See What’s Out There

You have to be able to make fun on all this stuff that we live on the web. Here’s a good one:

Link: [College Humor]

It is not an every day occurrence that I hear about a project and think — that’s firkin’ brilliant. But at the Cause Marketing Forum a few weeks ago I was looking over the attendee list to the workshop where I spoke and saw that someone was listed as being from Movember. I thought to myself, “self, this has to be a mistake, it must be November.” I saw the name again and thought to myself, “self, this isn’t a mistake, you have to look it up.” So I did look it up.

Movember is an organization that gets men around the world to grow a mustache during the month of November and to treat this activity as a fundraising event, the same way you would treat a run, walk or ride event for a charity. At the end of the month they have parties where the participants dress up as their favorite mustachiod stars — think Tom Selleck.

I know what you are thinking. That’s fun and cute. Oh, and by the way, they raised $30 million.

That’s no type-o. And they are just getting started. I was so taken with this idea that I called the founder of the organization Adam Garone. Adam is Australian and started Movember with some buddies in 2003, kind of as a joke. A “mo” is short for a mustache in the Australian language, and so November could become Movember. They had 30 friends do it that first year. They got grief from their bosses and girlfriends but they wanted to keep doing it. So they added the charity component and no one can argue with that.

In 2004 they approached the Prostate Cancer Foundation in Australia because the connection to men’s health was obvious and they felt prostate cancer didn’t get the attention that it should get. They raised $55,000 that first year and were the largest single donor to the foundation. They are literally changing the face of men’s health.

The idea has grown rapidly in Australia and they have raised more than $20 million there. They then added New Zealand, and came to the US in 2006. They are just getting started here. This year, they are partnering with both the Lance Armstrong Foundation, for testicular cancer, and they continue their affiliation with the Prostate Cancer Foundation. I expect this organization to reach $100 million annually in a few year.

They are very focused on cause marketing as well with US sponsors including Pepsi Max, Canadian Club, Wahl, Quicksilver, DC Shoes, Warner Bros. and others. The parties they have at the end of the year rock and they give prizes for the best mustaches.

What is particularly brilliant about this concept is that when I start to grow my mustache in November, people are going to say, “What’s that dirt on your face?” or “Have you given up your day job for that porn career?” or “Are the Villiage People recruiting?” I will then have to explain why prostate and testicular cancers are in need of research dollars and more public attention. Talk about viral.

Learn more about Movember and, for you men, plan on joining me in growing that mustache in November for men’s health.

Some famous folks with a mustache that you can dress up as for the Movember party.

A guy named Peter Deitz had an amazing idea. He would aggregate individual nonprofit actions and opportunities for change from many sources. That way, someone could search a central database by where they lived, or what issues they were interested in, and they would find ways to make a difference. He called this Social Actions.

They made it open-source and invited anyone who wanted to add actions to the database or develop new applications using the database. A plug-in was developed that would allow websites such as EarthFirst.com to list “related actions” at the end of every blog post. This would be done like Google does contextual advertising — it would use the text of the post to deliver up relevant opportunities. For example, a post about a round of whale killing in Japan might like to a Greenpeace action against whaling. Social Actions’ actions come from Care2, Change.org, DonorsChoose.org, DemocracyinAction, GlobalGiving, Idealist, Kiva, SixDegrees and VolunteerMatch and others. Very cool.

It seems our friends at Google and some folks from the Obama team thought this was a good idea, or they had the same idea, and they have created something called “All for Good” that is similar — a central database of ways to make the world better. All for Good has Google behind it, which gives it power of course, and we hope very much that they will build upon and not feel in competition with Social Actions.

As part of the All For Good effort, YouTube has launched a new project called YouTube Video Volunteers. The goal is to match people with video skills (shooting, editing, music, etc.) with nonprofit organizations that could use those skills. Cool!

At See3 we have been telling organizations forever (or so it seems) that they must SHOW their stories and stop thinking about their website like a brochure — it’s now an interactive channel that you need to program. Lots of organization could use help in developing more video assets and we say, great!

You can see more about this new initiative here:

Here you can watch the NerdFighters talk about this new opportunity.

And another fun video to recruit video-makers from the YouTube community:

In the classic chick flick “Legally Blonde,” Elle Wood saves the day with her epiphany, “The rules of hair care are simple and finite!”

Combing through the challenges of a Web site design (or redesign) can cause a truly bad hair day. And yet, the basic rules of Web design are also simple and finite.

