .com and other common derivatives. If these are available, it would be wise to consider registering them to prevent any potential donor confusion. As in the case for the United Way would an unsuspecting donor have known which site was legitimate between the domains the unitedways.org, and national.unitedway.org? Probably not.
By Francis Lim
March 20th, 2005 at 05:26am
Under What's working+ fundraising
John Wiley & Sons have published a new book for nonprofits looking to improve their use of the Internet: Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications and Fundraising. The book was developed with the participation of the ePhilanthropy Foundation, and is a collection of articles by authors recognized by the foundation as experts in the field.
Brian Walsh of Changing our World has posted a review of the book.
Michael Stein from GetActive has also posted a review — here’s a quote:
This book should revitalize the debate about the need for nonprofits to develop comprehensive Internet strategies that tie together fundraising, marketing, and communications efforts. Too often, these efforts are happening in different parts of the organization, and too few agencies have had the foresight to bring them together.
It can be ordered direct from Wiley here.
By irishg
March 18th, 2005 at 05:22am
Under Learning from the South+ fundraising
The New York Times reports that a number of Tsunami aid groups have stopped accepting money targetted for Tsunami relief. View full article here (free registration required).
Sensitized by recent charity scandals, agencies say they’re being careful not to accept more money than they can legitimately spend to help tsunami victims.
In fact, Doctors without Borders has reportly returned $500,000 dollars that they received for Tsunami relief, but which cannot be applied to their Tsunami-relief programs. (This follows an earlier announcement, reported on this blog, that Doctors without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres was contacting some Tsunami donors to ask permission to unrestrict their donations, allowing them to be used for projects other than Tsunami relief).
These announcements come at the same time that the Asian Development Bank said there was a shortfall of more than $4bn (£2.1bn) promised by foreign governments for post-Tsunami reconstruction.
The complex nature of disaster relief and reconstruction can cause concern in donors who are aware of the real, tnaigble needs of the Tsunami victims, and who can’t understand why the aid is so difficult to deliver. I recently watched a news report on CBC Television about how aid organizations in Banda Aceh, Indonesia are competing in turf wars for the opportunity to provide aid to local projects. It’s a serious problem if the story of the Tsunami relief starts to turn into one of competitiveness and egoism between relief agences rather than focusing on the great amount of good work being done each day.
By irishg
March 15th, 2005 at 05:18am
Under What's working+ fundraising
While some charities have relied on live auctions, silent auctions, online auctions as a staple of their fundraising efforts, there is a new choice to add to the auction mix; SMS. An SMS auction, allows participants to key in their bids via text message.
In February 2005, the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) Association and their partners hosted an international text messaging auction with the proceeds directed to UNICEF. Bidding commenced on January 24 and ran until February 17th. To sign-up for the auction, participants texted a registration message. To enter a bid the registrants would key in the auction code (e.g. FILM) with their bid amount. In this case, there was no premium rate charged for any of the bids sent. The text bids were received from six different continents, and over €90,000 was raised for UNICEF in combination with a live auction.
This charity auction is a promising start to opening channels for charities and constituents to communicatie by SMS. In order to take advantage of SMS functionality, charities need to start collecting supporter cellphone numbers. In this regard, it is becoming increasingly important to look at how to provide value added incentives for new or existing SMS charity supporters. An auction is one example of how this could pay off for a charity.
By Francis Lim
March 15th, 2005 at 05:17am
Under What's working+ fundraising
Following the Asian Tsumani, the world experienced a “flash philanthropy†event on an unprecedented scale that has left relief and development nonprofits with an unusual problem — what to do with all of these new donors?
In the massive public response to the event, millions of dollars in one-time relief gifts were donated by people who do not regularly give to overseas emergency and development causes. The recipient NGOs are facing a challenge now to understand what these tens of thousands of new donors represent in terms of long-term growth of their donor lists. Their next step is to effectively engage these new donors in a stewardship program that maintains them as active donors in the future.
However, previous experience of flash philanthropy events, such as 9/11 and the 2003 earthquake in Iran, has shown that online donors who make single-gifts in response to high-profile events such as natural disasters, humanitarian crises, and advocacy/action campaigns do not respond well to traditional renewal messaging that organizations use with their existing donor base. Flash Philanthropy donors are a distinct category of donor, requiring a specific stewardship approach to increase their renewal and retention over long-term and annual cycles.
One of the keys to understanding flash philanthropy donors n is to recognize that their gift was primarily motivated by the nature of the crisis and not by the organization. Often, these donors selected the organization as a convenient channel for “doing something to help”, and it should not be assumed that they have any great interest in supporting other programs within the organization, or even in supporting the organization’s work in general.
