Rad Campaign Blog

A Recipe for $uccess: Tracking & Converting for Maximum Results

rad_admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:07:17 +0000

Allyson Kapin

So you've acquired them. Now what?!

Converting new subscribers to donors of course depends on the RIGHT communication strategy; but maximizing the return on your online constituency growth investment depends on the RIGHT data and the RIGHT interpretation.

Do you have a plan? Do you know what to look for? ...and what it all means?

Join Janna Chan of the Center for Reproductive Rights (formerly of Lambda Legal and M+R Strategic Services) and two Grams (Jaime Grams of Integral and Dane Grams of Care2, formerly of GLSEN and HRC) for our latest Expert Webinar:

"A Recipe for $uccess: Tracking & Converting to Maximize Returns" on Tuesday 5/22 at 2PM ET

Learn from this real-life example how to manage and track new online subscribers and how it can help guide you on your communications and fundraising, as well as pinpoint the real value of your nonprofit's supporters.

In this webinar you will learn:

Why it is important to recruit new supporters
How to keep online subscribers engaged, involved and converting to donors
What are the right metrics for measuring success, short term and long term
How to compare your online investment to other direct response and marketing channels

This Expert Webinar is FREE but space is limited, so please register today!

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/5/14/a-recipe-for-uccess-tracking-converting-for-maximum-results.html

Eight Social Justice and Advocacy Conferences You Must Attend

rad_admin — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:25:46 +0000

Allyson Kapin

There are so many great conferences coming up for the nonprofit community. With so little free time on your hands, it can be challenging to figure out which ones you must attend in May and June. Check out our top picks below.

Speed Learning: List Growth Strategies for Nonprofits – May 17th

Ok so technically this is not a conference, but it's going to be a fantastic event for the nonprofit community. Have you ever tried “speed learning?” Want to? If so, this event is for you! Join Salsa and partners for “Speed Learning: List Growth Strategies for Nonprofits” on Thursday, May 17 at 4:30pm. Care2 and other vendors will be on hand to offer tips, tricks, and best practices on how to grow your list. And it will all be done in a “speed dating” format. There will be five tables, each focused on a different list growth strategy – and you’ll get to visit them all to learn from list growth gurus Care2, Rad Campaign, Charity Dynamics, and Beaconfire.

After the speed session, head to the Salsa office where you’ll have a chance to network with other nonprofit do-gooders from the area. Register now!

Time: Discussion starts at 4:00 PM
Networking Happy Hour to follow at the Salsa Office at 5:30 PM

Place: FHI360, Vista Room
1825 Connecticut Avenue Northwest Washington, DC 20009

Women Who Tech TeleSummit – May 23rd

The virtual Women Who Tech Telesummit which happens via internet audio and the web provides some of the most web thought-provoking, inspiring, and skills building sessions for nonprofit campaigners and social change makers. Don't miss the panels Using Technology and Social Media to Build Social Movements with Amy Sample Ward of NTEN, Michael Silberman of Green Peace International, Claire Diaz Ortiz of Twitter, and April Pedersen of Salsa Labs. The panel on Changing the World with Open Source will discuss how open source is literally revolutionizing the world and offer some great case studies on how the wikimedia foundation used Drupal and CiviCRM to raise $16M online. Register now!

AFP TechKnow – June 4-5th

The AFP TechKnow Conference Presented by Visa will offer an interactive learning experience designed to connect nonprofit fundraising and management professionals with leading-edge information and effective practices in using technology to accomplish their organizations’ missions. The conference will position interactive websites and social media as core elements in today’s development mix via two tracks: strategy and technology. It will feature opportunities for learning, networking and exhibiting. Hashtag: #RewireToInspire

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/5/8/eight-social-justice-and-advocacy-conferences-you-must-atten.html

Pinterest: Is It Really Worth Your Time?

rad_admin — Sat, 05 May 2012 18:57:29 +0000

Allyson Kapin

Up until January 2012, Pinterest had been slowly gaining momentum and growing a user base over 22 months. Then suddenly, boom, Pinterest became the social media world’s new darling. According to ComScore’s data, Pinterest hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. web visitors, and crossed the 10 million mark faster than any other standalone site in history, though some analysts debate the accuracy of this figure. Nonetheless, no one, is arguing its explosive growth.

