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.

Online Fundraising and the Hype Cycle

The other day I got chatting with a colleague about the ‘Hype Cycle’, used by technology consultancy Gartner to illustrate the adoption of technologies through the lifecycle of hype, disappointment and (in some cases) the eventual delivery of practical benefits. As shown in the chart above, the Hype Cycle comprises 5 phases:

1. Technology Trigger: the breakthrough, product launch, or other event that generates significant press and interest.

2. Peak of Inflated Expectations: A frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

3. Trough of Disillusionment: Technologies fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and technology.

4. Slope of Enlightenment: Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the ’slope of enlightenment’ and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

5. Plateau of Productivity: A technology reaches the ‘Plateau of productivity’ as its benefits become widely distributed and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

In the light of all of the current discussion about the potential for Social Media (aka Web 2.0) to deliver real benefits for fundraisers (aka Community Fundraising 2.0) this got me thinking about just where different aspects of online fundraising are on the Hype Cycle - a useful thing to consider if you’re in the process of planning any mid to long-term online fundraising activity.

On the ascendancy between technology trigger and peak of expectations we have things like Twitter - the micro-blogging social network that is generating a load of discussion at the moment but not, as far as I can tell, as yet being linked to any significant fundraising activity.

Just past the peak and on the brink of tipping into the trough of disillusionment there is fundraising in virtual worlds. I still remain convinced that at some point in the future some form of 3D virtual environments will become commonplace for everyday transactions like retail and fundraising. However, despite the interest in the American Cancer Society Second Life Relay for Life and various other Second Life non-profit initiatives last year, I think we’ve got quite a long way to go in the meantime.

Then, some place between the peak of expectations, the trough of disillusionment, and the slope of enlightenment (depending on who you ask) we have fundraising widgets and social networks. Anyone still needing convincing of the fundraising opportunity offered by the latter need only take a look at the Hitwise data from last year which shows how social networks are taking over from email as the primary drivers of traffic to key sponsored event fundraising site justgiving.com. There’s still a lot of testing to be done, but I don’t think it’ll be too long before widgets and social networks arrive on the plateau of productivity and begin to significantly out-perform the ‘old school’ of email as the drivers of online fundraising income.

Online fundraising benchmarking study - how well is your email activity performing?

The 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study has just been released by M+R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network, and contains a wealth of data which will be of real interest to you if you’re involved in online fundraising or campaigning.

Covering everything from click-through and conversion rates (by cause) to how much you might expect your email list to churn, it provides some really valuable data to help benchmark your own organisation’s performance. As an update of an equivalent report released back in 2006, it also provides insight into how performance against key metrics is changing over time.

The findings are based on the analysis of data from 21 US nonprofits involved in online fundraising and campaigning, but seem to tally well with the equivalent data I see for the range of UK charities I work with.

The report is free to download here.

Anyone know of an equivalent report for any other countries - or interested in contributing data to a broader benchmarking study? Let me know.

Crisis ‘Send a Singer’ Christmas online fundraising campaign hits its £1m target

Back at the end of October I wrote about an innovative online corporate fundraising campaign that our team at WWAV Rapp Collins had just developed for homelessness charity Crisis.

Based around the microsite Sendasinger.com, the idea was for companies to replace their traditional Christmas cards with video e-cards of carols sung by choirs made-up of folks who have been helped through Crisis projects - and the target was to raise £1 million.

The great news is that this ambitious target has now been met! A success celebrated through a double page advertisement in the Financial Times today (using space donated by the paper) listing all of the companies who took part.

All in all, a great example of how the video capabilities of today’s high speed internet can be used to deliver innovative, fun, and highly successful online fundraising.

Anyone else out there using video to raise money from either corporate or individual donors? If so, let us know how you’re getting-on by using the comment function below.

Christmas online corporate fundraising from Crisis

With Christmas just around the corner, we recently launched a fun online corporate fundraising campaign for UK homelessness charity Crisis - aiming to raise £1million by getting corporate sponsors to replace their traditional Christmas cards with a ’singing’ video e-card.

Depending on the company’s Christmas card budget, at the microsite sendasinger.com they can select a four, eight, or fourteen piece choir, made-up of people who have been helped through Crisis projects. Every video e-card card is personalised to the sponsoring company for distribution to their own address list, and all companies taking part will also be formally thanked through double-page advertisements in the Financial Times.

The fun, seasonal approach certainly seems to have struck a chord with companies preparing for Christmas, with a range of organisations already signed-up. So, here’s hoping the campaign reaches its £1million target by 25th December.

UPDATE… Great news - we hit the £1million well before the 25th!

Kiva – an example of online fundraising at its best

Quite a bit has already been written online and offline praising Kiva, a charity harnessing the power of online social networking to enable everyday donors to directly support micro enterprise projects around the world.

However, just incase you haven’t heard of them, I thought I’d mention them here too – because as one of their ‘lenders’ (the lady above is Mrs Edowu in Togo, whose bicycle repair business I’m helping fund) I think their approach is fantastic, and because I think it can teach us all some very useful online fundraising lessons.

Kiva works like this: on its website it displays profiles of small business owners who need funding – typically around $1,000. You simply select the project you like the sound of and then contribute by credit card to its loan pool, in units of $25. Once the full funding is reached, the loan is disbursed via a local microcredit field partner. Over the next 18 months or so, the recipient pays it back on a monthly basis – with you receiving email updates as their business progresses. Once the money is paid back, you’re free to loan your share to another project. I’m no microfinance expert, but it seems like a wonderful idea to me – and I really enjoy being part of it.

But, what can we learn from Kiva for our own online fundraising? Well, here are just three things that occur to me – take a visit to their site and it’s sure to spark more ideas for you.

Firstly - I get a completely free choice as to which projects I wish to support - so, immediately I am more engaged. The internet enables us to do this without massive administration hassles – yet I know of very few charities who currently use technology to offer donors such personal choice.

Secondly - while other charities send me wizzy e-newsletters full of information of little relevance to me, it is my simple Kiva text emails that I really enjoy receiving – because they are ‘real’ updates about projects I have specifically chosen to support. The technology to enable complete personalisation of email communications is now pretty accessible - yet most organisations still use the same one size fits all ‘batch blast’ approach.

Thirdly - Kiva really understands the power of network marketing. As well as structuring their whole site like a social network – so I can see the profiles of all of the other ‘lenders’ to my projects – they also make it very easy to promote the site to your friends. From suggested email footer text to downloadable banner ads. Given how personally engaging the whole experience is, I’m sure ‘lender get lender’ recruitment must work a treat for them.