New Community Organisers website launches

The new website for the national Community Organiser training programme went live on Tuesday, with a new feature that lets users search for organisers, hosts, volunteers and projects nearby.

The Community Organisers programme is training 500 community organisers around England by 2015. These organisers will recruit and support a further 4,500 volunteer community organisers to listen to local people, create networks and turn good ideas into collective action which benefits the community.

The website allows you to get in touch with community organisers working in your neighbourhood and share your ideas for projects.

The new Community Organisers website also includes the ‘save my bookcase’ feature. This add-on lets users save content to their own personal space on the website which they can visit later.

Naomi Diamond of Locality, the organisation running the Community Organisers programme, said: “This new website is a key part of the Community Organisers project and will be the first port of call for anyone wanting to find out more about it. We particularly recommend the ‘Take Action’ section, which allows people to get involved by finding organisers in their area and contacting them to discuss ideas and projects and get support and training.”

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Top five tips for charities using Snapchat

2013 has proved that charities are getting better at social media. But it’s time that charities explored further than popular channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

What about Snapchat? Snapchat is an extremely popular form of social media, particular among young people. Users send a photo which lingers on screen for a few seconds before disappearing forever into cyberspace.

Here a few tips for charities which are looking to use Snapchat to communicate with their supporters:

1. Snapchat gives charities the chance to generate hype leading up to a campaign or event. Leak exclusive footage to give your supporters a taster of what’s to come.
2. Ask those attending your events to snap and share pictures and videos, giving a unique perspective from your supporters POV.
3. Engage volunteers by asking them to snapchat when there are in the field.
4. The new ‘Stories’ feature allows the user to piece together a story which can be viewed for 24 hours. Tell your supporters what you are achieving!
5. Get personal. Send donor specific snaps to boost donor engagement.

Only the most innovative of charities will be jumping aboard the Snapchat trend. Will your organisation be one of them?

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Barnardo’s uses cloud collaboration technology to help volunteers nationwide

Barnardo’s, one of the UK’s leading children charities, has turned to cloud content collaboration technology to enable volunteers nationwide to securely share information with the charity’s staff.

Volunteers across the UK now have a fast and secure electronic way of sharing meeting notes, which include details of interactions with children, young people and families with internal teams at Barnardo’s.

Using Huddle Note, the volunteers can securely share their notes on any internet-enabled PC, creating and saving them directly into Huddle’s secure cloud. Granular permissions ensures that each volunteer can only access the folder that has been specifically created for them. Once a document has been created via Huddle Note, the volunteer will then notify one of the internal staff members at Barnardo’s who will transfer the file onto their internal system for archiving.

Tom Rees, Assistant Director IS, Barnardo’s says: “For us, Huddle is for our dynamic content – the doing and notifying – rather than long term storage and archiving, which is what our internal system is used for. Given the nature of the content we deal with, audit trails, permissions and security were all critical for us, but the great thing with Huddle is that it’s easy for people to understand from the offset. They should get up and running immediately with very little guidance.

“Everyone on Huddle’s team understands our requirements and the support we’ve had during the set up and ongoing from our customer success manager has been fantastic. As more and more people want secure access to information from home, the demand for services like Huddle is only going to increase and the service has given us an easy way of being able to work with external partners. ”

 

 

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npNEXT 2013 – Jann Schultz

This past September 30th, Blackbaud hosted over 30 senior fundraising leaders from the largest charities in the US and 10 expert presenters for npNEXT.

npNEXT was an experimental event to bring together experts and fundraising leaders from across the nonprofit sector to discuss emerging trends and next practices.

Blackbaud recorded the presentations and here is the second one in the series:

Turning Data into Targeted Donor Communication

Jann Schultz | Senior Director, Integrated Fundraising and Communications | Project HOPE
With over 20 years of experience in the for- profit and non-profit sectors, Jann led the development of a "Donor First Philosophy" at Operation Smile to help them build a robust donor loyalty and engagement strategy across their fundraising programs. She recently joined Project HOPE and is looking forward to bringing the same "Donor First" commitment to her work leading the Integrated Fundraising and Communications Team.

Click here to learn more about npNEXT

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Facebook News Feed Now Gives Text Updates Less Reach

Facebook recently noticed a pattern in how people post text updates. They found that people write more text updates when they see more text updates from their friends. But this isn’t true for pages.

Text updates from Pages don’t influence how many text updates people publish. That’s because people don’t use Facebook to connect with brands – they use it to connect with friends!

So Facebook has now tweaked the News Feed to decrease the distribution of text updates from Pages.

