A Better Way to Do Good

Free Webinar: My Top Secrets to Fundraise with Blogs

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Blogs enable you to spread the word about your cause and draw supporters into conversations with you. This informative webinar will give you plenty of practical information you can use right away.  You will learn:

• the Do’s and Don’t’s of creating a blog
• why you should start one
• what's involved in setting up a blog
• my secrets to fundraise with blogs
• tips to generate content and use information you already have
• glean ideas from my list of best blogs to read   

Date & Time: Thursday, July 30 at 2 PM Eastern Standard Time
Duration: 1 Hour
Click Here to Register

Sandy Rees CFRE, a fundraising coach and consultant, will be presenting this webinar. Her passion is showing small nonprofit organizations how to raise more money, strengthen their Boards, and build relationships with donors. To learn more about Sandy visit her website, sign up for her free newsletter "Bright Ideas for Fundraising" or read her blog.

And at the end of the webinar we will have a drawing to give away 5 copies of Sandy's book, Fundraising Buffet - A Heaping Helping of 101 Practical Ideas to Increase Donations and Deepen Donor Satisfaction.

Register here to join us.

Public versus private appeals. Tailor your “ask.”

A new study has found that fundraisers and volunteer coordinators should alter their appeal depending on the public/private nature of the “ask.” Public appeals are more successful when the focus is on the benefit to others. Conversely, private appeals should focus on the benefit to the donor.

Read the Executive Summary here.

Donation amounts decrease as number of donors increase

The June The NonProfit Times article, 2008: Giving Dropped $6.4 Billion; Largest Decline On Record, reports that overall giving decreased in 2008. That is no surprise. But it did not drop by much, only 2%.

Now let us compare that figure with the losses in the financial sector. In 2008, the US S&P 500 lost 38.6%. The big story here is that donors lost a large chunk of their savings, yet they continue to give at almost the same levels they have in the past. Sure donations amounts may be smaller, but at the end of the day people are still donating.

If we look at Click & Pledge’s statistics for 2008, we find that the average donation amount is down, but we also see an increase in the number of donors using our system. In 2008 there was a 30% jump in the number of individual donors. And these trends are continuing in 2009.

What trends are you seeing? Share your experience with us.

Learn how to raise a half a billion dollars online

Have I gotten your attention? I bet so.

In “Raising Money as if You Were Barack Obama” Dr. Kamran Razvan, CEO of Click and Pledge, and Scott Cottington of Cottington Associates will share the secrets that allowed Barack Obama to raise half a billion dollars online. This session will be presented at Politics Magazine’s Conference “The Art of Political Campaigning” this Friday, June 12, 12:30pm. This session explains how to easily obtain the technology and expertise to inexpensively, effectively and securely raise money on your website.  Topics include donations, FEC reporting, banking options, recurring payments, what it should cost, security, design, databases and more.

Come by and visit with Kamran at the Click & Pledge booth. Click & Pledge will be exhibiting at Politics Magazine’s Conference from Thursday, June 11- Saturday, June 13.

Build your community without adding overhead

Times are certainly changing in the nonprofit sector. One change is the notion that a nonprofit has to do everything in-house. Build a website, send out a newsletter, manage social networking – are these really projects a nonprofit should manage in-house? Can a volunteer or an already over-worked staff member handle all the projects efficiently? Will the quality of the product be the same? What are the real costs of committing staff time? Are projects like these better suited for a professional? More and more I see nonprofits choosing to have professionals manage marketing projects so the nonprofit can stay focused on its core mission.

Today the hot project on most nonprofit “to do” lists is social networking. All nonprofits have a community, but the challenge is to engage and grow it. Social networking tools like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and branding/fundraising sites such as Café Press are all the rage. If you are still wondering about the importance of social networking, then read Shirin’s blog entry Be my friend!

I mention this because an interesting study has just come out on the trends of social networking in the nonprofit sector. See the press release: http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/04-28-2009/0005014488&EDATE=

The study found

• 80% of nonprofits are committing at least 25% of a full time staff person to their social networking effort

• Over 50% of nonprofits plan to grow social networking project staff over the next year

If you consider the cost of dedicating 25% of full time staff person or hiring staff to handle social networking, this could be a huge expense. Nonprofits need to make their marketing/fundraising decisions by considering their potential Return on Investment (ROI). If you have the ability to outsource this project to a professional at a fraction of the cost, isn’t that a better business decision?

Another issue, do organizations need to increase their overhead expenses by adding staff? In tough economic times supporters are increasingly scrutinizing the organizations they contribute to. A primary concern for donors is the overhead expenses of an organization. Donors give their money to organizations that keep their overhead low and show big results from their services.

