We welcome back Paul Jolly, Director of Jump Start Growth, Inc., a nonprofit fundraising and consultancy in Washington DC. Today, Paul tells about the importance of breaking the donor-donation barrier. Many good therapists will tell you your achievements are limited only by your attitude. Organizations, as well as individuals, may have a mindset that limits what they […]
#HOWTO: Establish A Tumblr Account & Why You Should Do So (VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUXnDZUcQY[/embed]
A while back we talked about the blogging platform Tumblr, and the series got a great deal of response from you our audience, and we really appreciate your interest and feedback! We want to step up that earlier discussion with a series of video how-tos that will show you a Tumblr account, what can be […]
#VIDEO: Rob Wu of Causevox Tells Us About Developments In Online Fundraising (Part II)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cliy6mWf-30[/youtube]
Last month we posted our first interview with Rob Wu, co-founder of the online fundraising and social-media platform Causevox. We wanted to talk with him because Causevox rolled out the latest version of its platform late last year. Our conversation proved so interesting that we couldn’t contain it in one post, so today we bring […]
#WEBSITE: Let’s Talk About Soaps Website Launched
The Challenge: Hemmy Productions, a television production company based in New York City, needed a website to promote its fundraiser — a live broadcast event where soap stars, past and present, will come together to raise money and build awareness for soap starts suffering from cancer. The live event will be in support of the […]
#DEVELOPMENT: How Much Cash Is Required To Land A Donation?
How often do nonprofits reach out to donors potential and actual online, yet have no real sense of how successful the outreach was? Did the time and money spent developing a program or launching a campaign prove to be worth the support? Dan Norris, founder of the online-analytics service Informly offers a tool to help […]
#PHILANTHROPY: #Sundance & A3 Foundation Extend Cooperation for Asian-American Artists
Though the Initial Public Offering of Facebook devolved into comic fodder last May, the fact remains that it made many people quite wealthy − especially those who had been working with Zuckerberg’s company from the early days. A number of those who cashed out their stocks and jobs at the social-network giant have since turned toward […]
#FUNDRAISING: Resources To Find Grants For Your Nonprofit’s 2013 Budget
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTueYeGruKk[/youtube]
Maybe the federal government won’t ever work up or agree to a budget to cover an entire fiscal year, but your nonprofit has to. The 2012-2013 fiscal year is already on many organizations’ calendars, and certainly the final sprint to the holiday donation-giving season is upon us. But along with the money, time, and goodwill […]
#DEVELOPMENT: Do You Have Big Plans For Your Big Data? Not So Fast…
The latest buzz concept is ‘Big Data.’ Like most buzz concepts/ words, its definition leaves much up to the mouth of the speaker. Big Data, whatever the specifics, refers to the large amount of information that can be collected from online activity and exchange of information (on social networks, for example). The ability to aggregate […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: Politicians & NonProfits Need Agility With Online Outreach
As the Democratic ‘nominee’ Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech last night in Charlotte, NC, a record number of tweets on politics were sent out − some 52,756 tweets-per-minute (tpm) being posted as he wound up. By contrast, Mitt Romney inspired 14,289 tpm, which was about half as many as reactions to Michelle Obama’s presentation two […]
#FUNDRAISING: Presidential Candidates Ramp Up Mobile Giving
With the (delayed) start of the Republican Convention in Tampa earlier this week, the really officially serious campaign season starts. For the next 10-odd weeks, most American start to focus on the candidates, their platforms, and their messages. There has been much talk about the low level of discourse that has driven the campaign thus […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Sweat The Details, But Focus On The Big Picture
Ever feel like your nonprofit or small business is doing some pretty interesting stuff online to share the really interesting stuff you are doing in the real world − but no one seems to be hearing you? You are not alone in having those feelings, especially on a Monday − on a week that sees back-to- […]
#PROAGING: Technology Can Encourage Socialization & Longevity
Perhaps the greatest gift of life is the ability to share many its aspects with others. We have communication skills and empathies that can enliven mundane tasks and reinforce the greater joys and tragedies of the human experience. As social beings, we seek out these shared experiences from our earliest infancy to our later golden […]
#COMMUNICATIONS: Pinterest Goes Public Though Gender Gap Remains
The big but unheralded news in social networks this past week was the fact that Pinterest went public − not an IPO, but the hitherto ‘by invitation only’ site is now available to anyone who wants to establish an account. Facebook started that way lo those six or seven years ago. How has Pinterest fared? […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: What Are You Doing To Improve Impact Of Your Facebook Page?
