Archive for the 'fundraising' Category

Birthday Cause Wrapped Up

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on January 4, 2009
in fundraising and reports
. 6 Comments

My 26th birthday came and went already and what I’m most excited about (other than the weekend trip we took to Bruges) is the money I was able to pull together from generous friends for Free Geek!  As you can see from the screenshot below, I exceeded my goal and Free Geek will be seeing nearly $350 coming its way!

THANK YOU to all of you who donated and supported my Birthday Cause; it means SO much to me!

I first talked about the Birthday Cause application on Facebook in December when I set it up for my birthday.  In addition to the Thank You, I wanted to share some thoughts about the Birthday Cause application and my experience using it for my birthday fundraiser.

It’s super EASY

It came to me, always. When conducting a campaign at your organization, you’ve probably experienced that you get a better return (whether it’s donations, volunteers, sign-ups, or whatever else) when you reach out to people often with direct opportunities.  Causes’ Birthday Cause application does just that when you set it up.

It emailed me two weeks before my birthday to let me know that I could use the application, and once I had it set up, it emailed me every day with direct links to help me make the most of the tool.  Birthday Cause “Tip of the Day” emails included actions for setting my status, emailing contacts, personalized asking, setting notifications and more.  Here are some examples:

Setting your Status:

Dear Amy,

Just 11 days left until your Birthday!

Congratulations on having raised $234 from 9 donors. Great work! If you haven’t already, take a look at your birthday cause page to see if they left you any birthday greetings, and stop by your promotion page to thank them.

Tip of the Day: Setting Your Status
Every time you change your status, all of your friends can see the update. We’ve created a set of status messages for you to chose from that link directly to your Birthday Cause. Choosing a new one each day is an easy way to make sure your friends know about your birthday cause. To change your status just go here: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/29850/status?m=7835d9b4

Keep up the good work,
The Causes Team

Birthday Cause Page:

Dear Amy,

Just 12 days left until your Birthday!

Congratulations on having raised $182 from 7 donors. Great work! If you haven’t already, take a look at your birthday cause page to see if they left you any birthday greetings, and stop by your promotion page to thank them.

Tip of the Day: Your Birthday Cause Page
Your quote is the most important thing on your birthday cause page. Its what your friends will see when they go to the page, and what will help them decide if they want to donate or not. Spend some time making it look nice, and explaining why your birthday cause is important to you. To edit your quote, click ‘Edit Birthday Cause’ from your cause page, or click on this link: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/29850/edit?m=7835d9b4

Keep up the good work,
The Causes Team

Inviting Friends:

Dear Amy,

Just 1 days left until your Birthday!

Congratulations on having raised $312 from 12 donors. Great work! If you haven’t already, take a look at your birthday cause page to see if they left you any birthday greetings.

Tip of the Day: Invite More Friends
You can now send more Birthday Requests through Facebook. This is one of the most effective ways to let people know about your Birthday Cause. Invite More Friends

Keep up the good work,
The Causes Team

Email:

Dear Amy,

Just 10 days left until your Birthday!

Congratulations on having raised $286 from 11 donors. Great work! If you haven’t already, take a look at your birthday cause page to see if they left you any birthday greetings, and stop by your promotion page to thank them.

Tip of the Day: Email
Email is an effective way to get in touch with large numbers of your friends and let them know about your birthday cause.

We have set up an easy way for you to email all of your friends with the Causes application. You can do this up to two times, at any time up to and including the day of your birthday. To do so now, click on this link: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/29850/email?m=7835d9b4

Thanks,
Amy

Keep up the good work,
The Causes Team

One to One Requests:

Dear Amy,

Just 8 days left until your Birthday!

Congratulations on having raised $312 from 12 donors. Great work! If you haven’t already, take a look at your birthday cause page to see if they left you any birthday greetings, and stop by your promotion page to thank them.

Tip of the Day: One to One Requests
People are most responsive to one-to-one requests. If you have some friends that you are comfortable enough with to ask specifically to donate, doing so is the most effective thing you can do to raise money for your Birthday Cause.