Don’t flip your wig! If you couldn’t join us at the Web Design for Nonprofits workshop this week, you can still view the slides from our presentation on The Dos and Don’ts of Web Design. We’d love to help you with your Web site!

The Giving USA Foundation’s annual report on charitable giving said that gifts were down in 2008, but not by much, 2%. Given the economic mess — the worst since the Depression — this sounds pretty good. And, overall, it is.

But the overall number of 2% down hides the differences within the numbers. For example, get-out-the-vote work was counted and was way up because of the historic election last year. Gifts to United Way and others who aggregate giving to mostly local, mostly poverty-focused work was up as well. Religious giving was way up as well.

But other categories got hammered. Arts, environment, health and education — is that all? — were all down. All is not rosy.

Remember, the research says don’t talk too much about the economy. People want to support winners, not those desperate for cash. The actionable intelligence from this report is this: Tell your stories. Find your best stories and work extra hard to tell them to your potential donors. It’s the stories of people and their real lives that get people writing checks and clicking on your donate button.

You can hear more about this story at NPR.

More on this story from Blackbaud, which analyzed the data. They have some nice graphs. They show online giving is way up.

Online Giving Surpasses $15 Billion in 2008
Blackbaud analyzed the Giving USA data, along with other important metrics, and estimates that more than $15.42 billion was given online to US charities in 2008. This is a 44% increase over 2007’s online giving estimates. Online giving accounted for just over 5% of total giving to charities in the US during 2008 and has been growing for many years now.

more from Blackbaud here.

We get a lot of RFPs and we have noticed many more nonprofit organizations are using RFPs to get information from vendors. As a vendor, we often like RFPs because they can be clear about an organization’s needs and so we know how to respond. On the other hand, nothing is worse than a poorly written RFP. In addition, we know that sometimes organizations use RFPs to get proposals, only so they can say they got proposals — they will go with who they want. It can take weeks of work to respond and so we carefully consider whether it is a good fit and we have a shot before we expend this effort.

Our friends at Big Duck just sent out an email about their take on RFP’s and other options for nonprofits. It’s worth the read:

Beyond the RFP: Better, Stronger, Faster!

This June, Big Duck is celebrating our 15th anniversary. In addition to dressing up in costumes, playing silly games, and patting ourselves on the back, we like to celebrate this milestone by thinking about how nonprofit communications have changed over the past 15 years. The biggest change since 1994 is, of course, the invention of the Luther Burger, and, um, a small thing called the internet.

One other change is that nonprofits use RFPs (requests for proposals) more than ever as part of the process of determining which vendors or partners they’ll hire. RFPs can help you gather information about a lot of different possible vendors or partners in one fell swoop. That’s the good news. But there’s also a dark side…

The dark side of RFPs

Before you dive into your next RFP process, consider these challenges:

It’s hard to write a good RFP. Most organizations omit critical details, and most of the people you send it to will call you anyway to ask questions.

Most candidates will need a minimum of two weeks, often times a month, to respond thoughtfully.

You can’t judge personal chemistry on paper. Often, the best fit will be the people who really understand your issue and connect with you. Chemistry is something you pick up on through conversation — not in writing.

Beware of the fancy response. The best candidates may also be the busiest — and that means they’re more likely to give you the least impressive proposals.

There’s no such thing as apples to apples. For every scope of work, there are lots of possible approaches and skill sets. The fees, process and variables respondents outline will almost always differ, making it harder for you to compare them.

A better, stronger, faster approach

If you don’t have to issue an RFP, consider this approach instead. You’ll be able to complete it faster, and with better results.

Week One:

Make a list of possible candidates. Call your peers or organizations you admire for recommendations. Conduct web searches. Ask your trusted advisors and colleagues.
Start a list of the qualifications you’re hoping to find in an ideal relationship.
Visit the websites of all possible candidates. Make notes: what do they seem to do well? What questions pop up? What will you need them to deliver for you? This will not only help you narrow the playing field, it will help you clarify what you do/don’t need.

Week Two:

Call the candidates that seem viable. Outline your needs and ask them about their capabilities. If they’re experienced, they should give you a sense of how long their work will take, what it might cost, and other nitty-gritty variables. By the end of these calls, you’ll be able to eliminate most and get a sense of which are the real contenders. Candidates who aren’t a fit might even help you find others who are. Don’t be afraid to have frank conversations about your mutual needs, pricing and goals at this stage; this is a bit like speed-dating.
Create a short list. Reflecting on your review of websites, the conversations you’ve had, and your list of requirements, define a short list of two-four candidates. It’s helpful if you can define why you like each one what your concerns are about them at this stage.

