The world of social media that we live in means that continual communication and transparency is good because you then develop long-term relationships with your constituents. Our new world also means that you can’t hide the ball. You can’t use marketing speak and emails to fundraise and then, when it counts, not to be there for your cause. And if you missed it, then you will get called on it and the best response is one that’s honest.
I was thinking about this this morning when I read Andrew Sullivan’s spanking of Human Rights Campaign. In the wake of the Prop 8 loss in California, which outlawed gay marriage, there is a lot of wondering, “How did we lose?”
Here’s a simple statistic that might help shake us out of complacency: HRC claims to have spent $3.4 million on No On 8. The Mormon church was able to spend over $20 million, by appealing to its members. Why are non-gay Mormons more capable of organizing and fund-raising on a gay rights measure than the biggest national gay rights group? I mean: they claim (absurdly, but bear with me) 725,000 supporters and members. In the summer, the major problem for No On 8 was insufficient early funding. If HRC had led, they could have thrown their money weight behind it. If every supporter had given $20 – chump change for the biggest ever battle yet for civil rights – they could have delivered $14 million overnight. So why didn’t they?
Why indeed.
This line really hit home:
“How many struggles do we have to wage with these people always, always failing to lead – before we demand accountability and reform? Losing a battle this important should mean, at least, the rolling of some heads. Or we have no accountability at all. What are we: the Bush administration?”
See what is happening here? A constituent is DEMANDING accountability from a non-profit organization. He doesn’t own this organization. He doesn’t sit on the Board of Directors. He isn’t the biggest donor. But he dares to demand that the organization be accountable to it’s issue and to its constituents.
Put yourself and your organization in this place. Are you accountable to your constituents and to your issue? If the hard questions are being asked will you have good answers? Ask the questions now, yourself, and if you are comfortable with the answers, then communicate this with your constituents now, honestly and forthrightly. Don’t make them show up at your door with pitchforks and torches.
In today’s dead tree edition of the NY Times, there is a special section called Giving, all about philanthropy. The lead story is about the economic downturn and some conjecture about what kind of hit the philanthropy sector will take.
…Patrick M. Rooney, interim executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, said the most reliable indicator of individual giving was Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, with a 100-point jump translating into an additional $1.5 billion of philanthropy from people who report donations on tax forms. “It works just the same way on the downside,” he said.
Using that rule of thumb and the price of the index on Nov. 6, such individual giving would drop this year by about $8.7 billion from an estimated $187 billion, according to Mr. Rooney. That’s far less than financial markets have fallen.
Mr. Rooney warned, however, that the timing of the market collapse could exacerbate the impact on giving. “If there’s a precipitous drop in January or February, no one pays much attention, but many households started thinking about their year-end charitable giving just as they got their third-quarter statements — and they could bet their fourth-quarter statements were going to be worse,” he said.
There are contrarians, like Robert F. Sharpe Jr., president of the Sharpe Group a fundraising firm who said “Just about any way you look at it, the Depression was one of the best periods for charitable fund-raising.” Makes me feel a lot better, not.
I wouldn’t mind if some of those dollars for billion-dollar university endowments were re-routed to service organizations and advocacy organization for a while, the needs will be greater than ever for basic services.
The bottom line for your organization is “don’t stop asking”. If anything you need to redouble your efforts at fundraising, begin to build new constituents online and be more aggressive in getting your entire existing constituency to become part of your development team by making it easy for them to recruit and solicit their friends.
This is my first election year without a TV or local radio. I have been completely dependent on the internet and print media for my electoral news.
Instead of bulleted paragraph points in a brochure or snippets of speech chosen for me by an editor or the oddness of my brain, I have read (and reread) or watched (and rewatched) entire speeches and election platforms online.
The result of all this exposure dawned on me when I glanced at my ballot. Instead of the straight Republican ticket of previous years, my ballot this year is a jumbled, bi-partisan alphabet soup of R’s, D’s, and I’s. I feel so much hope and delight about this!