So as organizations begin to eye emerging social platforms, should they be investing their resources into Pinterest. In short – yes. I think it’s important that nonprofit’s cast a wide net and experiment with a variety of social networks and communities. Why? For two reasons.

To connect with your audiences who are using other social networks besides Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It’s critical that you reach your audiences wherever they are and not just one channel.
To reach new audiences who might be interested in your issues.

However, how much time you invest in Pinterest really depends on your organization and your target audiences. Check out the data below

Pinterest Facts

According to data from March 2012 Pinterest users:

Are comprised mostly of women – 68%. And 97% of pintrest fans on Facebook are women.
Spend on average 15.8 minutes on its site. For comparison sake, people typically spend about 12 minutes on Facebook, 3 minutes on Twitter and 16 minutes on YouTube.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/5/5/pinterest-is-it-really-worth-your-time.html

Embracing Your Fearlessness at Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference

rad_admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 03:48:54 +0000

Allyson Kapin

Nonprofits fear change. And admittedly change can be scary and difficult especially for senior leadership who has a lot at stake while trying to meet their mission and raise money. But in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, and where our activists and donors expect us to be transparent, responsive, and tech savvy, nonprofit leaders must work through their fears and change the way they do business inside the organization and externally, if they are going to exist in the next 10 years.

Embracing your fearlessness is one of the keynote conversations that Jean Case, CEO of the Case Foundation, and Paull Young, Director of Digital for charity: water will have to kick off the Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference on June 15^th at SEIU's headquarters in Washington, DC from 8:30AM to 4:00PM. The hybrid unconference will begin with Case engaging in a town hall chat about the sector’s need to squash fears and to innovate. Paull Young will discuss how charity: water continues to courageously lead the sector with ground breaking new media strategies.

Executive directors, senior leadership, and nonprofit campaigners won’t want to miss this inspiring unconference filled with amazing keynotes and thought-provoking discussions between some of the best nonprofit strategists, innovators, and nptechies in the space.

The keynote conversations will be followed by a full day of unsessions. There will be no powerpoints. Just DC's brightest minds strategizing for social good.

The Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference (which is being sponsored by Care2) is DC's only unconference dedicated to the social cause space. From volunteers and political action to cultivating donors and partners, nonprofits have rapidly adopted social tools to build online communities and movements.

Last year's event sold out well before the date, so don't miss out. Register now! And bonus, Care2 Frogloop readers get a 20% discount over the next week. Just use the discount code Frogloop when you sign up on online.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/5/2/embracing-your-fearlessness-at-nonprofit-20-unconference.html

Nonprofit Blog Carnival: Social Fundraising Tips and Best Practices

rad_admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:30:00 +0000

If you are planning to launch a social fundraising campaign or looking to raise even more money for your next social fundraiser, this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival has you covered. We asked our favorite nonprofit fundraisers and social media campaigners to share their favorite tips on social fundraising and crowd-funding to foster community, spread nonprofit missions, and empower supporters to raise money on behalf of inspiring organizations who are creating social change. Let’s begin.

Over on Convio’s blog, Cheryl Black discusses practical tips for newbies to get started with social fundraising.

Are Nonprofits Raising Money Via Social Networks? Isn’t that the $1M dollar question? Check out my analysis of the 2011 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report, which provides some incredible data on how 11K+ nonprofits are using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. And then head over to John Haydon’s great post on Care2’s Frogloop blog where he asks “Is Facebook Good for Fundraising?” Haydon says Facebook stinks for collecting donations but is awesome for raising money. Haydon says you can’t make a value judgment on Facebook based only on donations. It’s about building relationships first!

