Archive for August, 2005
August 29th, 2005 at 11:33pm
Under fundraising
Convergence is all the rage in the commercial sector, but in fundraising we call it a much more polite - Integration. How old and new medias connect to one another is important to raise more money and to build better donor relationships. This will be paramount with our younger donors. The term, ‘multi-plat-fornication’ comes from Van Toffler, head of MTV. He believes that when someone’s watching his MTV music awards on TV, he also wants to offer simultaneous behind-the-scenes TV on MTV’s complimentary broadband service — and have SMS text messaging coming back and forth — and so on and so on. Multiple messages — at the same event — from multiple mediums — gives the younger audience what it craves — a behind the scenes look at popular culture and lets them multi task at the same time.
This is the younger donor I think we need to connect with. A prospective 21 year old donor is writing a University paper and doing research for it online — while chatting on AOL at the same time — while watching a live music feed at the same time in a diminished screen — while answering their cellular phone’s text messaging too… it’s a complicated environment for older donors — but for younger ones this is what they are used to. What are fundraisers gonna do?
By Michael Johnston
August 24th, 2005 at 12:12am
Under fundraising
There’s an intriguing new study out by the US fundraising firm, Craver Matthews Smith and Company (CMS).
You can go to:
http://www.cravermathewssmith.com/articles_more.php?id=17
and get an executive summary. Leafing through the study a few things stood out for me:
1. The best boomer donors, $1,000 +, were the hardest to keep loyal. They are most worried about the efficacy of their giving and will sour quicker (I think) if their hard earned dollars are not well spent.
2. The boomers have overtaken the civics (or pre-boomers in this study) in overall giving. Wouldn’t have guessed that, but there ya go!
3. Planned giving is strong through all generations. Hmm… maybe we should be asking the Gen Xers to start planning for their very distant demise…
By Michael Johnston
August 23rd, 2005 at 09:20pm
Under fundraising
Also last Thursday, at the DMA NF conference in New York, I heard a result that reminded me of the fundraising value of online activists and integrated programs. The Brady Campaign outlined how they called online non-donors who had taken one action in March of 2005. They found 20,000 phone matches for the emails and called away… The result: 21% of the online activists pledging an average donation of $27.38. Not bad at all. Now, for all you organizations with thousands — or tens of — or hundreds of thousands of online activists, it’s time to convert them to give through the phone.
They also tried mail. Brady mailed 12,000 online non-donors who had taken an action in March 2005. They responded at 1.07% with an average gift of $23.40 and a net per acquired of -$12.13 when the overall net acquired was -$16.29. Again, not bad.
Let’s try to integrate online non-donors into our phone and mail acquisition programs!
By Michael Johnston
August 23rd, 2005 at 08:57pm
Under fundraising
Last Thursday I was lucky enough to listen to Per Stenbeck, International fundraising director for UNICEF, talk about his perpsective on fundraising post-tsunami. And considering this follows the Greenpeace’s own Marcelo Inniara, it’s important to know that Per comes from the Greenpeace fundraising family too. They are real innovators!
I think you’ll see some connections to what this blog talks about with Per’s speech, but it was still a stimulating lecture. He outlined 10 key tsunami fundraising observations:
1. The tsunami triggered a first gift from at least 10 million people who had never given.
2. The tsunami motivated younger people to give, many for the first time — I’d add men to this!
3. The tsunami lifted corporate philanthropy to a new level.
4. The tsunami meant a breakthrough for new electronic media - Internet and SMS
5. The tsunami motivated people in every country on earth to give
6. The tsunami generated average gifts almost double what is usually given
7. The tsunami triggered major gifts on a breakthrough level ($12 million from Michael Schumacher)
8. The tsunami triggered an unprecedented amount of unsolicited gifts
9. The Red Cross is the global leader in emergency fundraising receiving a record $1.5 billion for the tsunami. UNICEF is in second place raising half a millon dollars.
10. In the UK, Holland and other countries coaltions of NGOs raised huge amounts of money by joining forces instead of competing
Per also came up with a list of Tsunami-inspired opportunities for future fundraising:
1. Meet the exploding demand for new media as a vehicle for giving, communicating, and campaigning. Work with new media owners such as Ebay, Google, etc.
2. Be opportunistic and ready to ride a wave coming your way.
3. Target younger audiences. The tsunami and Live 8 concerts have made young people aware and willing to help.
4. Convert one-off emergency donors to regular supporters of your cause. It works also for first time tsunami donors.
5. Offer involvement. Young donors are less happy if not offered other means of support than giving money.
6. Go for corporate partnerships. Companies have never been more aware of the need to become good corporate citizens by behaving responsibily.
7. Approach government for statutory funding matching the generosity of private sources. A Canadian idea, eh!
8. Fundraising remains a warm-hearted affair. Go for high emotional impact.
9. Actgive media support - and TV more than anything - will add tremendous boost to your fundraising campaign. Give them full access. Get them onboard as partners.
10. Consider joining existing consortia or coalitions raising funds together or initiate the creation of new ones.
11. Reporting back is more essential than ever. Young donors are more demanding and less trusting than old ones.
12. The tsunami proves the truth in my three gold rules for fundraising: Be ready! Be bold! Be passionate!
And let’s add one more — Be innovative!
By Michael Johnston
August 21st, 2005 at 09:02pm
Under fundraising
Here’s our third fundraisinginnovation podcast – recorded in the coastal Brasilian town of Ubatuta at a regional fundraising skillshare for Greenpeace. In a break between workshop sessions I sat down with Marcelo Iniarra, Greenpeace’s Director of Online Innovation, to talk about the recent Virtual March online campaign and photoblog website (http://whales.greenpeace.org) to support the No Whaling campaign and emcampment in South Korea. More than 60,000 people around the world signed up, uploading pictures of themselves saying “No†to commercial whaling, and these photos were projected onto a special public screen that Greenpeace set up outside the location where the International Whaling commission was meeting.
