Online Fundraising in a Troubled Economy

Our country's economic woes are most likely affecting many organization's online donations, but it's still difficult to tell. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University reports that 74% of donations to charities in 2007 stem from individual gifts, according to a CNN article published yesterday. No doubt online fundraisers will start to see some dips not usually associated with September and October, months where online giving is typically up from the August malaise. But, are online fundraisers affected and how will this affect year-end giving? It's unclear. Changing Our World's report on The Economy, Fundraising, and Philanthropy shows that-- historically, at least-- giving won't be affected as much. A recent poll by the Online Fundraising Blog shows that 70% of poll responders are giving as much or more as they did last year.

Of course, recent news and the upcoming elections may give history a new chapter. So if the series of economic events sends ripples through the sector and you indeed hit a slowdown, what can you do? How can you avoid a drop-off?

Communicate.

Your press releases, blog posts, newsletters, social network posts, Tweets, online ads, Google ads, everything you do can promote that despite the economic downturn, you are still providing services and programs for your constituents. The benefactors of your services still need those services and the people who have shown any interest in your organization over the years need to know that you're still out there, doing good.

Don't be shy: address the economic downturn. Let people know that your services are needed now more than ever because of the economic crisis. Promote the advantages of giving (tax-deduction, incentive gifts, benefactor services, good will). Offer special online giving levels that donors haven't seen before (a $35 or $45 gift levels, perhaps a new incentive). Create more honor/memorial gift opportunities for the upcoming holidays and offer more ways for people to make these gifts. Get creative with your success stories and appeals to address the economy.

The point is not to hide because of this crisis. Your online donations may likely take a downturn, but it shouldn't be a sheer drop-off. You need to be out there, with your ask, in an honest, transparent manner. Let your constituents know that your organization's programs and services are needed now more than ever.

Other Links:

• Network For Good: Key Components for Fundraising in a Downturn Economy
• NTEN: Five Tactics to Rev Up Fundraising in a Down Economy
• Online Fundraising Blog: A Way Out

Interview with Cathy Davidson and David Goldberg – the Scoop on the Digital Media and Learning Competition

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Cathy N. Davidson and David  Theo Goldberg of  HASTAC (Pronounced "Haystack," Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) about their work organizing the 2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition, accepting applications until October 15th.

The competition is a collaboration between the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and HASTAC, which is centered jointly at the John Hope Franklin Center  Interdisciplinary and International Studies at Duke University and the University of California Humanities Research Institute based in Irvine.  This year the Competition will be awarding $2 million in prizes supporting learning entrepreneurs, educators, communicators, and innovators who use new technologies to envision the future of participatory learning. This year’s Competition also includes a special award targeted to U.S. applicants aged 18-25, the Young Innovator’s Awards.

Here’s what Cathy and David had to share with onPhilanthropy in our interview.

Tell us about yourselves.

We started HASTAC in order to encourage critical discussion and promote the creative design and application of digital technology for the humanities, arts and social sciences. The HASTAC network has grown into a swirling organization that today includes more than 80 organizations.

How did the partnership come about and what has the collaboration process been like?

We first met when Cathy was on a search committee for a new director of the University of California's Humanities Research Center.  David became the Director as a result of that search and we began working with one another soon after.  We started HASTAC together in 2002.

Our partnership with the MacArthur Foundation started when they approached us to write a White Paper on the future of learning institutions and the age of Digital Technology.  We wrote a draft and posted it on the Institute for the Future of the Book collaborative site where anyone who wanted could offer feedback. Those efforts led to a research paper that the MacArthur Foundation will publish and then a full-length book to be published by MIT Press. 

HASTAC operates as a virtual organization so we work intimately with all kinds of digital learning tools. Our teams participate online and build off each other all the time. Email is our lifeline, we work in BaseCamp, and we use twitter and Facebook as well. One of the strongest underpinnings of our ability to work virtually in this way is that almost every virtual organization benefits from the presumptive understanding of existing relationships.  We also have an Information Commons, called “Needle,” on the hastac.org site.

How did you settle on the theme of participatory learning?

We saw a cluster or projects within last year’s winners that were already using digital forums for collaborative thinking and learning. We plucked that one strand out to see what people would invent and what might come next.

We were especially drawn to the contrast of traditional learning with more decentralized modes of learning. Our concern was to spotlight the ways people increasingly are using collaborative forums to participate with each other, particular among young people.

onPhilanthropy is home to the FLiP network - Future Leaders in Philanthropy. What is the thinking behind this year’s Young Innovator’s Awards and how what was the process in opening the competition to international applicants?