You can make these requests by posting to the walls of these friends from your Birthday Cause promotion page. You can get to that page by clicking ‘Promote your Birthday Cause’ from your cause page or clicking this link: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/29850/promote?m=7835d9b4

Keep up the good work,
The Causes Team

Notifications:

Dear Amy,

Just 9 days left until your Birthday!

Congratulations on having raised $286 from 11 donors. Great work! If you haven’t already, take a look at your birthday cause page to see if they left you any birthday greetings, and stop by your promotion page to thank them.

Tip of the Day: Notifications
Notifying your friends about your birthday cause is a good way to spread the word. We allow you to send up to three notifications to your friends about your birthday cause. You can even queue up notifications to be sent automatically the day before your birthday and on your birthday. To send notifications, click on this link: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/birthdays/29850/notify?m=7835d9b4

Keep up the good work,
The Causes Team

The direct links (most are hidden in the above examples as they were hyperlinked text into my account) helped me jump straight to where I needed to be to let my friends know about my cause.  Not only did it make getting the word out about the cause easy, but it helped me stay on top of the donations so I could properly thank my donors!  This is a huge bonus point for the Birthday Cause application because publicly thanking supporters is one of the biggest keys to keeping up the momentum of your fundraising appeal (because not only to donors feel appreciated, but also more inclined to tell their friends about the opportunity - plus, it’s another public mentioning of your campaign!).  Here’s what the email looks like when someone donates:

Lori Faye has donated $26 to your birthday cause! You have now raised $26 from 1 friend and need 9 more to meet your goal.

Thank Your Friends For Donating

Thanks,
The Causes Team

The emails has a direct link to my Birthday Cause page where I can read Lori’s message and thank her.

I was worried when I first set up the application that it would end up being more work to maintain than I had in the midst of holiday season.  Instead, I didn’t feel like I was doing any work at all and yet saw the donations streaming in!

It’s actually FUN

It let me connect with my friends, all over. Facebook is a tool I use to stay connected to my friends and family all over the world.  Regardless of where I’m travelling or currently based, I know everyone is just a click or two away.  That’s why it was such a great opportunity to celebrate my birthday INSIDE Birthday Causes because I’m now a continent away from most of my friends and family.  Connecting with friends as they donated was such a thrill, with people contributing to the Birthday Cause from all over the globe.  I was always excited to get an email from Causes and could never even guess who it would be from each time.

It’s designed to WORK

I really like when things just work.  Like I said, I wasn’t sure how much time I would have with the holidays and our planned travels.  It didn’t matter though, because the application did everything I would have needed it to do. Of course, everything could always work a little better, right?  Here are some of my suggestions to Causes to improve the Birthday Cause application:

  • #1.  I was always unsure whether it would send a request/invite to people who had already donated and that made me less inclined to send out messages repeatedly
  • #2.  I wish that I could have personalized the groups more specifically - if I said I wanted the application to automatically alert my friends at certain intervals, I wanted to also say which friends at which intervals instead of the option being the same for all of it
  • #3.  I know that the Birthday Cause is supposed to help you raise money for a cause of your choice, but I wish I could have had other options beyond giving money - Free Geek is a dynamic organization and I would have liked to encourage people to donate money, but also to pledge to volunteer, register their donated computer parts towards the Birthday Cause, and so on with all of it counting towards my goal
  • #4.  If people donated close together chronologically, the application would only alert me to the most recent donation, so some times I didn’t realize people had donated  to thank them in a timely way
  • #5.  I would have preferred it if my Thank You messages to my donors could have shown up on the Birthday Cause page as well as on their profiles, the same way the application creates posts to my profile when they donate and leave a message

I think it’s a great way to celebrate your birthday and support your favorite organization at the same time.  Learn more about Causes here and how you can use the Birthday Cause application for your special day!

Happy Birthday, Beth!

