Want to participate? Here are three easy ways you can be part of the giving season kick-off:

Donate to the 2013 NTEN Challenge

We are so excited to celebrate the strength of this community, now 50,000 people stong! The 2013 NTEN Challenge will raise $50,000 to support expanded programs and continued accessibility for a diverse set of organizations in 2014. We have over 30 community champions help us celebrate – check out their fundraising pages and donate today!

Join Beth Kanter on Giving Tuesday to talk about collective philanthropy

I’m joining Beth on Tuesday, December 3rd, at 9 am Pacific for a special online video chat to talk about #GivingTuesday and collective philanthropy; I hope you’ll join us! Learn more about why Beth is supporting Giving Tuesday and RSVP to join the online chat on her blog.

Sign your organization up for Giving Tuesday

To be an official partner, you must be a registered non-profit [a 501(c)3 in the United States] with a specific #GivingTuesday initiative, or a for-profit business, school, religious or community group who commit to spearhead a project that will benefit at least one registered charity or non-profit. Families and individuals are encouraged to be generous in whatever ways matter to them, whether that means volunteering at a local charity or donating to a favorite cause. Learn more and sign up on the Giving Tuesday website.

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When was the last time you were approached by a stranger in the store asking for you to donate to a cause they cared about? Well, sure – it does happen. Especially around the holidays or for local events, but how often do you respond? For many people, the decision to give money is influenced by our peer networks and personal experiences. That’s why social media can be a valuable component of your online fundraising strategies. After all, it’s called “social” media for a reason!

You can think about online engagement as throwing a house party. Your website is your kitchen, where you can prepare the snacks, make the punch, and arrange all the utensils; in other words, that’s where you can create and store all your content. The social channels you set up are the various rooms in the house where guests gather, certain groups sticking together in certain rooms just as your community naturally segments across the web.

You can then offer up snacks and drinks or even start conversations or games based on who is in the room and what they might enjoy, just like you do when you share certain content on certain online profiles based on the sub-groups in your community engaging on each platform.

Social media, the place where you get to hang out with your party guests, is the social space where you not only connect with those you know, but you get to make introductions and meet new people. It’s your chance to have direct conversations with supporters, fans, and donors – conversations that happen in public so many more people can learn about and engage with you.

How does this support online fundraising? Social media is the place where you can change a donation ask from a stranger into a call to action from a friend. This is the space where you can equip your supporters with your message and help them carry your campaign to their own networks.

Here are three ways you can start using social media in your campaign today.

Find the Influencers: Social media is a great resource for identifying the champions in your community. For example, start following the common hashtags, watch for popular retweets on Twitter, and check out the commonly shared images and liked Pages on Facebook. You will start to see certain people and organizations rise to the top. Even if they don’t have big follower numbers, if they are the ones people in your community listen to and respond to, they are influencers. Invite them to participate in your campaign and share your call to donate.

Track the Flow: use social media to track how your campaign is being talked about and where the talking is taking place. Whether you’ve indicated a campaign- specific hashtag or not, use Bit.ly to check for those sharing your website or campaign uRl on Twitter and then see what the tweets say. check your website analytics to see which social platforms are sending traffic to your campaign page and follow the links to the people sharing your content.

Share the spotlight: Social media is an easy tool to use to say thank you to supporters and donors in public. By sharing recognition publicly, in real time, you can give people a feeling that you are excited for their contribution and see them standing out in the crowd. It also encourages others to participate when they see that the organization is there, interacting, and really engaging.

Those are just three ways to get started, but there are endless possibilities for building relationships, establishing trust, and truly engaging your community through social media to join your campaign.

Get the full ebook at: https://www.blackbaud.com/npexperts

Join the 100th Episode of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony is turning the 100th show over to the community: You choose the questions! And we’re giving away cool stuff to those who listen live and archive.

What do you want to ask me? I told Tony that I’ll take on all social media questions for listeners’ charities. What’s your question? We’re up to it!

We want your questions in advance. Comment on this blog post or on Tony’s, use the LinkedIn group or Facebook page or Twitter.

The whole show is devoted to using social media and social networks to help you reach your supporters and draw them close to your work.