This year we aimed to expand our reach to encourage more youth and international involvement, by developing the Young Innovator award and piloting limited international eligibility for our Innovation in Participatory Learning Award.

Many young adults have a strong grasp of the potential of digital media and we wanted to recognize that and encourage it. With the Young Innovator award we hope to encourage youth to think about what comes next in participatory learning and then contribute to making it happen. We want enable youth to take their most visionary ideas from the "garage" to the marketplace, encouraging the development of the next "big thing" in digital learning and collaboration, be it the next twitter, or the next Facebook, or something that has not even yet been envisioned! 

In terms of introducing the international component for the Innovation in Participatory Learning award, there is a challenge of reaching people whose connectivity may be more limited. Last year, there were four to five projects that partnered with team members abroad. There is a lot of complication of doing things internationally, so unfortunately, we weren’t able to open eligibility to all countries this year. We hope to expand next year.

This year’s eligible countries--Canada, India, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Nigeria, The People's Republic of China, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States—are nations where MacArthur or HASTAC had existing relationships. In a way, the odd mix of countries at this point is a good thing, since each country brings its own level of complexity and unique red tape, so the diversity of that experience will help us to learn more going forward.

I see there is a HASTAC Facebook Group and Ning instance. What role has social media played in your project? What has your strategy been?

We've been using a lot of social media to get the word out about the Competition this year. A lot of the web coverage we've received has been cultivated from personal contacts and our own social network. We have benefitted from a lot of virtual introductions. We've learned a great deal about social networking in the process, and publicizing the Competition has itself become an exercise in participatory learning.

Building a social network is all about trust really, everyone gets spammed, so we made sure our targeted efforts got us where we’d be relevant. Additionally, we created an online Seesmic vlog-vlog forum between one of last year's winners, social networking guru Howard Rheingold and the HASTAC Scholars that explored the theme of the Competition. We continue to participate in various social network sites, have created a Facebook event page, and have established our twitter presence (join us at http://www.twitter.com/dmlComp). We have a Seesmic forum going on right now on “Metaverses and Scholarly Collaboration” led by one of our graduate student HASTAC Scholars Ana Boa-Ventura.   

What did you learn from organizing the competition last year? And what can we expect from your next collaboration?

Last year, we didn't remotely anticipate how large the response would be. We ultimately wound up with 1010 applications in all with over 250 of them being submitted within two hours of the deadline.

Currently, we’re starting a resource hub called Futures of Learning, focusing on the ways people are adopting digital media and the innovative work that institutions are doing to use new media for different purposes.

Think you have a worthwhile idea? Take the plunge! You can still apply to the competition. What opportunities do you see for integrating digital media into philanthropic efforts?

Mobility is Moving In

Since practically everyone has a cell phone these days, it’s no real surprise that they’re becoming useful campaign tools. With mobile texting becoming as popular as email, phone texting list would be just as valuable as an email list.  Two ways to use mobile phones to increase your campaign are to take donations via text message and to increase your outreach list to include text messaging alongside your email and print campaigns.

One of the most important drivers to a campaign is to keep the people involved and up to date.  They want to know what is happening and be a part of the process as much as possible, this is part of what compels them to get involved in the first place.  The idea of sending a text message about a campaign is actually the same concept as using email, you want to give the person a way to stay connected.

By using print media, online forms, and email, you can inform people how to sign up and allow them to opt-in to receive the text messages.  Once the person has signed up for the list they can send and receive text messages about campaign updates in the same fashion as email, to include RSS feeds sent directly to text if so desired.

This brings me to the next part, using the same method as well as the list it generates to increase donations for your campaign.  By working with someone like the Mobile Giving Foundation, you can accept donations over the mobile phone. The donations are actually charged by the mobile phone provider so at the time of texting the person dose not need to have a credit card or check book handy to make the donation.  They are limited to taking $5 donations for each mobile donation, up to five times a month, so each person can give $25 a month via their mobile phone. 

This is a great way to reach the younger generation of donors who are becoming ever more tech savvy.  This really came to light when Garth told me that his neighbor told him she never uses her email account, only texting. She referred to him as being old, since he was more of an “email person.”  A conversation with a few friends who work for mobile phone providers has opened my eyes to the amount of people buying unlimited texting plans for their phones.

A great resource for more information on using mobile phones to increase your campaigns potential, check out Mobile Active.

The Holidays Again?! Ugh!

If you look up “procrastination “ in a dictionary, there’s probably a picture of me right there.