My good friend Beth Kanter’s birthday is coming up quickly and guess what, she is using Birthday Causes to raise funds!  If you want to wish Beth a happy birthday, you can donate to her Birthday Cause to help support The Sharing Foundation.  Learn more and support Beth here.

My Birthday Cause: Free Geek!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on December 16, 2008
in case studies and fundraising
. 0 Comments

I have a birthday coming up and over the weekend I received an email from Causes, the social change application in Facebook.  Here’s what it said:

Happy (Almost) Birthday!

Thanks to Facebook, in two weeks all of your friends will see that it’s your birthday. Instead of just writing on your wall, or giving you something you don’t need, what if they had a chance to help a cause you believe in? Whether you want to raise money for clean water in Ethiopia, vaccinations for children in Haiti, or a safe home for a puppy in Mississipi, with a Birthday Cause your friends can give in honor of your special day.

Select your Birthday Cause today: Get Started - Learn More

Have a very happy birthday,
The Causes Team

Since we moved over here just 3 months ago, I knew that my birthday wasn’t going to be spent with all my friends from home (we are going to travel a bit though, so it’ll still be a fun day!).  No birthday party meant no one buying presents.  I wouldn’t have wanted the gifts anyway, but know that people like to give them, just as much as I do for their special days.  So, I figured this would help friends celebrate my birthday with me, but help out a worthy organization, at the same time!

I clicked through and created my birthday cause in support of Free Geek! (I’ve talked about Free Geek before and why I think they are a great organization.)

The process was simple, straightforward, easy, and most importantly, empowering.  Causes has done a great job to put the tools in the user’s hands to personalize their message, pick a cause/organization that they care about, and choose the avenues for publicizing their cause that fit their community (I didn’t want to email every person right away but just those using Causes, for example, and didn’t want to email people as often automatically as I new I would email people personally, etc.).

After I finished personalizing my Birthday Cause and alerting friends about it, I was able to place a widget on my profile so people could see it when they visited my page.  I just want to point out, this was the easiest application process I’ve ever seen: it did everything for me and I just chose what, when and where.  Even putting the widget on my page was done for me, I just clicked where I wanted it to sit!

When friends donate to the Birthday Cause, they are able to write a message that appears on my Facebook Wall.  It’s great because they get recognized as donors immediately, I get to have a birthday greeting from them, and others see the donations coming in and click through themselves to check it out.

I receive notifications by email when friends donate, and can click through from the emails to thank them, send out messages, and more.  The Causes application has really done it right with the Birthday Cause process.

The first person who tried to donate, my friend Rose Vines (a wonderfully kind, and incredibly smart woman), experienced an issue with the site and it wouldn’t let her donate - the worst situation for potential donors!  She let me know what happened and I immediately emailed the Causes team at the email address in their help section.  I received two emails from Dave: 1. just after sending in the message about the issue, he let me know they were aware of the problem and were working on it 2. the next day he emailed again to say the problem was fixed and everything should be up and running.  Though, in just that little time, I’d already had 7 successful donations and one of them was from Rose!

The next time you have a birthday, if you use Facebook, I’d encourage you to try out the Facebook Causes’ Birthday Cause application and have fun raising funds in celebration of your birthday and the great work of one of your favorite organizations!

Thanks to all those who have helped me raise much-needed support (whether it is funds or not) for Free Geek - I really appreciate it all!  And thanks again to Causes for the great application!

If you’d like to support Free Geek and wish me a happy birthday - check out my Birthday Cause!

Knight News Challenge is back with meetups!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 6, 2008
in events, fundraising and workblog
. 2 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

knight news challenge logoThe Knight News Challenge is giving away around $5 million in 2009 for the development and distribution of neighborhood and community-focused projects, services, and programs!

What fits the challenge?

Knight wants to hear your ideas for improving local online news, growing community engagement, integrating Web 2.0 tools with local neighborhoods, developing publishing platforms and standards that support local conversations or innovatations for visualizing, experience or interacting with information. Share your ideas and you can win the funding for your project and support within a vibrant community of media, tech and commnity-oriented people who all want to improve the wold.