The regular contributors will also be on hand talking about social media! Scott Koegler on technology; Maria Semple on prospect research; and Gene Takagi & Emily Chan on legal. All these areas relate to your social networks and the social media properties and our team will share their ideas, as they do every month.

We’ll also give out prizes to live and archive listeners. I’ve donated a bunch of NTEN books and swag, and Tony’ll give away his book and free consulting hours, in Planned Giving and Charity Registration.

Check us out live on July 13th at 1 o’clock eastern. Or subscribe on iTunes to catch the archive.

Today’s a special day for nonprofits. It started at midnight on the Pacific, when over 200 nonprofits flipped the switch and started racing to see which of them will be one of the three organizations to raise the most donations and win a share of $30,000. They only have 24 hours, when the switch is turned off at midnight tonight.

To get to this point, Twive and Receive nonprofits worked their tails off for weeks building a community and strategizing fundraising tactics. Their goal is to help supporters understand and memorize the simple call-to-action: donate to us on June 14^th.

The Importance of a Strong Community

Building a community takes time and effort. Ideally, you want to get to the point where supporters quickly respond to your calls.

Since the Twive contest kicked off a couple months ago, these nonprofits got to work. They did keyword searches on Twitter to talk to people they have something in common with, began engaging people on Facebook with conversation topics, and pinning images on Pinterest to get the sharing going.

Today, they have people Tweeting links to their fundraising page, supporters strutting the Twibbon and most importantly, donors making their donation. This can only be done with the backing of a strong online community.

The Importance of a Strong Strategy

There isn’t a cookie cutter fundraising strategy that works for every nonprofit across the board. Here’s a collection of what some Twive and Receive participants have done to promote their fundraiser:

The Importance of Doing Good

At the end of the day, these communities win because nonprofits that offer important services benefited. A great side effect is that people are going to feel good about their actions.

If you want to help make an impact, find your favorite cause or city and support them with a donation today on TwiveAndReceive.org. You have until midnight to help that nonprofit be a step closer towards winning an additional cash prize. You’ll be proud of yourself, trust me.

Ifdy Perez is the community manager at Razoo, an online fundraising platform that empowers individuals and nonprofits to meet their fundraising goals through online giving campaigns. She’s also editor of Inspiring Generosity, a blog that gives nonprofits helpful resources on online community management and social media tools.

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In 2011, Washington, DC, became one of the first major metropolitan regions to host a multimillion-dollar local giving day: Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington. Nearly 18,000 people participated in the 24-hour, online fundraising event, raising more than $2 million to benefit 1,200 local nonprofits. Seen as a success for the participating nonprofits, the organizers wanted to know more about what worked and whether giving days as a form of regional nonprofit development could be a new trend for the sector. In the report “How Giving Contests Can Strengthen Nonprofits and Communities,” sponsored by the Case Foundation and released today, Geoff Livingston analyzes the impact of Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington and the repercussions for other regions and nonprofit communities.

Training

Just as organizations (usually!) don’t embark on fundraising without a plan for using the funds, we can’t adopt a new fundraising approach without proper training. Organizations I’ve talked to that have participated in giving days in other cities have consistently raised the issue of training and education, saying that to do well during the one-day fundraiser was one thing, but they knew they didn’t have the internal know-how and skills to succeed with online fundraising year-round. I am very glad to see that the Greater Washington event incorporates training into the planning process to boost the capacity of all participating organizations. In the report, Geoff describes the training this way:

The training program treated the giving day as an exercise in best practices. Core elements included using the Razoo giving platform, content best practices, online storytelling, social media strategy, and donor cultivation. Live events included a training conference with nonprofit social media expert Beth Kanter as the keynote, and a series of seven simplified half-day training “boot camps” in Prince William County, Arlington County, Prince George’s County, and Montgomery County. The in-person events were complemented by a free, comprehensive online nonprofit toolkit. Components included video tutorials, suggested calendars of activity, sample materials, frequently asked questions, logos, and a Twibbon for Facebook and Twitter use.

From my experience participating in training events and courses as a speaker and trainer, I see much better results when coupling online and offline learning and resources. While you can learn a lot during a workshop, there is no replacement for really putting what you learn into practice; when you are back in the office trying something out, it is incredibly helpful to have online resources to support your work.