So if you need assistance with community building (websites, social networking, newsletters), visit our Community Builder webpage. We just released a solution tailored for you. And the best part is you can scratch that project off your “to do” list without breaking the bank.

Join us at the AFP International Conference on Fundraising

 “Get Jazzed for New Orleans” – Join us at the AFP International Conference on Fundraising

And we are jazzed…to exhibit at the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) International Conference later this month. If you plan to attend be sure to visit Jim Barney and myself at the Conference Marketplace from Sunday, March 29 through Tuesday, March 31. We have added so many free features like eTickets and name badges, customizable pages, unlimited donation and payment pages, integration with Constant Contact and Salesforce.com (just to name a few) that we invite you to stop by to learn how to get the greatest value from Click & Pledge’s products.

Our booth will be located directly across from AFP Central.  To find out booth visit the Exhibitor Directory site and search for Click & Pledge.

The Exhibit area is open:

SUNDAY, March 29
Noon - 4:30 p.m.

MONDAY, March 30
8:45 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

TUESDAY, March 31
8:45 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

We’ll see you there!

End-of-Year Giving

From Susan Higgs:

So here it is, the week of New Year's Day. Do you wish you could have done something more to bring in year-end donations? Well, it is not too late.
 
For those of you who have a Click & Pledge donation page, you are all ready for a last minute appeal. (For anyone who does not have an online donation page, contact us. We can set you up quickly.)
 
The end of the year is when most individuals give donations. Your organization may have mailed out an annual campaign, but here are a couple of suggestions to reach your donors and volunteers who may not have given.
 
Send out an end-of-year appeal via email. Succinctly thank your donors for their past support, share a story, and include your organization’s plan for 2009. In the email include a link to your donation page so they can give right from your email.
 
Remind them that their tax-deducible donation must be received by the end of this year to count for 2008 and that receipts are emailed to them immediately when they give using your online donation page.
 
This is also a great time to review your donor database to see if you have larger donors that have not made a contribution in the past year. A more personal contact may be in order. Take a moment to call and thank them personally. A simple contact at the end of the year may remind them to give.

Snowfall in New Orleans

From Susan Higgs:

Recently I was privileged to witness a historic event – snow in New Orleans, the earliest snowfall on record.

I travel to New Orleans regularly and on December 11, 2008, I was there to attend the Association for Fundraising Professionals (AFP) New Orleans chapter’s meeting. That morning I woke to snow at my home in Hattiesburg, MS, (note: I was told it never snowed this far south – surprise!) and drove to New Orleans through a snow storm the entire way.

Once I arrived, I was notified the meeting was canceled due to the weather. No surprise. Snow is such a rare occurrence that it seemed most of the city was just thrown by it. While it is normally hustling and bustling downtown, everyone slowed down and marveled at it; everyone that is except for the police officers and tow truck operators assisting accident scenes and disabled motorists.

While I enjoyed the beauty of the snowfall and got caught up in everyone’s excitement, I was disappointed to miss the AFP meeting.

For anyone who does not fully understand the importance of nonprofit organizations to a community, all you need to do is spend a little time with a representative from a nonprofit. I have gotten to know some of these New Orleans’ nonprofits, learned of their many successes since Hurricane Katrina, and of how much work still needs to be done.

But what I am most struck by are people’s voices. You can hear the love they have for this community. It’s the kind of love that comes from people who thought they could lose something so dear to them and are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that never happens.

There is something magical about New Orleans. While many may say it’s the architecture, jazz, or food – I’d have to say it is the people that make this place truly special.

And here is the miracle of snow falling in the Big Easy.

Fixing Big Needs With Little Money

From Susan Higgs:

Since this is my first blog entry I’d like to introduce myself. A few years ago I was the VP for Development of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Virginia. I could not wait to work in an environment where I could mesh my work skills with my desire to give back to the community. It was a joy to work there and be a small part of the amazing impact a Big Brother or Big Sister has on a child’s life.

The downside was all the worry:  Worry that we did not have enough money to meet the needs of the many deserving children on our waiting list, or, even worse, that we may not be able to support the mentoring relationships or “matches” we already had. 

So there I was with tough fundraising decisions to make. What was best for the agency – fundraising events, mailing campaigns, donor visits, etc.? The agency had big needs and little money…just like every other nonprofit organization out there.

So what did I learn professionally? Find the right tools to make your work easier and do not pay a fortune for them. That’s why Click & Pledge is a great ally.

Before I joined Click & Pledge as an employee, I was a customer first. I was surprised to find such a great product at a reasonable price. What more could a person ask for? Oh, yes, let’s add free and accessible customer service (I used two companies previously.  One never responded to my calls and e-mails, and the other charged a premium for customer service).

I only wish I had learned about Click & Pledge earlier.