If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. -Woody Allen
When it comes to online fundraising, an obvious tip is to meet your current and potential donors where they are. With 300 million active users, Facebook is a natural starting place. Moreover, the company reports that people who are 35 years and older make up the fastest growing user demographic, which corresponds to the demographic mostly likely to make a donation online.
As of September 2009, scores of Facebook applications have been developed to support the nonprofit sector in one way. The most well-known among them is Facebook Causes, with over 30 million active monthly users. According to the Facebook Causes blog, the application has helped raise more than $12 million for nonprofits based in the U.S. and Canada. Over $5 million has been raised in 2009 alone.
Other notable fundraising applications include Firstgiving’s Fundraising application, the Justgiving application, and the ChipIn fundraising widget. These applications, and others, add a powerful philanthropic layer to Facebook.
To help tech-savvy nonprofits make use of Facebook, this brief guide includes four strategies. Read the rest of this entry »
Note: I wrote this article for the November 2008 e-Newsletter for the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).
With the global financial crisis at its peak and a recession looming, many nonprofit managers are probably asking themselves, “How will my nonprofit raise money next year?” I suspect fewer fundraisers are asking themselves, “How will my nonprofit raise the money it needs four years from now?”
The second question is the more important of the two, and the more difficult to answer.
Current best practices will serve nonprofits just fine in 2009. Between email solicitation, direct mail, major donors, and grant-writing, the vast majority of nonprofits will weather the economic hard times. But a shifting communications environment and changing donor demographics could render those best practices ineffective at best, and obsolete at worst, as early as 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
Paolo Ferrara, the Italian blogger from FundraisingNow, asked me to write-up five predictions for fundraising in 2008.
Below is my response:
5) By the end of 2008, internet users will carry to each social network a single set of friends – perhaps divided into subsets for work, personal, and family. When individuals find a cool nonprofit’s donate now page or an intriguing person-to-person fundraising campaign, they will be able to share it immediately with their set of friends regardless of those friends’ preferred social network.
4) The mainstreaming of fundraising widgets and fundraising applications will result in more individuals choosing to raise money for a nonprofit or independent project.
3) The success of the Case Foundation’s Giving Challenges and Kevin Bacon’s matching grants will encourage more foundations and philanthropists to invest in social media. Foundations and philanthropists will realize that social media – and the user-generated social change campaigns that social media gives rise to – are powerful tools for realizing their long-term missions. There is nothing quite like drawing on the resources and passions of real people to get something done. Read the rest of this entry »