What does this mean for nonprofit organizations? A lot. It means that people aren’t getting the filtered information from the same sources any more. It means they are finding “whole” pieces of information such views from the field, blogs by volunteers, the candid remarks of a fundraiser, an interview with a client/constituent… It means that you have to have much more information, much more transparency and much more passion to be on people’s radar in this new media environment.
In this down market, don’t stop investing in growing your new media assets and in growing your capacity to communicate online. It’s officially a different world.
The nonprofit community is rightfully scared that the market and economic problems will mean a big hit for charities. If my portfolio is down 40% the first thing that might go is my annual gift.
But nonprofits would be wrong not to ask for those gifts. Organizations need to redouble their efforts to grow their donor file and expand the number of supporters. (Which also means that organizations must be aggressive online and begin using the web to grow their donor list.) Even in a downturn many people can afford to make charitable gifts.
There’s a nice piece on Seth Godin’s blog today on this subject. In defense of raising money. It was written by Sasha Dichter and I am not sure why it was on Seth’s blog and not Sasha’s. (Maybe because Seth has a lot more traffic.)
Here’s a highlight:
You’re devoting your life, your spirit, your energy, your faith into making the vision you have of a better future into a reality.
So why are you so scared to ask people for money? Why do you feel afraid to say: “This problem is so important and so urgent that it is worth your time and your money to fix it. I’m devoting my whole life to fixing this problem. I’m asking you to devote some of your resources to my life’s work too.”
Maybe it’s because:
1. People think that asking for money is all about asking for money. It is and it isn’t. Most of the time it is about inspiring someone to see the world the way you do – with the same understanding of the problems and the same vision of how it can be overcome – and convincing them that you and your organization can actually make that vision into a reality. The resources come second.
2. People think that storytelling is a gift, not a skill. Learning how to do this – to be an effective storyteller, to consistently connect with different people from different walks of life and convince them to see the world as you do and walk with you to a better future – is hard, but it’s a skill like any other. It’s true that some people are born with it. But it still can be learned and practiced, and if your nonprofit is going to succeed, you’d better have more than one or two people who can pull this off.
3. Money = Power. Our society has done a spectacular job of creating enormous amounts of wealth. At the same time, wealth is associated with power, and not having wealth can feel like not having power. So going to someone who has money and saying, “You have the resources, please give some of them to me” doesn’t feel like a conversation between equals.
How about this instead: “You are incredibly good at making money. I’m incredibly good at making change. The change I want to make in the world, unfortunately, does not itself generate much money. But man oh man does it make change. It’s a hugely important change. And what I know about making this change is as good and as important as what you know about making money. So let’s divide and conquer – you keep on making money, I’ll keep on making change. And if you can lend some of your smarts to the change I’m trying to make, well that’s even better. But most of the time, we both keep on doing what we’re best at, and if we keep on working together the world will be a better place.”
4. I’m terrified you’ll say ‘no.’ We all hate rejection. Being rejected when asking for money is a double whammy. You were already scared to ask, and then the person said no. They have all the power. You walk away, head down, empty hat in hand.
Get over it. You’re still devoting your life to this work. You shared an idea with someone. You didn’t convince them today, but you probably got their attention. Maybe you’ll convince them tomorrow. Maybe they’ll tell a friend. Maybe you learned something that will make your pitch better the next time. At least you got your story out there to the right person.
You made a change – you just didn’t get any money in return.
We’ve been talking a lot about online video, so we decided to get it on tape. The result is the See3 Guide to Online Video, a 7-part video series created as an introduction to online video for nonprofits. Below you’ll find video #1, as well as descriptions of the whole series.
For beginners, this is your chance to get started. And for the experts out there, this is an easy tool to share with your less web-centric colleagues to get everyone on the same page.
These videos are for everyone, so please feel free to spread them around—through your blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, email, newsletter, whichever way suits you best.
1. The World We Live In
Today the web fully supports video. And that requires a new paradigm for how you think about video, how you document your work, and how you reach out to your constituents.
2. Why Video Matters
Video breaks through the noise of everything that’s happening on the web. Video is the most compelling content on the web today, and it’s the content people are spending the most time with.