In the report, Geoff also shares these results:

The training program achieved its overarching goals. Eighty-eight percent of nonprofit survey respondents felt the training program helped, and 84 percent reported that the training increased their ability to interact and fundraise online. The training did reveal a social media and online fundraising knowledge division in the Washington nonprofit community, between those who are experienced and comfortable with related tools, and those still learning basic social media outreach.

I am curious to hear what topics or questions organizations will bring up when they participate for a second year, and whether they will inform online fundraising and engagement training provided by other groups.

Benefits

The benefits of something like Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington are really three-fold, according to the report. First, there’s the actual amount of donations—more than $2 million in just 24 hours is certainly no small feat! With 1,200 organizations participating, the report states: “Forty-one percent of nonprofit respondents said their best prior online fundraiser was $2,500 or greater, showing the event rivaled most nonprofits’ prior efforts.” Even though online fundraising is still a small portion of the overall dollars raised by most organizations, it is growing—check out the 2011 Online Giving Report from Blackbaud for data.

Second, the report states that participating organizations benefit from establishing relationships with new donors that they can maintain long-term. This touches back on the need for training—it is important to train participants on how to use online tools and platforms, as well as on understanding donor engagement.

And finally, the 24-hour fundraising drive supported the local nonprofit community as a whole by increasing awareness of all the programs and services contributing to the region. The long-term relationship building that comes from this big one-day event is valuable to both the organizations and donors. This is a chance to contribute to something big while exploring the organizations that are working locally to improve the region. Donors who are familiar with only a specific organization or two before the event have a chance to better understand the entire ecosystem of organizations, and even find additional programs or services to support in the future.

For me, the key to this report is that we can’t determine the success of a major fundraising initiative solely by the amount of funds it raises. We should also measure success according to the increased capacity in the organizations participating and a long-term benefit to the community as a whole.

Download the free ebook 7 Habits of Effective Personal Fundraisers

Here’s an excerpt and overview of the 7 Habits:

1. Personalize your fundraising
The most effective online fundraising campaign is a personal one. The most effective fundraisers use their personalities to promote their campaign as well as personal stories. Your relationships with your friends, family and coworkers are compelling enough reasons for your network to give to your cause.

2. Use multiple ways to raise awareness
Reach out to your personal network of friends, family, and co-workers. A personalized email is the best way to get donations. Social media is helpful to reach new audiences, too.

3. Keep up the human connections
Helping other people connect with the cause and need by focusing on being human. Meet people face-to-face to help them understand your passion for and commitment to the cause.

4. Emphasize how everyone can make a difference
Show that even small contributions will amount to big, tangible results. Let donors know exactly where their money is going and how much of a difference it makes.

5. Your cause is worth the effort
Getting donations for a cause isn’t easy. You’ll have to persevere through some dry spells and be assured that your efforts matter (because they really do!).

6. Remind others to contribute
Update and share progress with friends and family. This is an opportunity to remind others of your fundraising progress and how they can help.

7. Be appreciative
Always thank your donors and supporters! They want to be recognized and your appreciation goes a long way.

A big thank you to Rob Wu for including me in this resource!

What other habits, tricks, tips or trade secrets for personal fundraisers do you have? Would love to hear any other resources or tools you recommend!

Wendy Harman and Suzy DeFrancis, American Red Cross
David Smith and Michael Weiser, National Conference on Citizenship
Moderated by Kari Dunn, Case Foundation

Intro from Kari:

When the Case Foundation was first discussing with partners what they wanted to get out of the Summit, they talked about how to bridge the generational divide. Both of these organizations have both been able to figure out how to bring people together across ages, cultures, etc. We see a lot of attention on next generation leaders, but not on how they will change our institutions. The Red Cross has been around for 130 years and so much has changed – for example with text-to-give after disasters. It’s been met with fear and excitement. With NCC, both the chairman and the CEO were brought in on the same day – one at 27 and one 56 years old.

As part of the rising generation, what do you see as far as myths about Millennials?

Wendy: First, there’s this idea that Millennials want to go their own way and be outside institutions. But what we found was that they had much higher trust in institutions than genx and boomers. It is not so much a distrust, but more that they really want to be part of the change. There’s also the selfish factor. I’m guilty of calling our community on the social web selfish because what it means is that anything we put out, it needs to be useful for them. They need to take it with them.