The inspiring nonprofit Witness has done some of the most innovative campaigns and videos around human rights issues. They have also tested a variety of strategies to raise money online including utlilizing social media. Check out Miyoko Brunner’s post on "Choosing Timing, Outreach and Platforms for Successful Online Fundraising."

Frank Barry over at Blackbaud’s blog has a fantastic infographic that illustrates the "Power of Social Fundraising and Friends Asking Friends."

Lori Halley of Wild Apricot explores some of her favorite examples of social fundraising campaigns in her post" Raising Awareness and Funds With Social Fundraising."

Examples include:

Raising the Rhythm - a University of Toronto student and her friends raised about $8K for CFTC through a dance / fashion gala in Toronto
Kilimanjaro Climb - Anastassia Ferdman climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and raised $2,600
Hungry for Change – through this initiative, which is in its fifth year, CFTC is the Canadian Electrical Industry's charity of choice; for whom they've raised about $1million
Heidi Massey highlights her experiences for raising money for Citizen Gulf and how she will be applying lessons learned to Twive and Receive, social fundraisier to raise money for Open Books who focuses on literacy.

Does your Executive Director ever knock on your door, and ask “how can we find new donors through social media?” Geoff Livingston over at Razoo has some great advice to share on this very topic.

And speaking of ROI, check Care2.com’s Justin Perkin’s popular social networking calculator and find out if your investment in these types of campaigns is really worth it.

What are some of your favorite social fundraising tips or social fundraisng campaigns? Tell us here in the comments.

What topic will the Nonprofit Blog Carnival being exploring in May? Lori Halley of Wild Apricot is hosting and exploring the best strategies to mobilize supporters.

10 Ways To Reveal Your Organization's Best Stories

rad_admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:34:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

If your organization is struggling to tell your story, you are not alone. Chances if you are like most organizations, you actually have access to the greatest stories from your donors, activists, and key stakeholders. They just aren’t being captured by staff people or written down. I was doing some brainstorming with my colleagues over at Rad Campaign and some friends in the community about the types of questions nonprofits need to start asking themselves and to their members to form their stories.

Ask These 10 Questions To Find Your Stories

Why does your organization exist? Note, don't take the easy way out and answer this question with your mission statement. You need to dig deeper.
What drives your organization?
What is special or interesting about the way your organization does business and serves its audiences and community?
Consider framing your story in a fairy tale structure. Who is the villain, who is the victim, who is the hero, what is the quest, what are the setbacks, what are the obstacles, what are your victories?
Think of your organization as Odysseus trying to get home to meaningful Jewish experiences in Ithaca, Greece. What challenges, monsters, and obstacles does your organization have to overcome on its way home?

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/27/10-ways-to-reveal-your-organizations-best-stories.html

Mobile Data You Need to Know

rad_admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 03:56:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

The mobile market is experiencing some serious growth. As more and more nonprofits begin to test the waters with mobile, here’s some great stats for you to consider.

There are approximately 792 mobile apps downloaded per second. While that’s an impressive statistic, be careful about getting sucked in to shiny object syndrome. Before you run out and spend a lot of money building an app, consider what kind of app would truly serve the needs of your audiences. How is your app going to provide real value to your constituents that they will want to continue use it daily or weekly? Be sure and also talk to your audiences and get their input on what they would find valuable in an app. It’s important that we not build products in a bubble. One of my favorite quotes from Mal Warwick when he discusses guiding principals for fundraising is tell donors what they want to know, not what you want them to know. http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2010/5/12/new-guiding-principles-for-fundraising.html That same principal should be applied to building apps too.

More Mobile Data

Video content accounts for 52% of all mobile data traffic.
There are 1,627 mobile status updates on Facebook per second.
There are about 13M mobile Twitter users.

