Archive for April, 2008
Get Down With Moses
Celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary with a new dance from Moses. Brought to you by Birthright Israel.
Chag Pesach Sameach
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem
Remember the Olim
In a front page article in today’s Jerusalem Post, it seems there is a possible deal in the works to settle the very public, and not so nice, feud between the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh.
It’s all about ego, influence, posturing and money. Yup; basically cold hard cash, prestige and bragging rights.
JAFI, the quasi-government body responsible for Aliyah, plays a part in facilitating the process for all potential Olim world-over. NBN, working solely with those from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., is a nimble, entrepreneurial organization who helps selected Olim integrate into Israeli life.
They both do good. Some services certainly overlap and could possible be eliminated by one or the other. But the prize, being at the forefront of Aliyah from the largest Diaspora community in the world is huge.
So, let’s hope they both get their acts together and come to some type of agreement everyone can live with.
The message to all: we are solidly, especially from the West, in an era of Aliyah By Choice.
Don’t forget: the real stakeholders are the Olim and the State of Israel.
Small Screens, Large Impact
According to a new survey of arts patrons, an increasing number are reading e-mail on their phones. E-mail marketing now has to fit the screen of an iPhone as well as a laptop!
Make sure your messages are keeping up with the preferences of your customers. More at Patron Technology Blog.
Where’s Waldo (aka Yossi)?
I finally caught up with Yossi Abramowitz last night. If you remember, he was the energetic CEO of Jewish Family and Life who resigned two years ago to move to the Negev and sort-of retire.
Or for those of you in a different demographic, his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman is the sister of Sarah.
We were part of a small host group of Israeli bloggers invited to meet with the visiting American Internet gurus here for a whirlwind trip to attend an Innovation Israel blogging expedition. Rebecca Markowitz, from illuminea (eJewish Philanthropy’s web marketing consultants), wrote a great post for IsraelPlug on the visit.
Back to Yossi, I know many of you wonder what he could possibly be doing way down there on Kibbutz Ketura. If you know him, even by reputation, you know he doesn’t sit still. In his own words:
“So about 24 hours after going into semi-retirement in the middle of nowhere, an idea, and eventually a company was born.”
For all of Yossi’s latest doings, check out Peoplehood.org; today’s post will give you a pretty good update.
More About Blogs
Implementing and maintaining a successful blog may be the most critical aspect of your online fundraising efforts. There are many reasons a non-profit should host a blog. For fundraising, there are a few basic reasons why blogging makes sense:
- Blog Readers are an Ideal Audience - The typical blog reader is young, wealthy, active, and influential. Blog readers are 11 percent more likely than the average Internet user to have incomes of or greater than $75,000. (Clickz.com)
- Continuous Communications Leads to Continuous Donation - Blogs offer the element of human interaction and constant communication needed to truly drive home your organization’s goals and objectives. Staff members will be more informed and motivated, and supporters will become lively, engaged, and ready to contribute.
read the complete article here
Seeking Ways to Keep Young Workers
According to a recent article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy…
As nonprofit groups increasingly compete with business and government employers to attract young workers, many people in their 20s and 30s are pressing charities to improve salaries, offer greater opportunities for career development, and do more to promote the diversity of their work forces.
In follow-up conversation to a survey of 1,650 released by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network last year, which found burnout and low salaries threatening to drive young charity workers away, members of the group held a conference to discuss how they can bring about changes that will reshape nonprofit organizations in ways that make them more inclusive and give greater opportunities to emerging leaders.
read the complete article here
Online Fundraising In 2008: Can We Blink Yet?
The Internet may not have turned out to be everything charities (and the rest of the world) thought it would be 10 years ago. However, Harry Lynch, CFRE, chief executive officer of Sanky Communications in New York, reminds fundraisers that they shouldn’t forget what the Internet has become—especially for groups most likely to give.
“Back in ancient times—say around 1998—we all knew that the Internet was going to take over the world. Remember that? How obsolete and uncool was everything else, including every other fundraising medium and method, about to become?