David: There’s greater trust with Millennials than other generations. Are there really that many differences between generations? I just had the honor of being part of a new leaders group studying how different generations were leading in the work force and we found there were lots of differences between where people were in life. For example, if two people had just had kids, regardless of age, they had more similarities than just age. It also feels that sometimes genx is being forgotten in this conversations. The Millennial generation has more of the perspective that “the leader is me” instead of waiting for the world to change.

Kari: Carol Phillips wrote an article this morning suggesting that the differences in the work place may have less to go do with generational differences and more with trust. Perhaps there is more that connects us than divides us?

Suzy: I know many people think the boomers like structure in the work place, we are concerned with making money – but we were the age of Aquarius! In the work place, what I love about Millennials is that they seemed really focused on their passions, not necessarily their professions. THey can be given more free reign to do amazing things. But also some Millennials are running into the fact that you want to go after your passions but you have to make a paycheck. I agree though, that there isn’t a divide. As a boomer, we want to be more welcome to Millennials – we are revamping our intranet, etc.

David: I agree there are a lot of things about the nonprofit sector that are attractive to Millennials, but hopefully it continues to become more competitive with forprofits for actually making those paychecks. In the for profit world, though, there’s more leadership development. When you take on a job in a nonprofit, you’re normally doing a lot more than you signed for without a lot of structure. If we could do more to support that growth we could attract more Millennials.

Michael: For all their frustrations about unemployment, they should be frustrated. Millennials come to the work place more prepared to teach than previous generations. When you step in the door, you come prepackaged with skills you can share. Technological expertise and an understanding with social media others don’t know. The ability to teach, with patience, is essential. And I think where Millennials make the greatest impact is when they realize their capabilities to teach and that there’s an audience that wants to teach.

Wendy: I had the chance to talk to 10 Red Cross workers from across the country that are all Millennials yesterday and they all had stories about trying to teach colleagues and try to shift organizational culture. It was beautiful to see how much confidence they had but we are also still all learning.

Kari: I’m so glad you brought that up. For so many organizations that are participating in the Summit, you can see these things can work! What are the conversations that should be happening and what advice do you have for organizations on how to be the teacher?

Wendy: If nothing else, Millennials are collaborative. That works really well at the Red Cross. It’s been a fantastic journey to see the cultural shift mirroring the way business changes. I think collaboration and turning organizations inside out is the way organizations will operate in the future.

Suzy: Collaboration is the best skill someone can have. We have to collaborate across silos, organizations, other partners on the ground. You look around the world at the collaborations happening between organizations and governments, etc. Seeing Millennials with those skills is great. Though, you also have to have focus and structure and I think it’s some times frustrating for Millennials to bump up against not having their idea move forward.

David: I think that goes to different ways you can structure how you bring people together. I suggest creating inter-generational working groups that go from ideation to implementation. It helps learning about the process and learning from each other. And it creates informal and formal opportunities for mentorship. I think mentorship can happen both ways.

Michael: I think it does go both ways. There is no substitute for perspective of power of technology. Social scientists will debate impact and influence of social technologies for a long time. But in building a level of trust, particularly with a chairman 30 years senior, is all about an environment where you can learn. Don’t expect to snap your fingers and have people praise your brilliance. It takes the same sort of intrapersonal elbow grease that it always has. And that’s an important lesson to learn.

Kari: We would be remiss to not talk about the technology a bit. Share with us about a little insight about where you innovation and so on?

Wendy: If we take the text to give campaign, we saw a group of people – Millennials prefer to work together, not against each other and it really manifest in the test to give. What we saw was that by 9 pm on January 12th we were able to launch the program and for the next thee days people only found out about it from Twitter and facebook and so many shared it. We also had accountability and that’s what Millennials are expecting – we can share just what the impact of the $10 is. They want to feel that intimacy and belonging.

Suzy: You can only sell so much, community has to sell it for you. We really saw that with the tsunami and earthquake – when it happened, and we came to the office, we were already trending on Twitter and we hadn’t yet done anything. They are different tools from traditional media and we have to learn how to use it, and not just for marketing. It has to be with the community.