Who should apply?

Applications for the 2008-09 cycle will be taken starting September 2, 2008 and close on November 1, 2008. For more information, visit the Knight News Challenge site. Here some easy rules for application in the 2008-09 Knight News Challenge:

  1. Use or create digital, open-source technology as the code base.
  2. Serve the public interest.
  3. Benefit one or more specific geographic communities.

You can even get support for your application before you submit! The brand-new News Challenge Garage is a site where prospective applicants can talk with mentors and peers, check out previous winners’ applications and improve applications before the final submission.

Connect in person!

Knight is hosting meetups around the country to connect with interested participants in person, to share ideas, ask questions, and start brainstorming. Here are some upcoming events:

An RSVP is required for all events; contact Susan Mernit for more information.

For more information, visit the Knight News Challenge site.

Help me help teachers with technology!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 1, 2008
in fundraising
. 0 Comments

DonorsChoose logoToday is the start of October’s BloggersChallenge with DonorsChoose.org and I’m a blogger stepping up to the challenge.  Let’s help classrooms in need of technology!

Last year, the BloggersChallenge raised $500,000 through the help of nearly 50 bloggers!  I’m excited to see the impact we can make for classrooms looking to use technology in the way they learn, share, and collaborate together.

Why Technology?

I use technology every day, and can’t really function effectively without much of it.  Just think about the impact simple tools like a digital camera or headphones make on the way we are able to share with my family, friends and colleagues on a daily basis by sharing photos or using the internet to make a call and connect personally—don’t you want those simple tools available in classrooms?  I’ve selected proposals from teachers integrating technology into their classrooms to make learning exciting and effective.

Why DonorsChoose?

DonorsChoose.org is an organization and an idea that I really like: the simplicity and the purpose.  Connecting teachers directly with people who could help them in their classroom, whether they are interested because they share a geography, a subject matter, or just an awesome idea for igniting learning in students.  I also added the DonorsChoose recommended actions from Social Actions earlier this summer.

What can I do?

Please participate this month in the BloggersChallenge, here’s how you can get going now:

  1. Support classroom projects by donating!
  2. Find more projects you think should be added to our Challenge, just put a link in the comments and I can add them to our challenge page!
  3. Send this link to others to participate and donate!

I’m excited to tackle this challenge together.  Let’s make a difference in classrooms across the US!

Online Engagement: London Fundraising Summit

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on September 25, 2008
in events and fundraising
. 0 Comments

Today was the second day of the London Fundraising Summit from the Center for Nonprofit Success.  I presented with Jonathan Waddingham, the Charity Champion at JustGiving.org, about online engagement and fundraising.  It was a three-hour session and we could have gone all day!  Great attendees, conversations, and learning taking place.

Jonathan’s presentation focused on some great examples of nonprofits using a range of social media tools.  My presentation concentrated on the why and how side of things, including some examples from the e-Nonprofit Benchmarks report.  You can see Jonathan’s slides here.  After our presentations, we had a few rounds of small group activities with short scenarios and prompts calling on the new online engagement and fundraising ideas Jonathan and I talked about.  The groups did an excellent job creating strategies for engaging their fake organizations’ communities.  Thanks so much to everyone who was there!

Here is my presentation:

Lfs Online Fundraising Preso Asw

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: engagement fundraising)

Here is the PDF version with all my speaker notes:

LFS Online Fundraising PDF Asw
View SlideShare document or Upload your own. (tags: engagement fundraising)

My main points included:

Conversations = Conversions

  • shouting rarely works!
  • two way conversation empowers your constituents and the larger community to:
    - give you feedback when things are bad
    - give you praise when they are happy
    - ask questions
    - get involved
  • two way conversations also turn your staff into real people.
  • if a conversation is taking place online and you aren’t there to hear it, does it still happen?  YES!
  • by putting yourself and your organization online, you can be part of the conversation that is already taking place.

