Insights, tips and tricks for online fundraising - it’s this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants, a weekly blog carnival drawing together some of the best nonprofit news, advice and resources on offer across the blogosphere.

Each week a different host blogger sets a topic for this carnival and other bloggers submit posts on that theme - with the best seven being highlighted on the host’s blog. This week it’s my turn to host and the topic I chose was ‘Insights, tips and tricks for online fundraising’.

So, without further ado, here are seven online fundraising insight, tip and trick posts for you…

1. Starting off with some tips on how to evaluate and utilise Website architecture and and design to boost online fundraising from Jim Killion and Amanda Wasson of is7.

2. Staying with website design, Katya shares some tips from the latest study by Donordigital on what makes a great donation page.

3. And still on websites, for anyone at the early stages of website planning Jason King has posted the handy presentation he gave at the Connecting Up conference in Brisbane on Planning your non-profit’s website.

4. The Care2 folks over at Frogloop have reported on a recent survey that suggests that ‘51% of donors are not at all interested in Social Networks. However, apparently around a third of donors are somewhat or very interested in keeping-up with nonprofits through Social Media - rising to 40% for high level donors. Handy insight for social network fundraisers.

5. In her Nonprofits blog, Joanne Fritz shares some tips derived from UNICEF’s use of social networking and video-sharing sites.

6. For email fundraisers, here are Ten tips from Network for Good to help prevent your emails being deleted.

7. Finally, over at onLine, Garth Moore examines the potential of the new generation of ad funded click-to-donate applications.

That’s it for this week. You can keep track of the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants as it travels around from site to site by subscribing to the Carnival feed.

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants - here next Monday

The Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants is a weekly blog carnival that draws together some of the best nonprofit news, advice and resources on offer across the blogosphere.

Each week a different host blogger sets a topic for the carnival and other bloggers submit posts on that theme - with the best seven being highlighted on the host’s blog.

Next week the Carnival will be stopping-off here at Giving in a digital world again, and the topic for the week will be ‘Insights, tips and tricks for online fundraising’.

So, if you’ve got any research insights or general tips and tricks to share with online fundraisers world-wide - perhaps a new approach that worked especially well for you, or insights into how best to engage with supporters online - then be sure to submit a post here before Monday 26th May.

Easy widget creation - now anyone can make a Facebook App

Ever since Facebook launched its open developers platform almost a year ago Facebook Apps have been all the rage, including a wide range of Apps developed in support of various charities. However, for anyone not especially into software development the idea of creating your own Facebook App may well never have occurred. Where do you start even if you want to have a go?

Well, based on the 30 mins I’ve just spent creating a simple little Facebook App for this blog (which you can add to your Facebook profile with just a couple of clicks here) a good place to start is at Widgetbox. As well as being a place to browse through over 50,000 web widgets, the site also enables you to create your own - through an incredibly easy to follow step-by-step, point-and-click process. There’s even a way to turn your widgets into cash - although I haven’t looked-into that as yet.

It’s free to use and, while the Widget and Facebook App I produced are very simple (actually a Blidget, apparently - a widget carrying a blog feed), if you’ve got more than half an hour to spend learning the ropes then you may well be able to come-up with something more sophisticated.

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants

I chose a broad and much discussed topic for my hosting of this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants: Creating and developing online communities through Web 2.0.

We kick-off with a very useful thought piece, originally guest posted by Beth Kanter on techsoup.org, entitled Determining Your Social Network Needs.

Then it’s over to Katya Andresen and Stacie Mann from Network for Good who offer a handy 11 Steps to success with Social Networking.

Staying with Social Networking, Josh Catone at Read Write Web marks Facebook’s fourth birthday earlier this month with a post considering whether Facebook might become a catalyst for wider social change.

On to a Social Network with a difference, NetSquared generated a load of discussion in response to its recent Think Tank question How Can Nonprofits use Twitter? - including the story of how the American Cancer Society is using twitter to promote its breast cancer research ‘Frozen Pea Fund’!

Joanne Fritz is struck by the potential to use Web 2.0 to engage with large numbers of donors giving small value gifts in her post The Long Tail of Fundraising: how small donations can make a difference.

Then we have a whole host of Web 2.0 Tech Tips from Social Signal - covering everything from blogging, del.icio.us, and RSS to advice on community content.

And finally a post from DonorPowerBlog by my old Seattle-based friend and colleague Jeff Brooks, with some suggestions on how to have Kiva’s problem - namely raising too much money!

That’s it for this week. But you can keep track of the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants as it wends its weekly way across the blogosphere by subscribing to the carnival feed.

Flipping the funnel - the future of fundraising?

