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.

Google Grants free non-profit AdWords scheme celebrates fifth year

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the Google Grants scheme, developed to support the online marketing activity of non-profits by providing free AdWords advertising to organisations selected through an online application process.

Currently available in 16 countries, and with more apparently on the way, the anniversary provides a useful reminder for any non-profits using, or looking to use, Search Engine Marketing to check out the scheme and see if it might be of use to them. Although, as reported in a comment to my earlier post about Google Grants, the programme may well be of more use to smaller organisations than those with a well developed SEM .

A quick reminder about Google’s free advertising programme for charities

Everyone with a website, or a blog, will know the importance of using search engine marketing (SEM) to help drive traffic their way. However, based on a couple of recent conversations I’ve had, what not everyone knows is that Google funds a special programme to make this easier for registered nonprofits operating in 16 countries around the world.

Called Google Grants, it offers at least three months of free advertising through its AdWords advertising product to organisations it selects based on an online application process.

Google Grants recipients are only chosen every three months and after completing the online application form you will be informed within six months whether you have been awarded a grant. So, if you are currently using SEM – or have a website and haven’t yet tested it – take a look at their website and see if you can get yourself some free AdWords advertising.