You got to give it to the social good entrepreneurs. Seemingly every week a new fundraising or cause awareness tool hits the Web for nonprofits to experiment with, and though donation processing fees must be applied or ads sold for these social enterprises to be sustainable, it’s clear that their motives are altruistic. That said, here are six new...
People are often surprised when I say that if given the choice, I would choose 10,000 e-Newsletter subscribers over 10,000 Followers on Twitter, 10,000 Fans on Facebook, or 10,000 Friends on Foursquare… combined. Any day of the week and without hesitation. And though some reports claim that email use is dropping, others claim its use is steady and even...
Last year’s list of nonprofit holiday gift programs has been getting a lot traffic over the last two weeks thanks to Google searches. In addition to all those wonderful programs, I wrote up 11 more for 2010. Please use your purchasing power wisely and with compassion this holiday season by giving gifts that benefit nonprofits and make the world...
“A survey of 200 charity and foundation professionals revealed that nonprofits are finding it difficult to determine how valuable social media tools are for their organizations. Seventy-nine percent said they hadn’t found ways to do so.” – Chronicle of Philanthropy, November 12, 2009 For those 79% of nonprofits out there, I have listed 10 social media metrics below that...
1. Social media fundraising is built upon and empowered by the GuideStar database. 2. All 501c3’s in the United States have profiles on GuideStar. 3. Network for Good uses the GuideStar database to distribute online donations made on their website and on their partner websites. 4. Network for Good has partnered with Change.org, Razoo, Facebook Causes and Give...
If you are reading this now, then of the world’s 6.8 billion people, you are likely one of the lucky ones. You have Internet access, a computer, a roof over your head, and likely planning some holiday shopping this year. By spending consciously, your consumer power can change the world. Did you know that in the United States more...
Recent studies have revealed that the vast majority of nonprofits do not know how to measure ROI (Return on Investment) from utilizing social media. Below are 5 simple, low-cost ways nonprofits can measure ROI with a minimal time investment of only a couple of hours a month. 1. Monitor your website traffic. During the Era of Web 1.0, nonprofits...
Since the popular Facebook fundraising App Causes was built using GuideStar’s database of nonprofits in the United States and Canada, only nonprofits in the U.S. and Canada can utilize Causes’ fundraising tools. There are some amazing nonprofits at the grassroots working miracles daily with relatively small amounts of cash, but unfortunately, since no international database of verified nonprofits exists,...
A few weeks ago I was at a fundraising event that had a silent auction. So many fabulous items had been donated, but unfortunately bidders could only pay in cash or by check. I haven’t had more than $5 in my pocket for years and I can’t even remember the last time I carried a checkbook with me. So,...
Over the last few years we’ve heard a lot of discussion about nonprofits and their use “Web 2.0” and social media. Much of the focus has been on the fundraising tools themselves … What are they? How do they work? Do they work? But very little analysis has been made about how Web 2.0 donors are different. I am...