Management = Messages

  • people are all different, even if they are all interested in your organization.  what they want to do for you, how they want to hear from you, what they plan to say about you and even how they want to support you.
  • comprehensive donor/volunteer/constituent management software will let you track, trace, separate
    and sort your members.
  • better messages means more messages, but not drastically different.  just enough so that your online
    activists have something they can do when they get an email from you, your donors can donate, your
    supporters can spread the word, and your lurkers can keep hanging on.

Testing

  • testing can be small scale to large scale - really just depends on your budget, your time, and your staff capacity.
  • start small and in-house and see how much you can learn right away
  • try changing simple things with small groups: subject lines, images, calls to action, etc.

If you were at the session today, what questions did you leave with?  What conversations helped you the most?

Tu Diabetes Fundraises with YouTube, do you?

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on September 11, 2008
in case studies and fundraising
. 3 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

I recently wrote about Tu Diabetes’ use of Twitter and the strategies the online community has employed to find and engage with new people. Today, I want to take a look at another social media tool Tu Diabetes is using successfully: YouTube.

YouTube is an online video tool “allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.”

Tu Diabetes has a YouTube channel with over 60 videos and over 70 subscriptions. Manny Hernandez, community founder, explained the group’s YouTube strategies to me recently.

I asked Manny what the original idea or example was that got Tu Diabetes using YouTube for fundraising. Manny said that Tu Diabetes adopted video as a tool to communicate with members since the very beginning. Early on, before they were even a non-profit (2007) they produced weekly podcasts to summarize the highlights in the community and do a member update. (You can see an example here.) All the videos included on YouTube have previously been posted in the video section on TuDiabetes.com (or EsTuDiabetes.com, if they are in Spanish).

I think the power and success of fundraising with video is one of the most interesting aspects of Tu Diabetes’ use of YouTube. Manny said that, so far, ALL the funds raised through the members (close to $3,500) since they started the fundraising campaign have been tied to video-based-asks. We have had three videos during the campaign so far, which started in June, with each one getting more and more on target:

One of the most frequently asked questions I come across when organizations are considering using videos on organizational websites or places like YouTube is the burden of resources, costs, etc. For Tu Diabetes, the only technical resources used are Mac-based. Manny shot the first two using the built-in iSight camera on his MacBook. The most recent one was done on his wife’s Mac Pro, combining images posted by our members in the community. All videos were edited using iMovie. The most recent one had music donated by the duo Hammock (one of his favorite bands - http://hammockmusic.com).

It is important to keep in mind the goals an organization has when considering the use/adoption of social media tools, because there are just so many to choose from. One of the goals of the Diabetes Hands Foundation is to raise diabetes awareness. Based on that, you have to look at video views. The most viewed videos to date are here: the Drawing Diabetes video with close to 27,000 views, and the Word In Your Hand video with close to 2,500 views + several thousand more views through TuDiabetes and other outlets.

The other goal is to help connect people touched by diabetes (they’ve found diabetes to be a “closet” condition where people that have it barely talk about it with others). Based on this, the Spanish videos have been the most successful, resulting in proportionally many more people touched by diabetes joining the community (EsTuDiabetes.com). Manny thinks this is because there is a bigger need for Spanish content about diabetes and, specifically, content that people can understand easily.

Social media tools are ultimately about building community and making connections between the organization and new members. With YouTube, Tu Diabetes reaches out to new members. They do periodic searches for “diabetes” on YouTube and leave relevant comments to people who also share their diabetes stories on YT. It is very important that the comments be contextual and valuable. We take the opportunity to tell people about the community. Normally invitations to join result in people joining.

Besides YouTube, Tu Diabetes has used:

So, what are the future plans for Tu Diabetes’ use of YouTube? They are currently waiting on the approval of 501c3 status. Once approved, they will be able to take full advantage of the YouTube for Nonprofits program. Tu Diabetes will continue to publish video content, which they do on the YouTube channel, because they feel it is a great means to accomplish the goal of raising diabetes awareness.