Recently I’ve been using an analogy originally promoted by online marketing pioneer Seth Godin to help illustrate how individual donor fundraisers, steeped in traditional direct marketing, need to evolve their thinking to capitalise on the new opportunities being offered by Web 2.0.

In his free to download ebook ‘Flipping the Funnel’ (with a tailored version for nonprofits), he highlights how fundraisers should re-evaluate the traditional approach of funneling high volumes of prospects into a fundraising programme to convert low volumes of supporters.

In Godin’s analogy, when you ‘flip the funnel’ (with the help of Web 2.0 tools) what you end-up with is a megaphone, through which passionate supporters can shout-out to their network of personal contacts on your behalf - overcoming the decline in mass-market appeals and reaching people traditional fundraising communications can’t reach.

In his own words “A new set of online tools makes this approach not just a possibility, but also an imperative for any organization hoping to grow. Give your fan club a megaphone and get out of the way.” I couldn’t agree more!

Blog Carnival coming back to Giving in a Digital World next week

Next Monday, I’ll be hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants here on the new look (and new URL) Giving in a digital world - helping draw together some of the best nonprofit news, advice and resources on offer across the blogosphere.

Each week a different host sets a topic for this international blog carnival and other bloggers submit posts on that theme - with the best seven being highlighted on the host blog.

If you’ve read much of this blog, or seen any of my presentations, then you’ll know that I’m a passionate believer in the potential for nonprofits to use Web 2.0 tools to engage with communities of supporters in new and highly effective ways.

With this in mind, the theme I’ve set for next week is ‘Creating and developing online supporter communities through Web 2.0′ - and I’d love to hear from anyone with a view on what’s working; what’s not working; and what we should watch-out for in the future.

So, if you’ve got something to say about how nonprofits are using any aspect of Web 2.0 to engage with their supporters then please do submit a post here before next Sunday (17th Feb).

Welcome to the new Giving in a Digital World site

Admittedly a little late (due to some minor technical difficulties and my being on vacation for quite a bit of January) but Giving in a Digital World has now moved from its original place within fundraising.co.uk to this new WordPress location.

You’ll still be able to read updates on the latests posts on fundraising.co.uk, but from now-on the main blog will be at this new URL - purely because it makes things a bit easier for me when I’m posting, now that Fundraising UK has shifted to a Drupal platform.

Other than the new URL and presentation format it’s business as usual: news of digital fundraising campaigns from around the world; consumer insights to help support your digital planning; and thoughts on new ways to engage with supporters through digital communications.

As always, if you read anything here that strikes a chord (or a dischord) or if you’ve heard of something that you think should get a mention - then please do make use of the comment functionality to get involved.

Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants coming here next week!

The Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants is a weekly blog carnival hosted by a wide range of bloggers from all around the world, drawing together some of the best nonprofit advice and resources on offer across the blogosphere.

Each week a different host blogger sets a topic for the carnival and other bloggers submit posts on that theme - with the best seven being highlighted on the host’s blog. We can’t promise that fame and fortune will follow selection for the carnival - but sharing your thoughts on a topic in this way will certainly bring a lot of new people to your blog!

Next week, I’ll be hosting the carnival here on Giving in a digital world - and the theme for the week will be “Engaging with supporters through online social networks”.

So, if you’re a blogger with something to say about how nonprofits are using online social networks of any shape or size, be it Facebook, Myspace, Second Life, or whatever… then please do submit a post here before next Monday (26th Nov).

October online fundraising round-up

Another end of month round-up of assorted bits and pieces I spotted during the last few weeks and thought were interesting/handy, but haven’t had time to mention. Hope you find them useful…

Right at the start of the month, UK charity Arthritis Care went live with a new member recruitment campaign using email, direct mail, press, online advertising and an online video diary site. Great to see an organisation with a primarily older audience recognising the potential to engage with them online - and doing so in such an engaging way.

A handy post on Michael Stein’s Nonprofit Internet Strategy blog reminds us of the vital importance of online thank you pages and provides some tips to help make the most of them.

More great hints and tips, this time from Wild Apricot, relating to building a better blog.

A few more, from Seth Godin’s great blog, on how to create a great website (with thanks to my old Seattle colleague Jeff Brooks for mentioning that one).

And finally, some Web 2.0 best practice guidelines from Alex Samuel at Social Signal.

Blog Action Day next Monday

Apparently there are now over 9,000 blogs (including this one) signed-up to take part in the first ever Blog Action Day, next Monday 15th October.

All participating bloggers will be dedicating that day’s posts to things related to the environment. So, if you know of any great online fundraising or campaigning work for environmental organisations that you think should be given a mention then do let me know.