David: What we’ve seen as we moved from a brochure website to one where people could interact and post and learn, we saw the traffic going up 1000s of % a year. But we really saw a lot around our conference. Many are adding hashtags and so on, but we started streaming content and letting people engage online we found we were engaging 10-100 times more people than were in the room and we could actually listen to them. So we are pushing on that and trying to do more. How can you engage a wider audience that isn’t just the same audience?

Michael: Working around and against gatekeepers really seems to be the biggest obstacle to tackle.

Suzy: When we grew up learning to develop a message, and write talking points, and stay on message…and now we are in a world where messages are being shared out there and your message is being controlled by others.

Kari: I imagine there’s some jealousy, that they’ve figured it out and others are still big insittutions. What do you think organizations should be thinking about?

Wendy: I do this all day every day. To me, listening is the absolute most important thing to do. If you aren’t doing it, start it right away. One of the keys to our success is that over the last four years we have moved from part of communications to working with all staff. We are good now at explaining just what is happening on the ground anywhere at any moment. There’s a lot of opportunity there for any nonprofit to carry out their mission on the social web using the power of people and collaboration.

Suzy: DOn’t be afraid that you’re losing control, people want to part of your mission. Find opportunities for them to be part of your mission. It doesn’t always have to be “the Red Cross way” maybe they have something else they can do that we didn’t even know about it. You can’t be afraid to let others be involved in your work.

Michael: Appreciate the power of what new media can do, it requires you to think in three dimensional terms. The message is less important than the push and has to be something is authentic. But at the same time, the message is incredibly important because of it’s ability to reach so many people.

David: For people thinking structurally about engaging Millennials, I would say that one of the big questions out there is whether or not they are going to change things, etc. But finding a mentor and a champion, we were able to make things happen.

Michael: All of my partnerships have been with my contemporaries and now I have a great partnership with someone that is the age of my children. I can’t speak to the kinds of opportunities there are in transcending that.

Kari: Whether or not the panelists are Millennials or not.

Suzy: I’m a baby boomer and have raised 3 Millennials.

Wendy: I’m on the cusp of the genx and Millennials.

Michael: I’m definitely a baby boomer but have never self-identified that way, it’s not part of how I think of myself.

David: I’m a Millennial and I stand by it. I fought for the Millennial name back when people were calling us genY.

Kari: Hierarchy within organizaitons – is it a good thing or bad thing?

Suzy: I think it exists and I think for Millennials, learning to work within the hierarchy is important. Learning to work within structure is important but it doesn’t mean you don’t push for your ideas, etc. A bad example: Millennial was given a performance review, the next day her manager got a call from her mom saying that they could work together to get better performance from the child.

Wendy: I think traditional org structures are going to change and aren’t the best. I think we should look more at spoke and wheel and working across the organization.

Michael: I think human beings develop habits and affinities and express those across gender and ages etc. They come together out of their like-mindedness and the more you can enable that the more learning can take place.

David: I think Millennials are looking at themselves as their own brands and what they can bring to the organization and the world. As organizations realize how to get the most out of people, you’ll see more team-oriented structures.

Kari: How do you track text-based giving?

Wedny: it’s very difficult to track. People can opt-in to getting additional messages from us so we may get their phone number but that’s it.

Suzy: the payment is also different so people give right away but we get the funds once the phone bill goes through.

Kari: What do you see as the future for mobile giving and keeping those people?

Wendy: The trust I have is that the people that gave that way know how to use Google – we aren’t hard to find. I’m not trying to hound anyone to stick around. If we aren’t providing value, they won’t. So we have to relevant.

Kari: How do we move people from fear to collaboration?

Wendy: I think it’s through examples – sharing success stories. I’ve been doing this for 4.5 years now and there’s always been a fair amount of fear. Nothing bad has happened. But I think some great stuff has.

David: If you’re raising money and you say this is going to be a new way to do it, you have a bottom line. But when you’re looking at collaboration, you’re looking at what other positive externatlities can come from that. Is it a better project, a better work place, recruiting talent? Is your organizational culture shifting?

Michael: We publish the civic health index which essentially says does it work? do people respond? Our own work to figure what the impact is, we’ve had great response to do more.

Kari – thanks to everyone and please share via #MDS11

What did they find out in the Millennial Donor Report?