It wasn’t to be, of course. Not even close, in fact. Yet even the naysayers, who have a decade’s worth of history and hindsight on their side, would do well to stop and take note of just how far we have come in just 10 short years.
The approximately 50-fold increase in the amount of money being raised online over the last decade is eye-popping. While the Internet may still represent less than 4 percent of the nearly $300 billion being donated annually in the United States, if the rates of growth hold up, well, you do the math.
Of course, there’s also the often-overlooked fact of who is now online. Fully one-third of people over 65 (READ: those most philanthropically inclined) are now active on the Internet. Plus, nearly three-quarters of those in the 50–64 age group (i.e. the folks making the most money) are going online regularly. That degree of Internet penetration among older adults is wildly ahead of what was projected just a few years ago.
There’s just no doubt about it: The future of online fundraising is clearly very bright—and very, very complicated.”
click here for the complete article.
Putting The Donor First: Blogging Edition
Has your non-profit taken the the next step and started posting to a blog?
If so, do you find yourself looking for readers and subscribers? The same fundraising principle that advocates putting the donor first can also be applied to blogging.
Blog about subjects that your potential readers/donors are interested in.
In the words of David from JournalMarketing,
“Promote yourself by shutting up” … not literally of course, but this means less self promotion and more talk about topics your donors will find interesting.
This may mean not writing about your organizations’ latest project or donation drive, but it could mean writing about a current event that your donors are most likely following closely.
Don’t know what holds your readers attention? Now is a good time to find out! Start posting and see what posts get the most clicks by using a blog statistic tracking program such as the free service offered by Feeedburner.com. Thanks to Donor Power Blog for the inspiration.
Yoav Kaufman, is a List Manager with Negev Direct Marketing Inc.
The Pesach Rap
I first met Matt Barr last summer at the opening night event for the inaugural season of the cutting edge Creative Zionism incubator. I admit it; I just could not get my head around his concept of using rap to teach Bible stories. Was I wrong!
Almost a year later, Matt has a CD in production, studies at Pardes, works with visiting Birthright Israel groups, is preparing for a tour this summer of Jewish summer camps and produced the Haman’s Song video.
And now, just in time for Pesach, Matt, together with 12Tribe Films Foundation, introduces a new video titled “Moses Rap”.
You can find the words here.
Creative Zionism II, premiers in about nine weeks. I, for one, am looking forward to meeting the new ‘Fellows” and watching the development of the exciting new initiatives that will surely be born this summer in Jerusalem.
Do You Have a Blog Policy?
Or, do all organizations with a blog need a policy?
How do you determine when a nonprofit blogging policy is needed?
How do organizations create policies?
Here’s a story from behind the firewall of a large nonprofit organization - the names and particulars have been changed - but here’s how the blogging process unfolded:
As the organization’s blogger, I facilitated creating the policy. There was/is a lot of fear about encouraging the use of social media in our ranks, so it seemed like a doable first step. Laying down rules makes everyone think they have more control and it helped everyone to feel better. My ulterior motive was to send the message that using social media is ok and even good for our institution. The more we tell our story, the more the public can understand our mission.
In truth, the policy (a term I’m discouraged from using since we can’t really create a policy about what employees do or say on their own time - we use “guidelines”) is quite vague. It goes on for a while but really just says, “Use common sense and please don’t say stupid stuff. In fact, we’d love it if you told your personal institutional story in a constructive way.”
To my knowledge, no one had ever told employees that they were allowed to talk about their job before. I think many were even scared to do it. Since we often operate in sensitive areas, most rules prohibit discussing specific client relations, etc. This opened the door for more transparency and handed more control of the message over to the employees and volunteers the organization belongs to.
I draft the policy and then it got handed around to pretty much all our many employees for edits and approval. It was about a 6 month process to getting it approved and distributed.
So, is a blogging or social networking/media policy just a matter of cut and paste and edit similar web site policies, accepted use policies, and other types of technology related internal policies? Or is there a value in having the discussion?