Week Three:

With your decision-making colleagues, visit the folks on your short list. If you’re looking for a long-term partner or hiring a team (for instance, an agency — not a freelancer), seeing them on their own turf will give you a truer sense of who and what you might actually be hiring. Try to meet everyone on the team you’d be working with, not just people in sales-related roles. You’ll leave with a taste in your mouth you can discuss with your colleagues.
Lastly, if the best candidate still isn’t clear, ask the folks on your short list to write a proposal. This will give you one final way to assess them, and they’ll have talked with you so much you shouldn’t have to issue a formal RFP. If it is clear who the best fit is, ask them to write a contract so you can get all the details in writing before you officially select them: it’s better to be sure you’ll move forward before you let the other options go.

The process outlined here typically takes roughly one month, start to finish, if you block out time on your schedule in advance. That’s about twice as fast as a typical RFP process — which requires getting sign-off for the RFP you write, waiting two-four weeks for responses from vendors, reviewing proposals, then meeting with finalists. Instead of spending your time writing and reading, you spend it talking with people, visiting interesting places, and getting a more dimensional sense of your options. You might even come up with a new approach to the project along the way.

You can learn more about the excellent services of our partner Big Duck at their website.

Last week, Michael Hoffman spoke about online video as part of the “Social Media for Cause Marketers” workshop at the 2009 Cause Marketing Forum.

He spoke about how the web is changing from an electronic brochure to an interactive channel, how video can enhance your existing cause campaigns, and about redefining what “viral” really means. Check out his slidedeck below and leave a comment if you have any follow-up questions.

People often become doctors because they want to heal people, and by extension, heal the world. Wendy Sternberg left her successful internal medicine practice in Evanston Illinois because she decided she could better heal the world through Genesis at the Crossroads (GATC), an organization she founded.

GATC mission “is to bridge cultures in conflict through the arts and to create innovative arts-education programs around the world.”

Wendy just spent the several months in Thailand as part of the very exclusive Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies at Chulalongkorn University. Wendy’s work was just written about in the Bangkok Post. Here they describe her best-known program.

The GATC’s most distinguished project to date is the Genesis World Music Ensemble, or the Saffron Caravan, which brings together music artists from the Middle East, North Africa and the Americas to revisit, reinvent and link musical traditions. The organisation began uniting musicians from cultures in conflict in 2004 with the pairing of a Jewish-Moroccan and a Muslim-Moroccan musicians. The artists had never been introduced to one another before, and together they performed with a band comprising musicians from nine different nationalities. Their performance served as a finale to GATC’s two-day ethnic music festival. The group later travelled to Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. Later in 2005, GATC’s Israeli-Palestinian performance became a part of the United Nations’ 60th Anniversary celebration.

At See3 we have the pleasure of collaborating with Wendy to help her find a way to document and distribute video from her upcoming concert tour of Egypt and Jordan. We are also excited about how Wendy is expanding the work of GATC:

“Another humanitarian programme that incorporates arts education is Armed Them with Instruments, which encourages adults and children from the US to donate musical instruments to the children in North African and Middle Eastern countries. This programme also aims to take vulnerable youth off the streets by providing them opportunities to study music at conservatories.”

Some of us feel trapped in our professions and wonder, can we really change the world? Wendy Sternberg answers the question with a resounding Yes!

See3 will be well-represented at the 2009 Bridge Conference and we hope you can join us! July 21-23 in Washington DC.

We are sponsors and I will be presenting about using video for fundraising.

We made this video for the conference. A fundraiser’s dream! (Watch in HQ.)

You can register for the conference here.

What impact does the widespread adoption of broadband have on social organizing via the Web? How does this vary globally?

This is one of the questions we’ll be discussing today with some of the top women leaders on the topic of Video Activism. I’ll be joined by Matisse Bustos Hawkes from WITNESS.org, Erica Priggen from Free range Studios and Ramya Raghavan, YouTube Nonprofit Program as part of the second annual Women Who Tech TeleSummit, which brings together some of the most talented women today who are using technology to change the world.

For those of you who would like to view the videos please access the slides we’re referencing, here are the resources, or want to continue the conversation please share your comments and questions.