My interview with Marcelo touches on the origins of the idea, the challenges faced in launching and managing such a complex online project (there were 11 microsites in different languages), and also on the emotional impact that the photos submitted by people all around the world had on the campaign, and how the online fundraising message was integrated into this mobilization campaign.
To listen to the podcast, click here:
http://www.fundraisinginnovation.com/podcasts/vol_3_0805.mp3
I’ve also been blogging about the Greenpeace Latin America Regional Skillshare itself on the ShakethePillars.com blog.
By irishg
August 13th, 2005 at 08:34am
Under fundraising
If you peek back down a few postings, you’ll see my colleague George Irish quoting an article by Bill Toliver. I won’t argue that we tend to emphasize or highlight ‘emotion’ in direct response fundraising, but I’m not sure we’re damaging long term value and relationships with donors by doing that. I would love to see Bill and/or George come up with some constructive testing models to delve more deeply into the issue. I remember a few years ago when I worked on two competing direct mail packages for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The package I worked on played on the ‘emotion’ of the feeling of not having a roof over your head vs. a more earnest, intellectual approach to the issues of displacement. The emotional package took three hours to write — it went right to the virtual heart of the matter. The other, was shopped through committees of very educated people, for six months!
Lo and behold, the emotional package has found a lot of new donors — and is the control in a number of countries — and those donors are loyal and committed. And who are these people being duped by emotion — highly educated men and women — with a high percentage with graduate and post-graduate degrees. How did these highly educated people join the cause of UNHCR? Through emotion. How are they communicated to from that point forward with consistent, text heavy newsletters? Through intellect.
A few years ago, a Scottish colleague had a bunch of fundraisers stand up and say: ‘Reach the heart, to reach the head, to reach for the wallet’. I think it’s a fun reminder that all of these things work respectfully together.
Until George and Bill can lay out a fundraising test that shows a more intellectual approach can engage and keep donors more profitably I’m gonna keep sending out emotionally charged letters and emails — and then lay on the thick and nerdy communications.
By Michael Johnston
August 9th, 2005 at 07:42am
Under fundraising
Here’s an interesting article by Bill Toliver of The Matale Line on how short-term thinking in fundraising practice to capitize on media-hype and high-emotion opportunities may be harming the potential for developing long-term donor loyalty.
By irishg
August 8th, 2005 at 08:50pm
Under fundraising
I’ve seen some interesting, anecdotal evidence that blog fundraising might be useful. The University of Western Ontario recently gave an honourary degree to Henry Morgentaler — a well known advocate for women’s choice with abortion. A number of alumni withdrew donations, but there was also an online movement to support his honourary degree. Judy Rebick, a well known left-progressive pundit, ran an online campaign — asking people through her online publication — to go and give to Western — in support of this degree, his work, etc. Thousands of dollars came in online — and none of them had ever given to the University before. And during Tsunami we saw the same — blog sites with fundraising banners and hypertext links.
Now what about your organization? Go to www.bloogz.com and type in words and issues that your organization cares about and see who’s writing on your issues. Maybe you’ll uncover a list of supportive individuals who can highlight — or chat up — your next fundraising campaign.
By Michael Johnston
August 8th, 2005 at 03:45pm
Under fundraising
Recently I had the chance to participate in a discussion with Stephen Nills of The Charity Channel and my two editors in a recent book, Ted Hart and Jim Greenfield. The conversation was engaging and I thought you might want to give it a listen at
http://charitychannel.com/publish/?a=6108&z=25
By Michael Johnston
August 7th, 2005 at 08:53am
Under Learning from the South+ fundraising
Just got confirmation that I’ll be participating in a Greenpeace regional fundraising skillshare in Brazil next week (Aug 14-19). I’ll be leading a couple of discussions on new trends in online fundraising and online engagement, and as well, I hope to convene an overview/discussion of new online engagment tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS, tagging, flickr, de.licio.us, etc. that may already be famliar to some people reading this blog, but which are just starting to emerge into the everyday practices of mainstream nonprofits.
I’m expecting there will be some interesting stuff to report back. Greenpeace’s recent No Whaling Virtual March (http://whales.greenpeace.org) was developed by Marcelo Inniara, the online engagement guru from Greenpeace Argentina. More than 60,000 people uploaded photos of themselves holding Stop Whaling signs and messages to be projected onto a billboard in Seoul, South Korea where the International Whaling Commission was debating a return to commericalized whaling. It’s a great example of the “show the network” school of online mobilizing, and I love just browsing through the photos that have been submitted. It really communicates the sense that 60,000+ signups is more than just a number — it’s a vast crowd of real, individual people.
Another interesting thing about the No Whale campaign is that a large percentage of the signups to the campaign — with uploaded photos and all — have come from non-western/developed countries. In fact, signups from some of the larger southern countries such as India (4300), Brazil (4500) easily surpassed more traditional online activist countries such as the United States (1400), Italy (1100), and France (2200). As well, a handful of signups came from very non-traditional activist countries such as China (93), Indonesia (65), and even Albania (4) and Iraq (2). Greenpeace is actively ‘globalizing’ and has opened offices in India, Thailand, Turkey and Lebanon in the past few years, so these signup point-of-origin numbers could be an indicator of success.
I look forward to hearing what this means for Greenpeace’s regional and global fundraising.
By irishg