Check out some of this infographic that shows the explosive growth of mobile.

And here are the sources from the infographic

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/24/mobile-data-you-need-to-know.html

Why Monthly Giving Rules!

rad_admin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:50:31 +0000

Allyson Kapin

Yesterday, Care2 held a terrific webinar about monthly giving with Harvey McKinnon of Harvey McKinnon Associates, Teva Harrison of Nature Conservancy of Canada, and Ryann Miller of Care2. Why is monthly giving so critical to nonprofits?

Seven Key Reasons Why Monthly Giving Rules!

Increases income
Builds better relationships
Motivates donors to stay longer
It's Predictabile
Savings
Income grows over time
It's convenient

You can listen to the webinar recording here or view the slides below.

The Holy Grail of Monthly Giving: Finding, Keeping and Loving Sustainers

View more presentations from Care2Team

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/20/why-monthly-giving-rules.html

The Slactavism Debate Settled Once And For All?

rad_admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:53:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

There’s been a long and spirited debate about the rise of slactavism and whether people taking simple actions online actually create social change. As Randy Paynter, founder of Care2.com so eloquently states “online activism is motivating more people than ever to make a difference, in his article Slacktivism: Why Snopes got it Wrong About Internet Petitions. Used as part of a multi-channel approach online petitions and pledges can help raise awareness and motivate people to get more involved with campaigns that offer deeper engagement opportunities.

And like with many hot button issues, the slactavism debate has inspired a great infographic. The graphic illustrates how online activism has inspired hundreds of thousands of petition signatures for organizations like Avaaz over night. For example, when Avaaz was lobbying to clean up corruption in India, over 500K people signed it in less than 24 hours. Thanks to public pressure and smart online/offline organizing new anti-corruptions laws are now in the works.

The infographic also highlights how online activists are:

4x more likely to encourage others to sign a petition or contact a politician about a social justice issue.
2X likely to volunteer and take part in an event.
2X as likely to ask for donations to support charities.

During the SOPA blackout, over 3.9 million tweets were sent out related to SOPA. And 59% of people say that the Internet has helped people come together to take action around social justice issues.

So tell me, who is slacking again?

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/17/the-slactavism-debate-settled-once-and-for-all.html

Why Creativity is the Underestimated Superpower of the Nonprofit World

rad_admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:57:00 +0000

Avi Kaplan

Creativity is an under-celebrated superpower.

You hear a lot in nonprofit circles about the importance of telling stories, of measuring our impact, collecting data on relevant metrics and learning from experience. You hear a lot about the importance of having a coherent strategy, experimenting and having a better attitude towards failure, about giving up control, engaging your community.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity and the ways organizations can show personality. You don’t often hear creativity singled out as a key thing to focus on, but if you bring creativity into your way of doing things success will flow.

This quote from Maya Angelou never gets old for me.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

If you want people to take action to advance your mision you will need them to feel emotionally invested in your work. You don’t invest your heart in that way for things that are boring. One of my favorite comics, The Oatmeal, recently illustrated this powerfully in How to Get More Likes on Facebook. The comic shows why spamming and begging people to Like our content on Facebook is ineffective and exhorts us to “instead, create things that are hilarious, sad, beautiful, interesting, inspiring, or simply awesome.”

The Oatmeal is right. We connect with awesome and you can’t be awesome without creativity.

The problem is we underestimate our creativity. You may be thinking to yourself that your organization’s personality isn’t all that awesome. You’re all about impact, and data, and showing results. Your wonky. You’re serious. You’re corporate. Funders expect you to be professional and effective, not awesome!

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/12/why-creativity-is-the-underestimated-superpower-of-the-nonpr.html

Webinar: Holy Grail of Monthly Giving: Finding, Keeping, and Loving Sustainers

rad_admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:49:35 +0000

Allyson Kapin

Want to find a new, stable source of income that also works as a loyalty booster to existing donors?

