The proliferation of the Internet is creating a new type of constituent that carries a different set of behaviors and opens a door to a larger group of potential fundraisers. Nonprofits know that the most engaged constituents can become some of the most successful fundraisers for the organization.
According to Debbie Snyder, vice president professional services for Kintera in San Diego, the trick is capturing these online constituents, converting them to supporters, then converting the supporters to donors before finally converting donors to fundraisers. Avid Internet users are also more likely to share information with others online and the number of ways in which they can do it has grown substantially in recent years. There are a number of online resources to help an organization encourage online participation from its constituent base.
The first obvious tool is social networking. It has been all the rage lately and gotten a lot of publicity. It’s easy, free, and people are doing it. Social networking may not be a gold mine of donations, but it is a successful way for organizations to educate the public about its mission and cause.
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Great post on online fundraising. Advanced Solutions International (www.advosol) just put out a list of best practices for P2P fundraising (not promoting a tool, but how to integrate them into campaigns). What do you and your readers think of these?
1. Integrate peer-to-peer fundraising into your current fundraising strategies. Inventory your current communications tactics (email, physical mailers, website, etc.) and examine the messaging. Has it been watered down to reach many different audiences? Through peer-to-peer campaigns, you maintain the core messaging but enable your donors to personalize the message for their own networking and recruitment efforts.
2. Introduce online events to the list of ways a donor can help. A-thon-based events can be launched and managed online far quicker, with less overhead cost, than multi-location physical events. Peer-to-peer Internet-based events eliminate the need to physically go to an event, allowing participation from across the globe, right from their computers.
3. Identify campaign ‘champions’ and give them the tools to rapidly expand the donor network. Take the time to find your top supporters, reach out to them first and show them how to use peer-to-peer tools. Once they understand how easy it is for them to create their own personalized campaign website, carrying their own messaging, they will be able to reach out to their networks far quicker, and with no added costs.
4. Understand, motivate and thank your donors. In peer-to-peer fundraising, you can easily focus on keeping your participants involved in the campaign by quickly sending them personalized automated emails that provide fundraising tips, solicitation reminders, encouragement and your gratitude. Traditional means of communicating with donors are costly, time intensive and slow.
5. Create friendly competition and build individual and team incentives into your campaigns. Create accurate, real-time responsive leader boards that allow campaign champions to see how their fundraising efforts stack up against fellow champions. Offer prizes to the top fundraisers and top teams. Encourage team captains to motivate their team members and offer them easy ways of communicating within their team.
6. Reduce unnecessary administrative efforts from each campaign. Peer-to-peer tools automate many administrative functions of fundraising programs. Donor communications becomes automated, personalized donor websites can be created by the donors themselves, tax records and receipts are automatically generated and distributed. By using online-based events, the costs and coordination associated with physical venues is eliminated.
7. Automate your donor acquisition strategy. Peer-to-peer tools that fully integrate with your donor management systems will allow you to capture new donor information and donation habits. By allowing your donors to create their own online networks, all donors that interact with those personalized websites can be captured, collecting money and expanding your database at the same time.