What does this mean for you?

In the short-term Facebook will probably boost reach on photos, videos and links. Here are specific ways you can adjust your Facebook marketing strategy:

1. Post like a person, not a marketer

Marketers understand that text updates have historically received more reach in the newsfeed. To drive more traffic to their website, many brands game the system, posting text updates with links, like in this example.

But Facebook users care about sharing, not increasing reach.

When your friend wants to shares a link on Facebook, they simply post it as a link. And they use text updates to share personal news and random thoughts. Updates from pages that don’t follow this logic seem out of place.

If you have something interesting to say, or a question to ask your fans, post a text update. Also read Three Ways to Instantly Boost Engagement with Text Updates.

If you have a link to share, post it as a link.

2. Repost high-performing photos

Facebook says this news feed tweak will “increases engagement and distribution for other story types”. 

Here’s how you can use Facebook Insights to repurpose photos (and videos) that have performed well in the past:

1. Export the data. Export 6 months of post-level data, with an end date that’s six months ago (as shown above). From this sample size, you should find enough high-quality photos.
2. Isolate the data. Locate the column for reach (The number of people who saw your Page post) and the column for people who created stories (The number of unique people who created a story about your Page post by interacting with it). Move these columns next to each other.
3. Limit it to photos. For our purposes, we only want to look at photos to reuse. Remove all of the other update types from this worksheet.
4. Calculate engagement rate. Engagement rate is a ratio. It’s the number of people who saw your update that liked, commented, or shared it (number of people engaged / reach). You can calculate this by dividing reach by the number of people who created stories. For example, let’s say reach is in column D and the number of people who create stories is in column E. In cell E2, you’d enter “=E2/D2″.
5. Rank by engagement rate. Next, you want to sort the spreadsheet by engagement rate, Just sending. This will allow you to quickly see your most your best content at the top of the spreadsheet.
6. Reuse the top 10%. Finally, select the top 10% of your photos and Viola! You now have a collection of photos that are almost guaranteed to perform well on your Facebook Page.

3. Make peace with Facebook’s constant changes

As part of their recent study, Facebook added:

We are learning that posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types.

The key phase here is “We are learning”. Facebook is always learning!

Yes, it’s frustrating that Facebook is always changing their newsfeed algorithm. But this will always be the case.

All you can do is continue to develop your content strategy, and deepen your understanding of how to best use Facebook for your nonprofit.

What do you think?

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5 Nonprofit Trends at Arts and Cultural Organizations

Earlier this month, Mary Beth Westmorland shared how technology will shape the nonprofit sector in 2014. As always, I read this article through the lens of our arts and cultural customers. How can these themes make a positive impact on the local museum or symphony? Are the same trends applicable?

As a result, I put together my perspective on this game changing technology for arts and cultural organizations.

Mobile

Mobile is no longer something that makes you different or cool as an organization, it's an expectation of your visitors and patrons. According to a study from PR Web, 28% of total web traffic is from mobile devices, which is up 67% year over year! That means almost one in three visitors to your website is from a mobile device. Is your website optimized for mobile devices? If not, it needs to be.

Unique to the arts and cultural space is the need for leveraging mobile devices for tickets. You should be offering visitors and patrons the opportunity to buy tickets on their smartphone and then use their phone as their ticket for admission. I've written before about the importance of mobile ticketing and this is just another reminder that your organization needs to be leveraging this technology.

Analytics

Data is quickly becoming the new equalizer in the for profit world and data can be leveraged in the same way in the nonprofit world. We have access to more data than ever and our visitors and patrons expect us to use it. If they told you they like to sit on the aisle seat they expect you to know that every time they book tickets.

Data can also be used to cultivate personalized interactions with future donors. As ticketing organizations, we have the advantage of gathering data when people visit us. This allows us to get a feel for their attachment to our organization as well as determine their interests. Using this data you can begin to increase your donor acquisition efforts and build relationships that last for years to come.

Software

Software will continue to be the tool that drives results. Using a simplistic example, a builder doesn't want to buy a drill bit, they want to buy a hole in the board. If there is a simpler, better way to get a hole than a drill bit, they will use that option. Similarly, organizations will seek software not for the technical specifications but for the results that it drives.

In arts and cultural organizations, the desired result is increased revenues and the way to get there is through creating connections and relationships with visitors, patrons, and donors. Organizations will continue to look for tools provide the entire view of a person (i.e. what they buy tickets for, what they've given to, what they are members of) rather than fragmented software tools that require them to reconcile data between tools.