The focus of communications to these donors, then, should be squarely rooted in the primary event that motivated their first gift. Moving them to a long-term giving commitment may be most effectively accomplished by transforming that story of immediate, emergency needs into a story of long-term needs.
For organizations that are regionally focused and have long-standing programs on the ground in the affected regions, the primary message to deliver to flash philanthropy donors is about the need for a commitment to the reconstruction effort that may take months or years. Their gift was just the start of the process, and that if they want to make a real contribution to the well-being of the affected population, they need to make a commitment to be there for the reconstruction as well as the relief. The organiztaion they gave their donation to is committed to be there for the longer term, and, as donors, they should be equally committed.
For organizations working on crisis response and development issues all around the world, the key message for engaging flash philanthropy donors should be one of preparedness for future crises. Donors can be engaged to hekp ensure that systems are developed to better respond to emergencies. Lives can be saved if we follow the motto to “be prepared”, and a continuing commitment from donors will help protect vulnerable people in the future.
These are just starting points, and each organization will need to nuance their own messaging campaigns to convert as many one-time relief donors into monthly reconstruction donors as possible.
Comments and views on this topic are especially welcome (click on the Comments link below)
By irishg
March 11th, 2005 at 05:13am
Under Trendspotting
This is the first of a three part series looking at online engagement as a strategic approach to integrate fundraising, advocacy, volunteer mobilization and activism to strengthen and grow an organization’s active supporter base.
Part One: Online Engagement: A holistic approach to fundraising, marketing and activism
“We can’t send that fundraising appeal to our list today because someone just sent out an e-newsletter. We’ll have to wait ’til next week.”
Does this sound familiar?
As nonprofits have become increasingly active on the internet, overlap and conflict seems to have increased as well between the departments responsible for fundraising, member services, campaigns, volunteers and communications . These silos of actiivity tend to operate more independently in the offline world, but the internet has created a set of common resources - notably homepage geography, and email subscription lists - that everyone wants access to. And that can lead to conflict and competition.
At least, that’s the view from inside the organization. From the outside, web site visitors and email subscribers have little or no awareness of the inner workings and politics, and it surprises and confuses them when the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. From the outside, all of the points of contact blend together into a single ongoing relationship between the supporter and the organization, and every single communications activity can have multiple connections - and multiple effects/impacts.
For instance, an email fundraising campaign may have a primary aim of motivating a donation, but it could at the same time be profiling an important issue in an e-advocacy campaign, and could also drive the donor to an online action. There may be considerable overlap both in the content of the message, and also in the specific target audience (email contact lists). It makes sense for both silos of activity to have a more complete knowledge of the interaction history with their contact lists, and of how the specific communication piece they are planning fits into that large picture.
A fully developed online engagement strategy sets out a holistic model for understanding how organizations establish and nurture ongoing relationships with individual supporters, and also how those relationships can be tapped to deliver new energy and ideas into all aspects of an organization’s activities
An online engagement strategy incorporates fundraising, volunteer recruitment and mobilization, plus advocacy, action and PR, and recognizes that supporter action can take a variety of different forms, from making a donation, to volunteering, to participating in an advocacy action, or passing on info. to friends/family/colleagues. Instead of separating these activities into different categories based on department or campaign area, the engagement model sets out a more complete picture of the relationship an individual supporter has with an organization, where they could be a donor, an advocate, a volunteer and an activist all at the same time.
Central themes of online engagement:
Supporters as “us”, not “‘them”
Your supporters should be viewed as more than just potential sources of fundraising revenue or clicks on action buttons. They should be viewed and treated as insiders, a real part of your organization, and not just as a target for delivering messages. Also realize that a your supporter base is a resource that grows with use – the more you exercise your supporter network, the stronger it gets, and the more valuable it will be to your organization.
It’s about more than money
A holistic approach to online engagement encourages donors to express their support through more than just giving money. The list of active “roles†that your supporters can — and often will - play includes: volunteers, advocates, defenders, communicators, researchers, mobilizers, analysts and more.
Connect with individuals, not masses
Online engagement is not about delivering messages to mass audience - it’s about crafting a meaningful relationship with each individual member of your constituency. This is where the techniques and approaches of fundraising can be of great value. Fundraising is all about individual engagement – it’s the stock and trade of developing and delivering messages that motivate people/foundations and corporations to give money. These techniques and approaches may be equally applied to other areas of constituent relations – in all of the active support roles indicated above. Individual engagement is not about mass marketing or mass mobilization/activism – which are more concerned with the size/action/impact of the crowd than with motivations/opinions/commitment of the individual actor. Communication/marketing is about delivering messages – constituent engagement is about building relationships.
