FundraisingCoach.com

Great reason to NOT fundraise with Facebook

Marc A. Pitman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:32:37 +0000

What would you do if your nonprofit’s only web presence and online fundraising were in Facebook?

I recently loaded Facebook but got this page. Apparently, Facebook was experiencing instability. While it still happens frequently with Twitter, this is rare in my experience of Facebook. But it serves as a good warning.

Don’t limit your fundraising to Facebook

Can you imagine how you’d feel if your only web presence were a page on Facebook? And your only online giving option was through Facebook?

Getting a page like this would mean your cause was invisible on the web.

Don’t let this happen to you. Getting your own website isn’t expensive. I use BlueHost [affiliate link] and a free WordPress blog software. A simple WordPress backup plugin automatically backs up my site each week and sends me a copy of the backup.

It’s not perfect, but at least there’s a web presence when sites like Facebook go down.

Learn how you can set up a brand new fundraising program, or re-tool your existing fundraising, to raise serious money for your cause. Purchase this full-day fundraising seminar you can download right to your desk and start learning today!

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

Fundraising Secret #105: Stay Curious

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:11:22 +0000

As a fundraiser, it’s so easy to get jaded. To think we’ve seen it all. But curiousity is one of the most important tools a fundraiser can have. It helps in every step of the “Get R.E.A.L.” fundraising process:

Research: If you’re curious, you will not just enter someone’s email address, but notice that it’s a unique domain name and go check it out. Even if it doesn’t lead to a major discovery, it can be a talking point with the donor.
Engage: Being curious as you engage a donor involves asking perceptive questions. Once, while in the lobby of a factory that produced wrought iron products, I asked how paint got on the iron. That started a 2-hour tour of the plant, including a long (and fascinating) explanation of a new piece of equipment that not only fused the powder with the iron but also recovered the waste. The donor would never have spent that much time if all I talked about was my nonprofit. Curiosity shows donors you are interested in them and their business, not just what they can do for you.
Ask: Curiosity can be invaluable after making the ask. As the prospect processes how that size a gift might be possible, you can honestly ask curious questions like “When might be a good time to ask you in the future?” or “Would it be easier to make smaller pledge payments now and then bigger ones after the kids are out of college?”
Love: Curiosity will help ensure you are thanking donors in ways that mean something to them. Do they want public accolades? Or is a private lunch with the executive director more appropriate? Curiosity will lead you to show them gratitude in ways they will receive it.

The great thing about curiosity is that, when it’s genuine, it is always well received. Rather than being seen as annoying or probing, questions sparked from genuine curiosity show incredible respect for the donor and the things that are important to them. You can even draw on things you’ve read or heard in other places. “I was just reading that the publishing industry is trying to do x, y, and z to adapt. Is that similar in your industry?”

Even though you’ll be tempted to be the person with all the answers, if you want to be successful as a fundraiser, stay curious.

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

Fundraising Coach Marc Pitman on Fox 25 Boston

Marc A. Pitman — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:11:35 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to talk about fundraising on many news shows. It’s so much fun getting people excited about asking for money!

Here’s my interview on Fox 25 Boston:

You can see all of the interviews on my Fundraising Coach speaker page at:
http://fundraisingcoach.com/speaker/.

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

Question Marc

Show your face on blogs

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:25:40 +0000

“Sheesh. I can’t remember their name…but if I saw their face! Then I’d know them!”

How often have you heard that said? Or said it yourself?

If you’re doing nonprofit marketing or fundraising on the web with social media like Facebook and Twitter, you know the importance of having your face (or logo if you must) associated with your account.

But have you ever left a comment on someone’s blog and wonder why some people have faces with their comments while others don’t?

It’s all to do with the email address you use in the comment form.

Thanks to a site called Gravatar.com, that email address locates a picture of you.

Register for free, and you can upload an image to be used on blogs across the web. The best part is, you get to associate different images with different emails. Sort of like a mullet, right? One image for your email that’s “all business on top”; another image for your email that’s “all party in the back.”

Look at the difference. Here are two blogs I ran into today that had users not registered on Gravatar.com. The sites are GailPerry.com and TessGerritsen.com:

[You can click on these images, and the one below, to enlarge them.]

Check out the difference on 300wordsaday.com, a blog by Jon Swanson:

Can you see how much more professional people look with a real face next to their comments? So do yourself a favor and head over to Gravatar.com. You’ll be helping people put a face to your name in no time!

Share and Enjoy:

No related posts.

Fundraising Secret #96: Use Google Docs

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:14:52 +0000

Have you checked out Google Docs? I keep finding remarkable ways to use this for collaboration!