Cloud

Organizations never bought servers because they thought they were pretty or fun to maintain. They bought them because they were required to support the software tools that drove their business. There is now a better way. Organizations are increasing moving their software applications to the cloud so they no long have to worry about the support and infrastructure that a server requires AND the cloud provides a more reliable and secure place to store data.

Arts and cultural organizations are benefiting from the cloud because it allows them to take their data with them. Development Directors are walking the halls of the museum and able to look up a member's benefits from their mobile device. Lines are being busted because the ticket counter can now check people in with tablets and scanners rather than requiring everyone to wait in line. Tech staff is no longer working late nights to support events in case the servers hiccup because the software is hosted on mainframes that are more reliable that in house servers. And Executive Directors are spending less money on technology support because of the cloud's cost savings.

Social Media

Your constituents are talking and it's time for you to join the conversation. Social media usage is growing and everyone is getting involved. According to socialmediatoday the fastest growing segment of social media users are aged 45-55, meaning it is no longer just for the younger generation. Social media is a viable tool for engaging your mature constituents who often have deeper pockets.

One of the biggest social media challenges is giving people something to talk about. Fortunately for arts and cultural organizations, there are new exhibits, shows, and displays that you can engage your visitors and patrons with. There are many ways to use platforms like Twitter to engage your visitors and we know that engaged visitors are more likely to become members and donors, so start today!

What other trends are you seeing in arts and cultural technology for 2014? Are you preparing your organization to take advantage of these new tools?

photo credit: Flickr

 

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The 7 Keys to a Donor Retention Strategy Full of Thanks

By Claire Axelrad: Lifelong learner, listener, lecturer, lover, e’lucidator of all things philanthropic, passion-forward and peopl-centric. Fundraiser. Marketer. Innovator. On Twitter

Research shows the average nonprofit in the U.S. loses 70% of donors after the first gift.

And to make matters worse, the probability that a donor will make five consecutive gifts is only 10-15%.These numbers are just not sustainable for most organizations. By the time you've added a new donor, half of your previous new donors are out the door.

While it's common knowledge in the for-profit world that it costs much more to secure a new customer than to retain an old one, somehow many nonprofits haven’t yet fully grasped that the same holds true with donors. One-time transactions don't get you very far. If you want to build a transformational business model that moves your organization steadily forward (not two steps forward; three steps back), then you simply must put more resources into your donor retention strategy – more specifically, your gratitude program.

Frankly, I believe developing a robust gratitude program is the most important thing you can do if you want repeat gifts.

So, if you say you can't afford to spend a lot of resources on a vigorous donor acknowledgment and stewardship program, I say WHAT? You can't afford not to.

You’ve got to come from a place of thinking about love, not money. Human beings, not checkbooks. Consider this: We humans yearn to belong.When we give, we demonstrate that we're joining a community of like-minded folks who share our values. That gift can be a one-time transaction, or a transformational experience — which is so much more.

For transformation to occur, however, work is required on your part. The gift is the first step towards joining our community.It's the beginning of the relationship; not the end. So giving thanks is the beginning of stewardship.

Here are the 7 Keys to Improving Donor Retention and Enhancing Your Gratitude Program:

1. Promptness

If you don't thank donors promptly, you're destroying all the rest of your hard work. Get the thank you out the door within 48 hours.Period. No arguments.

People will try to tell you they don't care if they don't hear from charities for a week… a month… whatever.  Don't believe them. Penelope Burk, author of Donor-Centered Fundraising, has proven donors care about promptness.  In one test with board members calling within 48 hours, those called gave an average of 39% more than those not called – and they gave 42% more after 14 months! This research has been recently confirmed, and it's definitely something I'd recommend you test for yourself.

Promptness is not just a nicety.The most important predictor of likelihood to give is recency. If it takes you over a month to process a donor's gift, then you're missing out on their most-likely-to-give-again period.  A timely thank you gives the donor confidence you received their gift. It communicates that the gift will be used immediately. It puts forth a positive first impression. It lets the donor know they made a good decision and it demonstrates that you're efficient.

A timely follow up matters. A lot.

2. Thoughtfulness

No more pro forma boring receipts, please.

"Thank you on behalf of the board for your gift of $50" is the opposite of meaningful, inspiring or personal. "Children will sleep tonight, because you cared" makes a much better opener for a thoughtful thank you.

When you send grandma a thoughtful thank you that tells her why that particular gift was just "the thing", she’ll want to give even more thought to what she gives you next time.  If you don't thank her, or thank her perfunctorily, she won’t feel as generously inclined towards you.