Last year, we did research on Millennial donors and it spurred us to do it again. Giving, communication and engagement are the three areas of research.

Had respondents from nearly 3,000 participants, 20-35 year olds, with more than 90% with a college degree (nearly half pursued graduate studies and 37% had graduate degrees). The survey was distributed online only.

Giving

They found that when looking at giving, 93% of respondents made a donation in the last year.However, 58% said their largest gift was less than $100. 10% said they gave single gifts larger than $1,000. Millennials are giving small amount to multiple organizations.

This year’s research followed last year’s findings.

58% said they gave because of a personal request. Personal contact is important. The next biggest way to give was online on organization’s website. However, we also asked how they would prefer to give. 49% said they gave via a website, but 58% said they would prefer that way.

Compelling mission or cause for your organization is motivation to give for 85% of respondents, and 56% said personal connection and trust in the leadership/organization. 52% said they gave if their friends or family endorse the organization.

What influences trust? 77% said that if family or friends recommend an organization, they trust the organization. 70% said trust was in understanding financial information and how their donation would be used. 63% said they wanted to meet the organization’s leadership.

When are you likely to donate? 60% said they are very likely to donate if they trust the organization, 43% said very likely if it was a specific project or purpose. 41% said very likely if there was a matching gift.

What makes you stop donating? 79% very likely NOT to give if they don’t trust the organization. 37% said likely and 38% very likely that they would stop if the organization asked too often.

Only 28% of respondents said they would participate in a giving circle but only 22% rejected the notion outright. 50% said they weren’t sure what it is.

Communicating

71% said they learn about organizations through web searches (like Google). 62% said email communications from the organization and 56% said peer endorsement from family/friends. 70% say that when they first visit your website they want to know about your mission and history, and 56% want to know about your financial condition. People want transparency. 65% want an organizatoin’s website to explain how support will make a difference.

43% said they wanted communication monthly, 32% said quarterly, 10% weekly, 11% yearly. 79% said they want updates on programs and services. 70% want to know about volunteer opportunities. 56% want information about fundraising events and about activities for your professionals. Communication preference is email.

Engagement

How do Millennials want to be engaged? Interested in activities with your organization that involve others: dinner with entertainment, private events, social parties with peers, sports and walk/runs. These are also opportunities for them to connect with leadership from the organization.

How often do Millennials volunteer? 44% said a few times per year, 12% once a month, 18% a few times a month, 14% once a week or more, 12% ones a year. The primary obstacle to volunteering being a lack of time.

61% said they want to volunteer with friends and family, 56% said they want an organized group. 44% said they wanted to volunteer on their own.

Young Professional Groups – 40% said they would be interested in joining a young professional organization. Why: 80% said they would join if there was a compelling mission or cause, 77% said for networking and socialization, 75% said professional development.

What does this mean?

Communicating

Multichannel approach: direct mail still works, with a life of about 4-6 weeks. Email is core, but only has a life of about 6 hours. Strongly consider using peers and personal solicitation.

Smaller requests with appropriate frequency – Millennials said they want to hear from organizations, but not get asks all of the time (want info on programs and services monthly).

We know Millennials respond to face to face, the reality of getting out and talking to people to get a $50 gift is often not prioritized by staff – so have it be a peer to peer thing/event/group where they are asking each other.

They recommend you begin with email before you branch into social media, like facebook or mobile. Don’t start with broadcast, you need to engage and connect. Connecting via email is engagement. Work on soliciting a response via email.

Email: asking for $50 or less with a very timely message. Make your call to action in the email a button, including donation call outs. End your email with a call to action. What we see clients try to do is reformat their direct mail content into an email – that does not work.

Talk to Millennials about your goals, for example if you are trying to do something big and raise a large amount of money, break the goal and gifts down into smaller buckets so it isn’t overwhelming. Track your open rates and conversions (do they open the email and then do they actually make a gift) – open rates are important to measure, not just conversions and gifts.

As an example, visit the the ASPCA website – show small gift amounts, provide buttons, focus on impact and have used email campaigns to drive people to website for gifts

Using Google and other search engines is the most common way Millennials find you. Make sure you see how your organization comes up in search results.