For example, an organization I work with recently ran a phonathon that didn’t involve asking for money, but asking people to advocate for our cause. Our database administrator did the sort and dumped hundreds of names exported onto two Excel spreadsheets with just the minimum of information: record number, city, state, first name, last name, phone number.

That’s all we needed to make these calls.

The problem was, if we printed out multiple copies of these sheets and gave the sheets to each caller, we would run into the very real possibility that we’d unknowingly call people two or three times. Multiple calls were fine, but only if they were planned!

Just giving the sheets to callers was a bit problematic too. Not all of them came in to our central office. But saving the Excel sheets as individual files would be a complete hassle.

So we experimented with Google Docs. We simply uploaded the spreadsheets and added three more columns:

one for callers to put in their initials
one for the action that occurred (“lm” was for “left message” but we also were able to record “yes” when they would take the action or “no” or “undecided”)
one for notes

We then “shared” this spreadsheet with anybody we wanted working on these lists. We had a handful of callers in the same room, some callers in other offices in the building, and some callers in other parts of our state. It didn’t matter where they were physically located, because we were all calling from the same sheet.

Then found out we could see edits being made in real-time! This would let us see the letters as people were typing, no matter where they were located. Eery, but incredibly helpful to all of us on the team.

The callers loved it using Google Docs! They would choose a city or town, fill those lines with their initials, and get busy making calls. They said seeing their initials on so many rows made it feel like they were actually accomplishing something. They were also able to start at different times and still be, literally, on the same page.

I’m not sure any of us got over the “magic-like” quality of all of us putting information into the sheet at the same time. We could all see the notes people were typing in, the communities they were taking, and the actions the call recipients were promising to take as a result of our call.

We could even use a chat window right on the page to ask each other questions.

Each night, I’d try tally up how many calls were done. I’d also try to bring uniformity to the codes being used so they could get imported into the database more easily. I’d send out the stats of total calls and what the results of the call were each night to give callers immediate feedback. (The number of calls we were able to make was remarkable.)

To differentiate what day the call took place, callers would put their initials and the date, ie. if the date were May 23 and I were the caller, I’d put: map23. This worked for us because we were only calling for a week or two.

Google Docs is free and easy to use. I don’t think I’d use this for any lists that would include private information. (In our case, the record numbers already were public, not private.) But I highly recommend trying it for phonathons like thankathons or phonathons trying to get people to act in a certain way!

Have you found cool ways to use Google Docs? Let us know in the comments!

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

Career Change Without Felony Charges

Marc A. Pitman — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:15:52 +0000

Last week Good Day New York invited me to talk about career stress in light of Steven Slater’s quitting his job by jumping out of a JetBlue plane.

The interview is below. But there was so much more that I sent to Good Day New York. The entire 5-page article is available here:
Changing Careers Without Facing Felony Charges.

Here’s the interview:

But be sure to read the article. There’s a lot more there!
Changing Careers Without Facing Felony Charges

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

Fundraising for your next walkathon

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:12:16 +0000

Lately I’ve been getting lots of questions about how individuals can fundraise for walkathon events and many other -athons: bike-a-thons, bowl-a-thons, etc.

So I wrote down some of the basic advice I was giving. When I finished, it was a 5-page article!!

Rather than post that long an entry here, I’ve put it in the Articles section. The link is:
How to Fundraise for Your Next Walkathon.

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

Fundraising letter for acquisition mailing

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:06:52 +0000

Last week, I received this question about a fundraising letter acquisition mailing.

Hi Marc,
We are doing an acquisition mailing to patients of Local Community Clinic on behalf of Local Community Clinic Foundation, a 501c3 that offers support to the Clinic and the Community. The mailing is huge – just over 100,000 – and we are trying to keep this within our budget abilities without losing the personal touch for the end readers. The burning question is in regards to using a window envelope. We can use artwork on the envelope that says “a Special Invitation” or something to that nature so they know it’s not a bill, or we could really break the bank and use a regular envelope, whicn will require extra matching and printing. In your research and work, are you aware of any trends in aquisition mailings that use a window envelope vs. a non-window envelope? When this is to an audience with a relationship to us, what percent return on average should we expect? Not more than 1%?
Thanks,

Tesla Jabinski

Director, Fundraising and Development
Local Community Clinic

Here’s my answer:

Hi Tesla,

Great questions!

Even though these folks have a relationship, they still see it as a transactional, business relationship. If you’ve ever been a patient and had to pay bills, you’ll know what I mean.

So I’d still use the 1% benchmark. Actually, I’ve been told (and experienced myself) that acquisition mailings lose money. You do them because of the life-time value of the donor. Once a person gives, they’re far more likely to give again. So be sure to remember that when analyzing the results.

