January 18th, 2007 at 07:10am
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In one of the larger shake-ups of the nonprofit web services industry in recent years, Austin-based Convio has announced it is acquiring one of its main competitors: Berkeley, CA’s GetActive.
In a statement about the acquisition, Convio’s CEO Gene Austin says “This combination will bring together two great companies, each of which has a deep commitment to serving the nonprofit sector, … we believe our customers will be even better equipped to realize the potential of the Internet for fundraising, advocacy and outreach.”
Combined, the two companies service some 1,400 nonprofits.
Read Convio’s press release
News of the acquisition has generated a flurry of posts and comments in the nonprofit-tech blogoshere. Here are a few samples:
echoditto
Democracy in Action
NonProfit Tech Blog
ePolitics
Personal Democracy Forum
By irishg
January 5th, 2007 at 03:59am
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Blackbaud is kicking off the new year with the launch of Blogbaud.com, a new blog that promises to “give our employees a platform to sound off on what they know best: technology, nonprofits, business, and Blackbaud itself”. The new blog aims to build an active community where Blackbaud’s staff and developers can interact and collaborate with users of their products.
First posting on Blogbaud, Ten Social Web New Year’s Resolutions for Nonprofits by Internet Marketing Manager Chad Norman, looks promising of more good content to come.
By irishg
January 2nd, 2007 at 03:55am
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An interesting flurry of activity in past weeks with the appearance of a new type of online fundraising tool that could bridge the gap between tried-and-true online donation forms, and the emerging world of Web 2.0 applications (myspace, youtube, wikipedia, etc.): charity badges — also known as fundraising widgits. (widgits are small objects that you can put anywhere on a web page to add new functions, new content, etc.)Idealware posted a roundup of the candidates that appeared just in time for the holiday giving rush. URL: Tis the Season… for Cheap and Easy – and Distributed – Online Fundraising Tools
Charity badges are interesting new tools that could open up a whole new area in online fundraising – it’s still a bit early to tell if and how these tools might catch on.
Here is a list of some of the early players in this new fundraising technology field:
By irishg
November 21st, 2006 at 03:44am
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ChipIn has announced a new release of their handy add-in personal fundraising tool, making it possible for just about anyone to raise money online for the causes they support.From their blog:
We released our ChipIn widget on Widgetbox today making it even easier to embed our contribute now badge on many more sites. You can easily place our contribute now badge on your Typepad blog, blogger, Myspace, Xanga, Friendster, WordPress, and many more. Check it out at widgetbox.com/widget/chipin
This new tool is already generating interest. Michael Stein has posted an article on ChipIn’s fresh approach to the ASP/web service equation, and Peter Deitz at First-of-its-kind has kindly provided a detailed post on the ChipIn feature set, including step-by-step instructions.
By irishg
August 16th, 2006 at 11:43pm
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The rise of personal spaces online has been rapid and breathtaking… and that’s not taking into account the corporate money being thrown around to buy up these personal space portals. There has just got to be something that the nonprofit sector can do more seriously in these spaces. A quick perusal of myspace.com shows a lot of tepid or flat out false nonprofit fronts on personal pages. Just imagine what nonprofits could do if they could crack this place online and reach, inspire, and fundraise with the hundreds of millions of folks in personal spaces online. I heard rumour that Amnesty Hungary put up a page for the organization in the Hungarian equivilant of myspace.com. And lo and behold… they had a few hundred people link to that page… imagine how much more could be done. For fun, I had my design team create the following hypothetical fundraising personal space:
Â
By Michael Johnston
July 27th, 2006 at 11:31pm
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3D virtual worlds have been around for a long time, and are only starting to enter into the mainstream of online users. Second Life is one of the most successful, and as more people are joining – more than 200,000 so far – they are bringing more and more ideas with them from the “real world”. Tom Watson of ChangingOurWorld.com writes about how philanthropy has now appeared in Second Life.
Philanthropy, it turns out, is sweeping the world’s largest virtual 3D community and big-name organizations like the American Cancer Society, TechSoup, Global Kids, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society are getting involved, creating virtual “chapters” and holding online fundraising events.
Read Tom’s article: Second Life fundraising: Philanthropy dips its toe into Virtual Worlds
By irishg
May 30th, 2006 at 07:49pm
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Special events are an important part of how many nonprofit organizations raise money, strengthens its brand, and maintains donor relationships.
The online environment can be a more important part of the future of events for your organization and I’ve got a few recommendations in this area.  Â
Most likely, your events program has a supporter base that will not convert quickly to online giving. Like converting donors from single gift giving to a monthly committed giving plan, the conversion is incremental and small.
The future success of your online giving program doesn’t lie in your existing event database.Â
Your event donors should be given every opportunity to give online. A valuable incentive is to offering them an online receipt. Some of your donors may choose to switch to online giving in order to take advantage of an instant receipting for their records.Â
In addition, the event donors can be told that giving or registering online is the most efficient way to help your organization and that “their money will go to work faster†if they register/buy tickets/give online.
I usually recommend that an organization provide event donors every opportunity to give online and provide information on instant receipting and buying tickets online. This way you will encourage some of your donors to move to the online environment.Â
Most likely, your current prospective and past event goers receive a text-only email that reminds them to buy their tickets and to participate in a particular event. They do not have the opportunity to use their credit card and buy tickets through a real-time transaction online.
Your event emails sent out currently are probably text only and have a hypertext link to a PDF form. A wonderful improvement is to send an HTML email with key points and linked calls to action in text only with the overall look and feel in HTML. If you’re already there, what the heck are you reading this for?! 
As an example of best practice online promotion of fundraising events, HJC would like to highlight the work of Rethink Breast Cancer, an innovative fundraising organization that concentrates solely on helping young women, and their families, who struggle with breast cancer. Their constituency is largely younger and they have created effective online promotions of their events.
The following examples should inspire your organization in the creation of HTML, and perhaps Flash, promotions for its events:
The use of a link in an email invitation can lead to fun, cool, and hip use of Flash. If you go to http://oxygen.ca/clients/rethink/discoball.html, you will see a great use of animation to sell a unique event:Â The Little Sweetheart Ball, an event for young parents and their young kids. The end of the animated promotion piece also gives high branding position to the corporate sponsors.
Â
The use of graphics and a forward-this-to-a-friend function gives this invite a powerful viral marketing ability and gives it a hip look. Try it out for the right event and the right group!
By Michael Johnston
May 30th, 2006 at 07:19pm
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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
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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
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