Three words: SUSTAINED GIVING PROGRAM

This webinar covers everything you want -- and need -- to know about monthly giving.

Starting with the basics, Harvey McKinnon, renowned expert on monthly giving, will discuss why to have a monthly giving program and what it means for donor loyalty, along with the fundamental elements of all good monthly programs.

Next, Teva Harrison of the Nature Conservancy of Canada -- which has made a strategic decision to invest in a monthly program -- will tell what works for her organization while sharing secrets, tips and best practices on how to find, keep and love these valuable donors.

Join us on Thursday, April 19th at 2PM ET for this fascinating tour of the best kind of donor!

About the Presenters:

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/12/webinar-holy-grail-of-monthly-giving-finding-keeping-and-lov.html

5 (Rad) Takeaways from 12NTC

Avi — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:04:00 +0000

Hundreds of nonprofit professionals descended on San Francisco last week for the Nonprofit Technology Conference. 12NTC was jam packed with a ton of generous, collaborative, and smart people, interesting sessions, connecting, and learning. Here are my biggest takeaways.

1. The Future of Social CRM is Now

I've had my eye on social CRM solutions for a while and my favorite NTC session this year, The Hills are Alive...With Social Data, with Casey Golden from Small Act, Amy Bastian from Nature Conservancy, and Kristin Johnson from NWF confirmed for me that social CRM has arrived and is only going to improve. Connecting your donor database, email subscribers, and social media relationships is powerful. Major gift fundraisers on your development staff can see which of their prospects have interacted with your organization through social media and better understand what donors know about your work already. At the same time, social media managers can understand the existing relationship that the Twitter users they engage with have to your organzation. The session did focus on Small Act's Profile Builder, since the presenters all work with that product, but it's clear that the entire field of social CRM is maturing fast.

2. Data Calls for a New Etiquette

We know an increasing amount of information about our donors and community members. Obviously you'd never want to violate people's privacy, but you can still set off alarms with information that's technically public. Just because your CRM solution helps you recognize that the person who just replied to you on Twitter is an active volunteer and an annual donor doesn't mean you should remind them to renew their membership over Twitter. The data is powerful, but it can also freak people out when they realize just how much you know about them. Personolization is important and no one wants to be treated like a number, but if you take this too far you can wind up looking smarmy. If you're not careful people feel mugged.

3. Clarity and Word Choice Are Key

This lesson came out of the #12NTCjews Connect Track session, Tribe: Jewish Communal Organizations and Networks. Lisa Colton shared her frustration with the way "community" is overused. In the same way that the Eskimo have dozens of words referring to snow, Lisa suggested that we need more ways of talking about subtle variations in how we talk about community. The word community used in a ton of context and can have implications for geography, group, religion, commerce, ecological species and interdependence, shared interests, identity, feelings of fellowship, shared owndership, organizing, service, and other ideas. It can get confusing quickly and we don't always have the same thing in mind as those we're talking to.

In the same session, Miriam Brosseau from the Jewish education project also brought home the importance of word choice for me in the way she used language to illustrate her points. Knowing her audience, Miriam borrowed examples from Jewish tradition. In discussing the importance of transparency and authenticity, she related the concept of "Tocho k'boro", “one whose inside is like his outside”. In explaining the importance of experimenting and diving in without overly researching every technology choice she shared the refrain of the Children of Israel at Sinai, "Naaseh V'nishmah", "we will do and then we will listen".

4. We Think Visually

"Whoever best describes the problem is the one most likely to solve it." In his opening plenary, Dan Roam shared the power of pictures to clarify and argument. He took the audience through some interactive exercises to visualize specific challenges they face and shared some high profile examples of the ways pictures have helped people sort out big problems in government, healthecare, construction, and aviation. The visual panel notes from Rally are awesome.

5. NPTechies love to party

Between #NTCbeer, Care2's party boat cruise, the progressive party, and the bars that seemed to emerge from nowhere in the hotel ballroom each afternoon, the schmoozing and party continued.