As for the envelope, your #1 goal is having them open it. That’s all. So I’d say go for a window with no teaser. They’re already used to receiving that from your organization. Plus it does help down the cost!

Marc

Do you agree? Share your comments below!

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

Fundraising Secret #92: Take time for yourself weekly

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:10:10 +0000

I’m a fan of Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the most powerful concepts, in a book chock full of powerful concepts, is the idea of weekly planning.

Daily planning is important, but that often amounts to no more than prioritizing emergencies. If you’re like most people, you get into your office, listen to voice mail while your computer is booting up and then check your email. After checking your voice mail and email, you’ve got more fires to put out then you have hours in a day!

By just focusing on emergencies, the truly important things never get done at work…to say nothing of the important things in your personal life.

Weekly planning can help you escape this trap.

Here’s a simple process for weekly planning:

Before looking over your week, figure out what you want to do in the important areas of your life. Covey calls these the “big rocks.” He suggests these categories:
- “Sharpen the Saw” goals which consists of four personal categories:
  1. Social/Emotional
  2. Physical
  3. Mental/Intellectual
  4. Spiritual
  Set a goal for each of these. They could be anything. For social/emotional perhaps it’s going to a concert or doing something to treat yourself. For physical, perhaps it’s changing eating habits, or exercising, or getting a new mattress. For mental/intellectual, it could be reading from a certain book or attending a webinar. For spiritual, perhaps it’s attending a worship service, serving at the soup kitchen, or practicing yoga.
  
  These can be anything but the important thing is that they serve to nourish you and keep you sharp. These aren’t optional.
- The rest of the big rocks revolve around the relationships in your life. List them from your perspective. It can help if you start them with “I am a…” :
  - Spouse/Partner
  - Parent
  - Child
  - Employee
  - Business owner
  - Grandparent
  - Citizen of my city/region/country
  - Philanthropist
  - Anything
  It’s best to limit these to the top six. That way you have seven total roles, the first being your sharpen the saw activities, the rest being your relationships with others.
Once you’ve identified these key relationships, figure out what you want to do in the upcoming week in each role.
- Do you want to read a particular book with your kid?
- Do you want to work on a project in your community?
- Do you want to find out more about the organizations working on a cause you’re interested in?
- If you’re an employee, what would be the most important thing you could do this week to further your goals or that would be over-and-above?
- If you’re an employer, what could you do this week to increase income or knock the socks off your employees? Write it down.
Write them down so you can refer to this list every day. FranklinCovey sells a form created for this but you can use something as simple as an index card. This becomes your “weekly compass.” A way to know if you’re heading in the right direction or not. Don’t feel obligated to share your weekly compass goals with others. Just do them.
After you’ve determined your the big rocks that are on your weekly compass, take a look at your upcoming week with an eye to see where to schedule these big rocks in. As you schedule the big rocks, you can do a normal weekly review by checking to see what meetings you have planned and what projects should be moving forward (both those with imminent deadlines and those that should be worked on to prevent a crisis later).

Remember, some of the goals on your weekly compass can’t be able to be scheduled. It would be challenging, although not impossible, to set schedule “Eat more vegetables.” But schedule the ones that can.

I used to do my weekly scheduling on Sunday evenings and found it to be very effective. But I’ve had enough mentors that recommend doing it on Friday before you leave the office. I’ve found that works even better.

On Friday afternoons, the work projects are still very fresh and the tasks I need to schedule are easy to identify. Doing this on Fridays allows me to go home and really be with my family, mentally and physically. I know the important things are scheduled so I can relax. I still look over the week on Sunday evenings but at that point it’s just quick review.

Do this each week, and you’ll find all the things you need to do at work get done. But you’ll be even more surprised by how much better you feel about yourself, knowing you’re making deposits in the most important relationships in your life.

[This post is a part of the Fundraising Secrets posts that are being compiled for my next fundraising book. To read some of the others, go to: http://fundraisingcoach.com/category/frsecrets/.]

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts:

When corporate donors attack and new fundraising dvd’s

Marc A. Pitman — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:08:20 +0000

I was honored to be this week’s guest for 501 Video’s “Movie Mondays”. My topic was: A Lesson learned from Angry Corporate Sponsors.

I’m out here in Seattle filming a couple fundraising training DVDs. One is a DVD of “Ask Without Fear!” The other is a blueprint for an entire year of fundraising. Both will have video and additional resources. I love working with Chris and Steph here at 501 Videos. They really know nonprofits and they really know video!

To sign up for more information about both of these projects, and to receive some free bonus videos, go to:
Marc’s DVD series.

Share and Enjoy:

Other Possibly Related posts: