May 30th, 2006 at 07:19pm
Under fundraising
Can Bloggers Make Money for Charities?
 Blogs are great for an endless stream of electronic media but will it make a difference offline? A recent New York Times article stated: “Online politics can’t flourish in the virtual realm alone, any more than an online romance can be consummated through instant messagingâ€. I think there’s something there for fundraising too. Virtual fundraising is probably stronger when it can also be connected to a real voice, or a visit, or an event. Hear Hear I say - the web doesn’t replace the public square, it drives people to it. You just have to look at recent pro-immigration rallies that used both radio and the online environment to get people to the streets.I believe deeply that technologies change and different philanthropic trends come and go, but the essential process of giving endures – people helping people. One medium may replace another over time but that’s all it does – replace it – with people still giving…Â
Free Advertising
 It’s true that personalized fundraising pages (and blogs) have allowed citizens to use marketing and advertising tools to raise money and awareness ON BEHALF OF charities.Now PSAs and DRTV may be the next step.In the commercial world, Converse has allowed individuals to make commercials for them with editing/content tools. When GM allowed people to make SUV commercials, some peopleturned out anti-SUV commercials. People are calling these opportunities as “co-creationâ€. In the commercial world, Converse has allowed individuals to make commercials for them with editing/content tools. When GM allowed people to make SUV commercials, some peopleAre we ready for co-creation in the nonprofit sector? Anything would be better than most of the crappy PSAs that are out there! Firefox, the web browser of Mozilla Corporation asked people to submit broadcast quality 30 second spots. There were 280 submissions judged by industry experts in advertising. It gave aspiring artists a chance to show off their work and the company got free ads. Co-creation goes hand in hand with co-marketing.Shouldn’t some charities do this? How about your organization doing this? And what about fundraising content on mobile phones? Some estimates put the market at 27 billion dollars by 2010.
About 3-5% of North American cell phone users view mobile video content.
In the US, “Sway’s Hip-Hop Owner’s Manual†had an MTV show host interviewing people on the streets of LA. He was close to the camera – popping out – and that’s probably the way for fundraising on the mobile to come – “the whites of their eyesâ€.
How will they be made:
1.    Close up
2.    limit zooming, panning, quick movements
And Apple’s ipod is turning out more successful for video downloads than thought – 15 million shows downloaded in the first six months.
Europeans are quite advanced but one NA executive said, “Great technology, but it’s a bunch of naked people swearing… not gonna work here.â€
So… it looks like we’ll have to make up this mobile fundraising content ourselves - or we’ll just hand over the content provision to the supporter and let them make our appeals!
Â
By Michael Johnston
September 29th, 2005 at 07:56pm
Under fundraising
That’s what I thought to myself when I first heard of it. Bubble talk is ‘voice-texting’ through your mobile. A Singapore company, Bubble Motion, has teamed up with Swedish telecom giant, Telefon Ericson. It’s a messaging service that eliminates the need to tap out a text message. Instead, you flip open the phone — record a message like “you should be at this U2 concert - take a listen!” and then sending it as a message to someone else’s phone. It costs a fraction of a normal call — like text messaging. There are lots of people who don’t like typing on those postage-stamp-sized phones. Maybe a fundraising opportunity here?
Mike
By Michael Johnston
September 27th, 2005 at 07:24pm
Under fundraising
I remember a few years back when James Earl Jones would record people’s voice mail messages if they made a donation to the charity of his choice. Thought that was interesting… and now we’ve got another trend coming our way. Donald Trump and Christina Aguilera have lent their voices to two ‘voice tones’ available through a number of US mobile carriers including Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Cingular. When your phone rings, and you’ve purchased The Donald’s voice tone, it says: “You’re getting a phone call and, believe me, it better be important. I have no time for small talk and neither do you!”. I won’t tell you what Christina says.
But think about the nonprofit possibilities. If an organization has a well-known personality on board, they could record a ‘voice mail’ message in which a portion of the cost of that download goes to the charity they support.
By Michael Johnston
September 23rd, 2005 at 01:16am
Under fundraising
I’ve always emphasized that any nonprofit organization needs to emphasize its unique fundraising culture — or core competency — when investing in online fundraising and technologies. The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation was a good example back in 1998 when it invested in the creation of one of the first online registration and pledge systems to support its special event — Run for the Cure. It knew what it was good at and stuck to it online. Post Katrina there’s a good example of how one site has tried to connect to the culture of New Orleans and to fundraising online, www.boobs4bourbonst.com, where proof of a donation to relief charities earns you a peek at men and women’s boobs — Marti Gras style. I have to admit its fundraising online done to match the culture of New Orleans!
They’ve reached almost $18,000 already and have a goal of $100,000.
By Michael Johnston
September 16th, 2005 at 09:25pm
Under fundraising
A few days ago I was at the annual Social Justice Retreat at Algonquin Park, out in the Canadian wildlands. Between workshops and kayaking, I had a chance to sit down with Phillip Smith from communitybandwidth.ca to talk about his work on a current Greenpeace Canada campaign that has a strong online organizing and advocacy element: www.kleercut.net.
In my chat with Phillip we talk about the concept for this “brand-damage” campaign which is focused on engaging consumers in local actions, and how the website has evolved to reflect the progress of the campaign, as well as some thoughts on fundraising integration into online activism campaigns
To hear the podcast (cross-posted to shakethepillars.com):
http://www.fundraisinginnovation.com/podcasts/phillipsmith_algonquin.mp3
By irishg
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
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