See you in Minneapolis in 2013!

photo credit: @ntenhross

Check out this Storify for some of my favorite 12NTC moments.

2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study Highlights Online Advocacy, Fundraising, and Social Media Metrics

rad_admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:06:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

The 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study was just released and is packed with insightful data on advocacy and fundraising response rates across the nonprofit sector. In particular we were excited to see advocacy response rates increased 28% between 2010 and 2011. The study also has some great data on how nonprofits are expanding their use of social media and mobile. For example, the median growth rate for nonprofit fan pages was an impressive 70%.

Email Open Rates:

Advocacy messages had the highest open rates, click-through rates and response rates – as well as the lowest unsubscribe rates.
Overall, email open rates held steady between 2010 and 2011. This is an important trend to note because over the past few years, the open rates were declining. Considering that list size has increased, and that older names will often grow stale, a year-over-year rate that remains steady is quite positive.
In 2011, the median email open rate was 14%.

Enewsletters:

Newsletter received on average a 13% open rate, a 1.6% click-thru rate, and a 0.17% unsubscribe rate.

Email Click-Thru Rates:

Click-through rates averaged 2.1% for all message types and across all verticals in the nonprofit community. The median click-through rate for an advocacy email was 4.2%; the median rate for a fundraising email was 0.47%.

Online Fundraising:

Despite the struggling economy, the nonprofit community did quite well in 2011 with their online fundraising.

On average, nonprofits increased their dollars raised online by 19% from 2010 to 2011.
The number of gifts rose by 20%.
Email-driven donation forms had a median completion rate of 17%.
The International sector experienced a 25% drop in fundraising response rates for the international sector. This is not surprising since 2010 was a watershed year for many international nonprofits due to the 163% spike in fundraising around relief following the Haiti earthquake and flooding in Pakistan.
On average, online monthly giving accounted for 8% of total online revenue in 2011, up from 5% in 2010.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/9/2012-enonprofit-benchmarks-study-highlights-online-advocacy.html

Care2 Impact Prize Awarded to Vinay Bhagat of Convio

rad_admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:21:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

Kudos to Vinay Bhagat of Convio for winning the 2012 Care2 Impact Prize for his outstanding impact in online advocacy and fundraising. Bhagat garnered the most votes from the NTEN community, from among a pool of incredibly accomplished finalists including Nancy Lublin of DoSomething.org, Geoff Handy of Humane Society of the U.S., Paull Young of charity: water and Marc Sirkin of Autism Speaks. More than 1100 people took part in the voting over the past week.

Care2 Vice President of Nonprofit Services Clint O'Brien announced the prize winner today during the awards luncheon at the annual NTEN (NTC) conference. O'Brien praised Bhagat for founding the influential and successful software platform, Convio, which helped more than 1600 nonprofits to raise $1.3 billion in 2011 alone. He also noted that Bhagat is a longtime thought leader in the nonprofit community who has made a sustained and meaningful contribution to pioneering analytical frameworks to build the business case for driving better fundraising integration across channels.

Below is a brief video shown at the awards luncheon just before Vinay Baghat accepted the prize.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/5/care2-impact-prize-awarded-to-vinay-bhagat-of-convio.html

2012 Report: How Nonprofits are Utilizing Social Media

rad_admin — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 02:59:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

I have been waiting to get my hands on the latest 2012 Social Networking Benchmark Report because it’s one of the only comprehensive surveys that provides a good overview of how nonprofits are utilizing social media to brand themselves online, connect with new supporters, and raise money.

Between January 24, 2012 and February 21, 2012, over 3500 nonprofit practitioners representing a variety of verticals and operating budgets responded to an online survey about their use of online social networks.

Check out some of the social media highlights below.