Next> Part Two: Principles of Online Engagement
By irishg
March 8th, 2005 at 09:15am
Under What's working+ fundraising
Alex Steffen over at Worldchanging.com is profiling a new PSA campaign from Mine Action and the anti-landmine movement:
[The PSA]opens with a scene of idyllic suburban tranquility. A young family cheers on their daughter who has just scored a goal in her soccer match when she suddenly, violently explodes. Chaos consumes the scene while the mother of the victim shrieks hysterically and her father cradles her lifeless body. A simple graphic reads: “If there were landmines here, would you stand for landmines anywhere? Help the U.N. eradicate landmines everywhere.”
It’s a powerful piece, and just the latest example of shock-and-awe media campaigning for progressive causes.
The strategy stems from the view that in today’s over-stimulated 5000 channel mediasphere the only way to get a message through is to create a high-impact ad campaign that pushes the boundaries of visceral and emotional acceptance. This is the same approach used in a recent series of graphic prostate cancer PSA ads where doctors in an operating theatre extract a ticking time-bomb from an unfortunate man’s rectum. That PSA was banned from some major TV networks, which created a wave of extra publicity for the cause. Already there are signs that the anti-landmine PSA may be too hard-hitting for some TV networks, such as CNN.
The Internet offers an alternative medium for high-impact PSAs that get shut out of traditional mainstream media. Nothing spreads through the Internet faster than an idea, or meme, that catches on. File exchange networks — like Kazaa and BitTorrent, where surfers swap copyrighted music can also be used to quickly pass video ads throughout the Internet community.
In fact, a quick google on the net shows there may be something starting, as there is already a series of references to “the landmine ad that no one will broadcast”. In the end, that profile may be the most effective route for getting the anti-landmine message out.
By irishg
March 6th, 2005 at 08:29pm
Under Learning from the South+ What's working
Colleague Jodi Tonita at One/Northwest reminded me about the Global Rich List site, which takes the ‘guilty conscience’ approach to motivate donations to a whole new level. The site invites visitors to type in their annual incomes and discover where they place in terms of global wealth. The result for most first-world web surfers is well within in the top 10% of the scale, and the site then invites the visitor to make a donation, now that they realize they are so wealthy…
The Global Rich List site was built by UK web developers Poke, who describe their thinking as follows:
We are obsessed with wealth. But we gauge how rich we are by looking upwards at those who have more than us. This makes us feel poor.
We wanted to do something which would help people understand, in real terms, where they stand globally. And make us realise that in fact most of us (who are able to view this web page) are in the privileged minority.
We want people to feel rich. And give some of their ‘extra’ money to a worthwhile charity.
It’s an innovative approach, and well executed, but I’m not sure that guilt is the best motivator for giving. Donor relationships develop best when they are based on a more positive motivation –that the donor is part of making something good happen, rather than jst assauging a feeling of guilt.
Still, more than six-thousand pounds have been donated via the Global Rich List site, so it seems to be touching a chord with some visitors..
At any rate, here’s my own personal confession:
By irishg
March 1st, 2005 at 10:07pm
Under Trendspotting+ What's working+ fundraising
If you are like me, you get countless e-newsletters in your inbox throughout the day. I subscribe to lots of them. I can’t help it. I am just so curious to find out what’s new. Whether its fundraising, advocacy, news or technology I gotta know. The hard part is deciding which ones do I read, delete, or even worse dragged into a folder to be read “sometime”.
With non-profits engaging in cultivating their donors, an e-newsletter is a good method to keep their supporters in touch with current happenings. But if supporters subscribe to multiple charity e-newsletters, news feeds, how do non-profits get an edge and differentiate themselves from other charities and other e-newsletters?
There are services available from Sweet Talk Studios that can greatly enrich your e-mail, newsletters and website content with audio and video functionality. How would this work? Say for instance you work with a children’s charity, can you imagine how much more moving it would be for supporters to hear the sound of children’s laughter when they open your email? Or for university alumni, to click on a link to relive a winning touchdown at an important football game. There are endless possibilities for this application. It could add the wow factor to your e-newsletter, email or even your website.
The audio component can also be vitally important when communication is critical, like in the case with the Asian Tsunami. The Salvation Army USA World Service Office has effectively integrated audio appeals on their website to provide updates of the Tsunami Relief efforts and as a method to ask for funding. The message lends a sense of urgencey, emotion, and a platform to to reach out to the world.
By Francis Lim
March 1st, 2005 at 12:15am
Under Learning from the South+ What's working+ fundraising
The BBC website reports that in an effort to provide income for local Thais who lost their livelihoods in the Asian Tsunami, a volunteer group has started selling local handicrafts, such as baskets, on eBay.
The baskets are selling for several times more than they might if they were sold by more traditional methods - by hawkers on the beach, for instance.
“These are simple products but there are over 100 million buyers on eBay who want to help in some way,” Robert Holme, one of the American volunteers helping to run the project, said.
Read the full story here.
By irishg