With the fall season approaching, so are the holidays, and with the holidays comes the busiest time for non-profits. This is your prime time, and given that, it’s important to not push any preparation back (like you probably did last year). In December 2007, Sea Change Strategies and Care2 published a brief manual titled “Procrastinator's Guide to Year-End Fundraising”. Inside, it goes over 10 solid steps to better online fund raising, and in the following pages it discusses the steps thoroughly. But come on, 10! 10! As a procrastinator myself, steps in double-digit figures are too daunting to warrant the effort- however, for my favorite procrastinating onLine readers, I have martyred myself by reading the ALL 10 steps, and have abridged it to 2 points covered that could vastly improve fund raising online.

1.  Inspire. The manual goes over a great point about the trend of emails often including an ask. Asking for help in an emergency, asking in newsletters, etc. Making every email throughout the year a request for money can hurt you in the season when many give the most. If you’re guilty of this, and have seen donations fall- it may be time to re-inspire. A new online campaign is the “best practice” approach, but it may be good to inspire something unorthodox. For instance, invite your online constituents to choose your cause for the season, or invite them to select from a variety of gifts to reward their donation. Engaging them early, and having something for them to follow and want to come back to your site to find out about can do a lot for your holiday giving- and your online following.

2.  Streamline donation. This second point is a mesh of multiple steps covered in the manual, but they all build on each other. Making an online donation on your web page should be the easiest thing to do. This can be accomplished by making donation buttons easily visible on all pages and creating a simple one-page form for donations. Know that you are better off creating one long page, than 2 short ones.

What about all that useful information about why someone should donate, or about your foundation’s awesome ability to keep administration costs low?

Well, keep them on the side of the donation page- but do not make them clickable! Keep the donors focused, they’re already on the page you want them to be on, why mess that up?

If you’re one of those non-procrastinators and are interested in reading the entire manual, download it here.

Budget Reality for a Redesign

“Budget” - I think this could be one of the most daunting and mysterious words in all of business, whether for-profit or nonprofit. And yes I chuckled at the idea of doing any web site for $300, but the Internet has come a long way and a lot more is possible for a lot less these days. You just have to remember, “you get what you pay for” still holds true.

Let’s just imagine that you’re the communications director, or marketing director, or even a nonprofit CEO and you know it’s time to upgrade your web site – redesign the art, branding, and content to reflect your most current programs, add or enhance online fundraising, expand your email communications, enable more of your constituents to interact online, and possibly even test the social networking waters to see if you can attract more volunteers or increase awareness for your cause.

Where do you even begin with budgeting? Here are some key questions that can affect the budget:

Do I need to hire a consultant or other vendor for this project? Obviously, if your volunteer or paid staff is not able to support a large redesign project, then a third-party will be needed.

Can your current web site technologies support all the features and functionality of the new site? If you’re considering adding or expanding online giving functions, increasing the content available on your site, or hoping to provide easier collection of email addresses, you should review your current publishing platform to see if it will support a larger effort. Based on your needs, you may need to upgrade to a more enhanced platform that integrates content publishing, donations, constituent management, and email into a single system. A new system could well be worth the additional fees if it increases donations and awareness.

Are you doing a complete redesign? A new look generally is not just a single page design. It can involve designing layouts for the home page, the subpages, landing pages, and email templates. And you may hate the first versions you see. Expect pricing to relate to the number of design choices you are initially shown, the number of revision cycles you might be requesting, and the number of individual layouts that will be needed to support one design (home page, subpages, landing pages, etc.).

Who will build it? Creating the design is just one piece. Putting all of the design pieces on the web in HTML or some content management system is an entirely different process. Pricing for this can also be affected by the volume of pages on your site and the technologies already in use – if you’re entire site is a collection of HTML pages that have to be updated individually, then the time it will take will increase publishing fees.

Who will manage it? So you’ll get a wonderful design that may even make you feel like a Nike or Apply-worthy web site, but do you have the resources needed to keep it updated or to manage it? Will current staff need training or will you need new staffing?

Who will come to it? If you’re going to make the effort on a redesign, you need to drive people to your new site to make it worth the investment. Whether it’s including a message in your next direct mail or starting a more concerted online marketing effort, these are fees that you will want to consider when setting the project budget.

As you can see, a redesign project could really mean training or hiring staff, licensing new technologies, and possibly increasing your marketing, all of which can really mean new or additional monthly fees, not a simple one-time fee.

So, it’s easy to see why $300 makes the cartoon so funny. $3,000 gets you a little closer to reality but depending on the overall scope of the project, even that could be worth a chuckle.

To come up with the most realistic pricing, ask any colleagues you have at other organizations who may have done web updates or look for a local consultant who can help you set realistic expectations on the scope of the project and the price.