The majority of nonprofits (66%) use Facebook advertising for branding and awareness.
In 2012, respondents accumulated an average of 8,317 members on Facebook, which is about an 81% increase from 2011. Over on Twitter nonprofits had an average of 3,290 followers on Twitter, which is about a 30% increase in community size.
93% of nonprofits have a presence on the top commercial social networks. This remains unchanged from 2011.
Nonprofits run an average 2.1 Facebook pages.
The average cost of a Facebook like is $3.50 and $2.05 for a follower on Twitter.

Are Nonprofits Raising Money Via Social Media?

The majority of nonprofit are still not raising a dime on social networks like Facebook. 46% said that they were fundraising, with the top category (33% of all responders) prioritizing Individual Giving – soliciting Facebook supporters for individual donations (e.g. one-time gifts, memberships, and monthly gifts).

I was particularly interested to hear that nonprofits said that the average value of a Facebook "Like" over 12 months following acquisition was about $214.81, which includes from both online and offline channels such as all revenue from individual donations, membership, events, merchandise, etc.

Event fundraising was the second highest category with 20% of all responders. Causes was third with 17%, and Personal Fundraising (e.g. peer-to-peer fundraising linked to a mission-focused theme rather than a face-to-face event) was fourth with 11%.

Social Networking Staffing

42% of respondents indicate that they will increase their staffing for commercial social networks in 2012, 55% say they will keep staffing the same, and just 3% indicate they will reduce staffing. These statistics are almost identical to the survey results from 2011.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/4/3/2012-report-how-nonprofits-are-utilizing-social-media.html

Social Fundraising: Submit Your Post to the Nonprofit Blog Carnival

allyson — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:00:00 +0000

I’m psyched to be hosting the Nonprofit Blog Carnival on April 30th over here at the Rad Campaign blog, where we will be exploring one of our favorite topics – social fundraising. We are interested in blog posts from across the nonprofit sector that discuss the role of social fundraising and crowd-funding to foster community, spread your mission, and empower supporters to raise money on behalf of inspiring nonprofits who are creating social change.

To enter the nonprofit blog carnival for April, email your permalink to nonprofitcarnival at gmail dot com by April 27th. Then on April 30th, come back to the Rad Campaign blog and check out our social fundraising blog roundup.

And while I have you’re attention, definitely check out last month’s blog carnival hosted by nonprofit superstar Katya Andresen of Network for Good, which highlights storytelling through evocative images and design.

Presentation: Getting Started with Multi-Channel Fundraising

rad_admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:39:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

Did you know that in 2011, 16% of new donors gave via online gifts up from 9% in 2007? Or that the median revenue per donor for multi-channel supporters was $228 compared to $89 for offline and $113 for online donors? These were just a couple of the great statistics that panelists Teresa Weaver, of OMP and Erica Gulseth, of Earth Justice presented on the recent Care2 webinar “Bring it On! Getting Started with Multi-Channel Fundraising”

In addition to the terrific stats and resources the panelists shared, Gulseth also discussed Earth Justice’s online fundraising success in raising $1.2 million and how their fundraising increased 40% by using multiple channels to reach their donors.

Earth Justice has been working on refining and testing their cross-channel integration efforts by:

Refineing online list growth efforts

Advocacy-based list growth via Care2's lead generation and list growth services.
Email appends
Cross promotion with other groups

They have also been timing campaigns around issues or around offline efforts. For your nonprofit that could be acquisition mailing and telemarketing campaigns or whatever other offline promotions and marketing you are doing.

Check out the multi-channel fundraising webinar recording or the slides below.

Bring It On! Getting Started with Multichannel Fundraising

View more PowerPoints from Care2Team

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/3/27/presentation-getting-started-with-multi-channel-fundraising.html

Infographic: 2012 Nonprofit Benchmarks

rad_admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 02:10:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

The 2012 eNonprofit Benchmark study comes out April 5^th and is packed with great data that highlights key online fundraising and advocacy response rates as well as social media metrics. Can’t wait to get your hands on the data? Not to worry, you can get a sneak peak at some of they key benchmarks in this terrific infographic that illustrates:

Fundraising

Online fundraising grew 20% in 2011. 35% of online fundraising came from emails and 65% came from other online sources like nonprofit’s own websites, social fundraising, etc.

