[eJP note: While this post is geared to Israeli amutot and Friends of organizations, the checklist in the conclusion poses good questions all organizations should be asking when deciding to/how to accept online donations.] by Shuey Fogel Online donations are rising every year, becoming an increasingly important fundraising tool for nonprofit organizations. To facilitate the growing demand and varied needs of charities, the number of online donation processors has been expanding accordingly. As a result, charities have expressed their difficulty in sorting through the nuances and assorted extras to find the online solution(s) that’s right for them. For this reason, I was thrilled to co-produce an event early in July that hosted representatives from the leading Online Donation … Continue Reading
The Value of Your Housefile
Online fundraising is the fastest growing channel for nonprofits. … Continue Reading
It’s All About Return on Engagement: Design and Measure It
Last week I spoke at the NYC Social Media for Nonprofits conference on creating and measuring return on engagement. In fact, social media engagement should have been the untitled conference theme. Almost every speaker presented a case study or spoke about his/her use of social media for successful engagement, from how to use video to engage (Charity:Water’s September Birthday campaign) to how to create multi-channel fundraising engagement (Big Duck). And you know what? They’re right. Without engagement, social media ultimately fails. However, you can design your social media activities to create online engagement, which is the focus on my presentation. My conference presentation covered five core concepts about how to design real online engagement for the highest return on … Continue Reading
How to Create a More Social Website
by Debra Askanase (Socialbrite) and Seth Giammanco (Minds on Design Lab) If you’re considering revamping your website to include social elements like the Facebook Like button, streaming from YouTube, or adding information from a social site through its API, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. There are many ways to “get social,” and so many reasons for doing so. Primarily, it’s about creating a fundamentally engaging experience for the website visitor that brings them closer to your organization. The process of considering how to get social starts with considering goals. Why integrate social into your website? Ask yourself: what do you want to accomplish for your organization using social media? Having a goal seeks to address why you might want to make your website … Continue Reading
Engagement Focus of Mobile Technology
Fewer nonprofits are using text-to-give fundraising technology, while more are turning to mobile web-based media, with constituent-engagement emerging as the main motivation for nonprofits to launch mobile programs, a new report says. Forty-seven percent of nonprofits using mobile media do not use it for fundraising, and as many as 50 percent of fundraisers say they are wary of early mobile-giving results, says New Directions, a report by Kaptivate and the Association of Fundraising Professionals based on a 2011 survey of 233 organizations. Seventy percent of nonprofits responding to the survey report growing interest in their organizations for adopting mobile media, and over 20 percent use mobile media solely to engage supporters or other key constituencies. The percentage of nonprofits … Continue Reading
Facebook Group or Private Social Network for Synagogues?
by Rabbi Jason Miller In my last year of rabbinical school, I had an interesting conversation with a rabbi of a large congregation. He told me that he had put his foot down and refused to let his congregation create a synagogue-wide email LISTSERV. His rationale? This forum would be used by the membership to complain about the synagogue... and the rabbi. I gently suggested to my future colleague that if his members were going to use an email discussion group to complain about the congregation, they were likely already doing this in real-time at kiddush (the reception following services). He laughed and acknowledged I was correct. I'm sure that in the ensuing years he acquiesced and allowed for an email LISTSERV. Developed in 1986 by Eric Thomas, LISTSERV was the first email list software … Continue Reading
The iWalk Mobile Challenge
by Jeremy Otto United Jewish Appeal, one of Canada’s largest charities, ran a live event mobile contest during its annual community fundraiser. UJA’s Walk with Israel, held on May 29, 2011 has raised close to $530,000 to date; 85% of which was generated from peer-to-peer solicited online donations. More than 12,000 Torontonians who participated in the Walk were asked to take part in this pilot initiative called the ‘iWalk Mobile Challenge,’ for their chance to win a $250 Apple gift card. The goal of the contest was to engage a ‘captive’ audience of tech-savvy fundraisers throughout the Walk’s downtown route and raise awareness for the cause. Young and old alike were greeted by large signs at registration tables asking them to either scan a QR code or browse to an optimized … Continue Reading
Providing Real-Time Information to Stakeholders
Technology has changed the game. Be it as a news resource, a program or service provider, or just interacting with your friends on FaceBook, we live in an on-demand, 24/7 world. And, in such an environment, the question continuously arises, how does an organization best serve its stakeholders and advance their mission? The PresenTense Group has come up with one way through the launch of their PT Investor website - an online resource restricted to their funders and investors, that increases transparency by providing real-time information to this group of stakeholders. According to PT's Aharon Horwitz, "PresenTense strives to be highly transparent to its community - our quarterlies, budgets and work-plans are available for the public at-large. The investor portal includes those things as well as … Continue Reading
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