What do you think about Tu Diabetes’ use of YouTube? Has your organization considered using videos on your website or on a public channel like YouTube? What goals would you want to address with the help of video?  Comment with the Net Squared community, too!

Digging Deeper in Global Giving’s Green-ness

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on August 29, 2008
in fundraising
. 9 Comments

I blogged recently about Global Giving Green, but wanted to dig a bit deeper to find out more about this ‘greenness.’

The original announcement from GG said, “GlobalGiving Green is a brand new way for you to help solve that dilemma. Using a unique scientific evaluation system, we’ve carefully pre-screened initiatives that offer win-win solutions — helping people while protecting the planet.”  But, I wanted to find out what green projects looked like, how users would know if a project was green or not, and how the ‘green-ness’ of the site/projects effected me as a possible-donor.  So, I investigated…

How Green projects are identified:
When you are looking at a list of projects, like Green Technology, you will notice a green leaf above the project title.  Clicking on the leaf shows you attributes of the project that qualified it as a green effort.  Additionally, you can click for more details and see the numbers/grades for each green category to help further inform your donation choices.

How do you know if the project is green?
If you are on the Global Giving Green website, then you know the projects are all green.  If you are on the standard Global Giving site, though, I can’t figure out how to find projects that are green—making me think the sites are not talking to each other, meaning the ‘green’ information can only be found by visiting the GGG site.

Effect of green-ness:
I am a very green-aware consumer, community member, and supporter, so it isn’t surprising to me that when I visit the GGG site I am happy to browse through the information on the leaf icons and compare projects based on the areas I think are most important.  What I think Global Giving did right, was to offer as much information as people like me would want, but hide it a bit so every visitors can decide if they want to learn more or not.  The icon appear for everyone, but you can use it access much more if you are ready for it.  All in all, the openness and awareness of green information really encourages me to support more projects that I may have otherwise because I really do feel that I get to help out a project and help save the planet!

What are your thoughts when you visit the Global Giving Green site?  Do you feel more inclined to donate to a project knowing that it is “green” and having access to the green information?

Funding for Innovation: Digital Media and Learning Competition

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on August 28, 2008
in fundraising
. 0 Comments

The Digital Media and Learning Competition from MacArthur Foundation & HASTAC has just opened for applications.  Last year was the first round of the competition and saw $2 million awarded to 17 projects.  This year, another $2 million will be given away to learning entrepreneurs, educators, innovators, and communicators.

Applications are closed at October 15.  Check out the Guidelines, and submit your project!

Giving made green!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on July 29, 2008
in fundraising
. 4 Comments

Have you ever heard of Global Giving? Well, as the NYTimes just reported, Global Giving has gone GREEN!

Global Giving is a website that connects you to “over 450 pre-screened grassroots charity projects around the world. It’s an efficient, transparent way to make an impact with your giving.” Global Giving Green is way to help the fight on poverty while also fighting climate change with the same gift. Many projects in the past that have targeted poverty, have also contributed to climate change.

“GlobalGiving Green is a brand new way for you to help solve that dilemma. Using a unique scientific evaluation system, we’ve carefully pre-screened initiatives that offer win-win solutions — helping people while protecting the planet.”

Find a green project and learn more about Global Giving Green!

What projects serving communities has your organization undertaken with ‘green’ in mind? Do you think organizations need more help finding ways to green their work?

The power of peers

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on May 1, 2008
in fundraising
. 0 Comments

I wanted to take a quick moment to let all of you know about two great things from my friend Peter Deitz:

1.  Social Actions helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns and aggregates peer-to-peer social change campaigns from 19 social action platforms.  You should check them out and create an account - this is a wonderful sprouting community for peer-to-peer social change!

2.  Peter has an excellent post that provides and introduction to fundraising with social media.  It covers Causes, Change.org, ChipIn, and Fundraising and you can read it here.

There are so many new ways to connect with others online around common goals, changes, fundraising, and more.  Have you joined a pledge online or started one yourself?  What lessons did you learn that you want to share?