Online Advocacy

Online advocacy response rates were up 28%. Who says email’s dead?

Social Media

For every 1000 email subscribers, organizations have 103 facebook fans and 23 followers on Twitter.

Mobile

For everyone 1000 email subscribers, nonprofits only have 12 mobile subscribers. Some maybe surprised by this stat given how prevalent mobile is today. However, many nonprofits still don’t even have a basic mobile strategy or a mobile friendly website.

For those organization that are ramping up it’s mobile program, the average mobile list size in 19K, about 1.2% of its email list size.

Check out the full infographic below.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/3/23/infographic-2012-nonprofit-benchmarks.html

6th Annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards

rad_admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:51:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

Voting for the 6^th annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards is now open to the public. The Nonprofit Video Awards, which is designed to recognize nonprofits that produce creative and effective videos to highlight their mission and social justice around the world, will provide $14,000 in cash prizes and products to winners.

In addition to the prizes, the four winners will be featured on YouTube’s homepage and receive free registrations to NTEN’s, Nonprofit Technology Conference. Furthermore, the Case Foundation will be awarding $10,000 in grants to those videos from this year's contest that demonstrated innovation and risk-taking to advance important messages or big ideas.

"As nonprofits, we want to do more than simply tell people what we do, we want to show the impact it makes on our communities. Nothing lets us do that like video," says Holly Ross, Executive Director of NTEN.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/3/21/6th-annual-dogooder-nonprofit-video-awards.html

Blog Roundup: Lessons from Kony 2012 Video Campaign

rad_admin — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:22:00 +0000

Allyson Kapin

It’s been close to two weeks since Invisible Children released it’s "Kony 2012" video, which quickly spread across social networks, blogs, and made headlines across major news networks and newspapers like the NYT and the Washington Post. With over 80M views on Youtube, the video is still being shared and talked about.

Last week Frogloop asked readers "Can Viral Videos Really Create Social Change?" And we received some terrific responses. This week we wanted to share some of the most thought-provoking and insightful blog posts from the nonprofit community. Feel free to tell us about your own blog posts about "Kony 2012" in the comments section below.

KONY, Networked Nonprofits, and Transparency by Beth Kanter

“The campaign prompted discussion online and here in the US about KONY, although hardly anyone in Uganda is talking about him. Africans are talking about the campaign – and you can see a roundup of posts from African bloggers responding to the hype.

The issue is complex. The KONY video simplified it, but left out important facts. Is that responsible social change? For responsible social change, you need transparency. As my colleague, Shonali Burke, pointed out there was a lack of it in the film. For example, it does not make the timeline/dates very clear – it mixes recent and older footage without date stamps. [If you want the facts about dates, see this post by African blogger, journalist, and researcher, Angelo Op-Aiya Izama from Uganda...

For a nonprofit to be transparent means that it is open, accountable, and honest with its stakeholders and the public.

Has Invisible Children been transparent? Is this responsible social change? Or if the campaign is raising awareness about a horrid situation in another place in the world and other NGOs are doing work there, does it matter?”

Read more here.

Why Your Nonprofit Won't Make a KONY 2012 by Jason Mogus

“There's been a lot of ink spilled about the KONY 2012 video, the most successful cause video of all time (and most viral video ever). In my view, most of the larger, more well known NGO's won't produce a communications piece this successful, unless they radically change their structures. Here are 6 reasons why most NGO's will never make a KONY, and some lessons we can take to improve our campaigns for this exciting new world,” says Mogus.

http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2012/3/18/blog-roundup-lessons-from-kony-2012-video-campaign.html