So your nonprofit or charity has its requisite Facebook page up. You’re posting updates and tweeting about upcoming events. All fine-and-good (and important). But what else could you be doing to energize your Facebook presence? Let’s face it, Facebook has hit some hard times recently. Even before the public IPO Facebook was one of the […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Let’s Check In With Foursquare For Nonprofits
We have talked about Foursquare, the social network and geo-tagging software that offers opportunities to share your experiences at businesses and organizations of all types. The platform is a comparative newcomer, having been launched by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai in 2009. But as of this April its membership has swelled to over 50 million. […]
#MARKETING: Build Your Search Engine Marketing Strategy With Solid Search Engine Optimization
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6–NfGKbsA[/youtube]
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) includes numerous tools and plug-ins that help (first) web crawlers and algorythems find your organization’s website, so that human web searchers can then find your site via Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc. Optimization means (in part) key words are placed in specific parts of the website’s code and banners to ensure that […]
#PROAGING: Majority Of Senior Citizens Online & Many More Using E-Readers
The fine folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project marked a notable milestone in the history of electronic communications this past spring: “53% of American adults ages 65 and older use the internet or email. Though these adults are still less likely than all other age groups to use the internet, the latest […]
#GRANTS: The Lawrence Foundation Can Help Your Environmental Or Health Program
In our ongoing periodic series on sources for grants, we have focused on foundations tied to the great tech companies of our day. In this installment we present a foundation not obviously linked to that sector of the economy, though in fact it is intimately entwined. The Lawrence Foundation was established by Jeff Lawrence and […]
#DEVELOPMENT: Social-Networking Is Good, But Conversation-Building Is Better
Difficult to say that social networks have already grown to be mature means of communication. Moreover, some platforms shoot wide and far (vis Facebook for everyone), while others target a specific subset of the social-media community (vis Epernicus for the scientific community). Figuring out how to negotiate those platforms can seem daunting. But we have […]
#FUNDRAISING: The Holiday Season For Donations Begins Now. Ready?
The pools are open and busy. The grill has cooled down since the July-4th Picnic. The MLB All-Star Game is tonight. It’s July. One of the traditional/old-fashioned ways to disrupt the heat is to hold a “Christmas in July” party, and your nonprofit or charity should be having one. Why? To celebrate the good work […]
#COMMUNICATIONS: In Outreach, Less Can Be More If You Avoid 3 Common Mistakes
With the still-growing panoply of social-networking platforms out there, one can easily feel overwhelmed with trying to keep up with all the hottest topics on the coolest sites. To add to the pressure, each new platform has its own subset of skills to master, which requires time and energy you thought you’d spend raising donor […]
#COMMUNICATIONS: Break The Sound Barrier To Encourage A Conversation
We welcome back Paul Jolly, Director of Jump Start Growth, Inc., a nonprofit fundraising and consulting firm in Washington DC. Today, Paul tells about the importance of breaking the sound barrier. Back in 1947, US Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket/plane. Fighter jets break the barrier with […]
#TECH: Why & How To Send One Text Message To Your Nonprofit’s Constituents
Ever more people want to communicate with their mobile devices, and they want to communicate on their mobile devices with text messaging. The distinction between those under about 25 and those older is striking − with the under 25s responding to emails, and even aural phone messages, with text. But even those who actually make calls […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Facebook Stocks Being Sold Off & Facebook Accounts Not Expanding
The saga that is the Facebook IPO continues. Wall Street took a break from claiming to be the US Economy yesterday, but as of lunchtime this Tuesday, stock in the uber-social network fell below $30 for the first time. The brouhaha surrounding the IPO has largely concerned possible fraud or withholding of information from public […]
#COMMUNICATIONS: The Number One Way To Gain Site Or Blog Readership Is…
If your nonprofit or your charity has any online presence at all, you want readers to engage your content, click through the link(s), visit the site, and get involved with money and/or time. If you are a blog writer, you want pretty much the same, though gifts might also/instead mean advertising dollars because so many […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: LinkedIn’s Value As Networking Platform Far Bigger Than Mere Numbers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzT3JVUGUzM[/youtube]
Whether they put skin in the game or not, everyone has been watching the Facebook IPO for the last week or so. The stock has only fallen from its $38-a-share launch, and though its price seems to have stabilized around $32 in the last day or so, the company is being sued over ‘selective disclosure’ […]
#GRANTS: Dell Computers & Dell Foundation Offer Resources For Youth & Environment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnJom7my0J4[/youtube]
Dell Computers was founded in 1984 in Austin Texas and it became a worldwide leader in online sales of MSDOS/Windows/x86 computers within a decade. Michael and Susan Dell established their foundation in 1999 in an effort to present their booming company as a corporate citizen. The efforts of the foundation are to multiply the work […]
#FUNDRAISING: Maximizing Your Organization’s Return on Fundraising Events
We are pleased to welcome back Susan Emfinger of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. For her previous posts on institutional fundraising, please click here. In today’s post, I ask readers to imagine a world in which fundraising staff and programmatic work closely together with a variety of “programmatic” events in order to expose the […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: Online Communication Is A Team Sport
Difficult not to start this post with a shout-out to the Baltimore Orioles, who beat the Red Sox at Fenway last night after 17 innings. One of the best of the many anomalies of the game is the fact that the O’s Designated Hitter, Chris Davis went 0-for-8, with 5 strikeouts − and was the winning pitcher, […]
#SM4MP: Must Nonprofits Redefine ROI When Developing Social Networks?
When most of us, individuals and nonprofit organizations, consider social networks, we first think of Facebook. The 800-pound gorilla is said to be worth billions, and its membership grows close to a billion world-wide. For nonprofits, establishing a Facebook page seems a no-brainer. Features like Timeline, which we have outlined, allow organizations of all kinds […]
#HOWTO: Efficiently Monitor Your Organization’s Busy Social Networks
So many claims on the time of a nonprofit staff, and only so many hours in the work day. We might be temped to carry our work home with us, but aren’t the lines between work and family already blurred enough? If you want efficient tools for monitoring and updating your business’s social media, we’d like […]
#PHILANTHROPY: What Might Inspire People To Give To Your Charity?
The year’s fundraising drives are laid out before you and your colleagues. The sting of the Great Recession still hurst most Americans, even if the stinger is gone. The prospects can look intimidating. Even though your charity or nonprofit does good work and has the track record to prove it, this moment might be a […]