3. Building A Media Library
If your organization doesn’t have a camera, you need to go out and buy one today. Then you need to start capturing the important things you do and build a media library that you can reuse and repurpose.
4. Finding Your Story
There are millions of stories you can tell about your organization. But how do you make it personal to your viewers, and how do you bring passion and energy to the stories you want to tell?
5. Telling Your Story
Start by asking yourself a handful of basic questions. Then consider the best way to communicate this story to your audience. What form will it take? Documentary? Man-on-the-street? PSA?
6. Using Video Effectively
Everyone wants a “viral video”, but random people watching your video may not necessarily become donors or advocates for you. Thinking about video in terms of campaigns will help you retain audience and deepen engagement.
7. Marketing Your Campaign
You have a great campaign, but how do you reach the right people online? Map the community and join the conversations already taking place all over the web. Tell them about your cause and drive them to your microsite to learn more and take action.
Did you know? Taglines are the best way to succinctly convey nonprofits’ value, but 7 in 10 nonprofits rate their taglines as poor or they don’t have one at all.
To remedy this problem, the Getting Attention blog has released a new, free Nonprofit Tagline Report which features in-depth analysis of current practices and a guide to making the most of a tagline (in eight words or less) shaped to responses gathered in a survey of 1,900 nonprofit communicators earlier this year.
From the press release:
Maplewood, NJ – A newly-released report based on survey findings drawn from 1,900 nonprofit communicators shows that most nonprofits don’t have an organizational tagline that works to make their organizations’ value clear, and easy to remember and repeat.
“You might say ‘A tagline is a terrible thing to waste’,” says Nancy Schwartz, communications consultant and author of the report, alluding to the classic UNCF tagline ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste.’ “A nonprofit organization’s tagline is, next to its name, the marketing message most frequently heard, and the easiest and most effective way to convey its brand,“ says Schwartz, president of Nancy Schwartz & Company (www.nancyschwartz.com) and blogger at Getting Attention (www.gettingattention.org).
“A strong tagline complements an organization’s name to convey its unique value or impact with personality, passion and commitment. Nonprofits that fail to make the most of their taglines are basically throwing that opportunity away,” she says.
Schwartz sees taglines as a key tool in building strong nonprofit brands, which are more important than ever in these times of increased competition for dollars, members, volunteers and other supporters. “Nonprofits can develop a tagline at the organization, program or campaign levels to freshen up their messaging, emphasize their commitment and/or revive tired positioning,” she says.
More key findings from the report:
· Nonprofit taglines that work generally fall into one of four categories, describing an organization’s focus of work; impact or value; core values or spirit; or strategic approach.
· An effective nonprofit tagline:
o Relates to an organization’s name, without repeating it
o Must be easily accessible, memorable and repeatable
o Is specific to that organization
o Runs eight words or less.
o Features verbs.
· The leading reason that nonprofits don’t have taglines is…they never thought of it (33%).
· Human services lead the way in having taglines (75%), with grantmakers just behind.
· Environmental organizations hold up the rear, with only 30% using taglines (while the field is becoming increasingly high-profile, complex and competitive).
Last week we asked our peeps (or should I say Tweeps?) on Twitter, “What’s the most successful strategy your organization has used to build an email list?” Check out some of the responses below:
1) Petitions
2) Organization Donor Lists
3) Social Networking
LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) is a good example of an organization that has had success building their email list through a Flickr page, MySpace profile and YouTube channel.
4) Web Videos
As @DCVito mentions, it can be hard to measure how much traffic your videos are bringing in to your site or email sign-up. It’s very important to include a clear call to action with a url in your video so your audience knows how to take the next step. Here are some other tips for making your videos more effective fundraising and outreach tools.
4) Campaigns
One of the best ways to spread the word about your organization and build an email list is a campaign. A campaign uses tools like social-networking and web video to complete a sustained action that targets a particular audience for a specific goal. For example, See3 recently completed a campaign for Sierra Club called “Lightbulbs to Leadership” which included it’s own splash page, 3 video series, letter-writing campaign and house parties across the country.