3. Repetition

Once is not enough.

Thanking folks should be an ongoing, joyful practice.  If you think of it as obligatory, then you're likely to do it once, check it off your list and be done. That doesn't transform a budding relationship into a bonded one. It stops the potential friendship dead in its tracks.

Also, research on gratitude indicates that to produce lasting effects gratitude must be repeated. In fact, a one-time act of thoughtful gratitude produced an immediate 10% increase in happiness for folks who were the gratitude recipients and a 35% reduction in depressive symptoms, but the effects disappeared within six months and three months, respectively. If you want your donors to stay uplifted by their philanthropy (and, as a corollary, if you want to continue to feel satisfied in your work with donors), then you've got to practice gratitude as a way of life.

4. Opportunities

Offer supporters ways to engage that don't involve money.

Back to not just treating donors like ATMs, give them things they may enjoy doing. Things that may make them feel good.  Like volunteering, joining a committee, coming on a tour, attending an event, signing a petition or sharing something with their friends.

5. Gifts

Delight your donors and make them feel they're more important to you than they even thought they were.

I don't mean you should spend a lot of money on premiums.  I mean thoughtful "gifts" like pats on the back, snapshots of folks they've helped, snapshots you took of them at events, recognition in publications, endorsements on social media forums like LinkedIn, follows on platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and G+, thank you videos you can embed in tweets (check out Vsnap) or send via email.

You can also tuck inexpensive items into hand-written thank you letters.  For example, how about enclosing a piece of gum and saying "Thanks for sticking with us."  Or some gold stickers with "Thanks for being a super star supporter."  Or some mints with the note "Thanks for your commitMINT." I used to bring home-baked cookies to my major donors, because I love to bake.  A colleague of mine brought homemade jam.  I've known folks to bring plants, flowers from the garden, magazines and little tschotskes they picked up on eBay (e.g., items the donor might like to add to a collection) for under $5.00. Check my ‘Gratitude = Retention’ Pinterest board for more ideas.

6. Online presence

Don't forget that folks who give to you online should also receive prompt, personal, thoughtful thanks. Don't make these folks the 'step-children' of your donor acknowledgment program.

After your donor makes a gift online, they should immediately be taken to a special landing page on your website that thanks them for their gift.  This page should be tailored to the campaign to which they responded. One generic page for all purposes will end up looking like exactly that. It's cold, impersonal and irrelevant. The donor needs to be reassured that their gift will be used for the purpose for which they intended. Maybe even jazz it up with a compelling, brief video. Certainly a photo! Here's a great post-donation landing page example from Charity:Water. Your best practice will be to follow this in the very near future with a letter.With handwriting. Personal notes. Inserts. Whatever you do for supporters who give via mail.  Don't create a 2-class system.

7. Phone Calls

If you want to deliver your thank you promptly, the phone can be your very best friend.

Sending a thank you letter sounds much easier than making a thank you call, but  for many donors it may be well worth it to pick up the phone to say thank you — in addition to sending a letter before or after.  As noted above, donors who are called will give more. Calling also helps you adhere to Rule #3 about the value of repetition.  I like to do it for donors at your major gift level (e.g., $1,000+), first-time donors (especially at $100+), donors who make a significant increase and donors who reach a cumulative giving milestone. I also like to call monthly donors at least annually, just to connect and thank them for their special loyalty. And I recommend testing a random sampling of your mid-level donors – those who you wish to upgrade – to see if this results in renewals at a higher level.

Some folks recommend that volunteers, especially board members, make these calls.  I believe folks are just as happy to receive a call from a staff member, as long as the caller is authentic and doesn't sound like they're robotically checking a task off their 'to do' list (and I don't believe in paying folks to do this. Donors don't want you spending your money on this). Whoever will be warm and genuinely grateful can make the call.  You can get my free Donor Thank You Calls E-Book + Script by joining me at clairification.com.

Gratitude is contagious. Nothing else will keep your donors in as continually a receptive mood. It's good for you. It's good for them.  How's that for a win/win?

Looking for more? We’ve got you covered.

If you'd like to explore developing a robust gratitude program in more detail, get your free downloadable 'Show the Love' e-book from npENGAGE — with chapters from 14 nonprofit experts (me included) — on the subject of donor retention. Or, check out the Attitude of Gratitude Donor Guide to help you raise more money every year from here on out. It’s filled with tips, templates, checklists and samples to help you apply what you learn right away.

 

Photo cred: Flickr

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