Help Millennial donors experience your cause online. How do we tell our story and also engage Millennials virtually? Instead of printed annual reports, try doing a video with interview and clips from what you’ve done the last year. Engage your Millennials as guest bloggers.

As examples, check out Conservation International. They show how a donor has protected an acre of forest and provides ways for people to engage with the website and the mission. Another example is Team Fox, with it’s peer to peer fundraising.

Engagement

Millennials want to change the world and want to be challenged. Organizations need to create a challenge or they will go somewhere else. Ask them to think with us, plan with us, build with us. Share the challenges and the problems we want to tackle and asking them to join us in the whole process instead of just asking them to fund something.

Leadership interaction is important for Millennials. It isn’t that we need to organize them, but we need to facilitate ways for them to organize themselves.

Get the full Millennial Donor Report

You can get the full report, review charts and data, and more at: http://millennialdonors.com/research/report

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In a previous post, I discussed some of the highlights from recent reports about the impact of celebrities and data on Millennial donors. The conclusion was that building trust with your constituents is the closest you can come to a silver bullet for fundraising – not slick online tools or celebrity endorsements. But, how do you go about building that trust? It doesn’t just happen with the flip of a switch, but you can start today by changing small things, and even big things, to make your organization a trusted part of the community.

Passive Ways to Build Trust

There are many different ways to build trust, but some of them are passive, or in other words, they become the foundation for more active trust-building communications or engagement.

Share your data

Sites like GuideStar and GreatNonprofits make it easy for people that are interested in learning about your organization’s data and history to find it. Do not assume that if a potential donor or volunteer wants to learn about your work, impact, and financial situation that they will download (if you even post the file) a massive annual report and read that in their free time. Instead, make your information – both qualitative and quantitative – easy to find and digest on your website. Share stories of your impact, but make the numbers just as accessible, too.

Connect your presence

It doesn’t take many clicks for someone to get lost on the web – we’ve all experienced that! So make it easy for people to find out more about you wherever they come across your presence online. Ensure that your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and any other online profile you have includes a link back to your organization’s website. Or even better, a welcome page designed for people who find you in social media and may not know about your work (often, the home page is a generic introduction). For example, my Twitter bio links to https://amysampleward.org/welcome instead of my website’s home page. This can build trust, but can also increase engagement by providing relevant calls to action on the very first click.

Allow for feedback

I’m sure you have a Contact Us page. But does it just list the info@ email? Does it only include an email web form? What about your Staff page – does it actually list the email addresses or phone numbers of individual staff? Further, how about program information on your website – does it include mention of which staff actually work on those programs and how to connect with them? These are all opportunities to gather feedback and build transparency!

Active Ways to Build Trust

Empower community advisors

Form a community advisory team that can provide feedback, ideas, direction and even leadership or organizing support. This doesn’t have to be something that creates more work for your staff, but instead if it is a group of people who are already giving feedback often, or that you or your staff send updates to or check in with, simply formalize the role and connect them with each other. Try inviting them all into the office once per quarter for a lunch to discuss new ideas or respond to possible new initiatives or programs. Create an email list for them and your staff or leadership so that connecting and discussing new ideas can be as easy as possible.

Hold open discussions

Releasing your annual report? Did you just secure some new funding? Launching a new program or campaign? Announce it to the community with an invitation to join an open conference call where you will provide information, allow people to ask questions, and so on. Even if there isn’t a huge turn out on the call, you can record it and provide it on the website for others to listen to in the future. Showing that you are available and transparent about your operations will build trust in real time on that call, but also going forward.

Connect program staff with community

As much as it helps build trust by making your organization’s leadership accessible, it’s even more important that the program staff – those driving and building the day to day impact of your programs and services – are connected directly with the community. It can take many shapes: monthly community calls, regular open house events, staff interviews and blog posts (be sure you allow for comments!), or regular program updates. As just one example, Meyer Memorial Trust has an ongoing series called “Two Way Street Tour” where program officers from the foundation travel to different parts of the state and meet with the nonprofit community (both grantees, and those that are not funded by the foundation) to share Meyer’s work and vision and also (the two way street part) learn all they can about what groups are doing locally.

How has your organization become more transparent, open, and trustworthy? Do you have tips or suggestions to share with others? I’d love to hear your feedback!