Tag Archive for 'report'

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.

CMS Survey from NTEN

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on June 2, 2008
in reports
. 0 Comments

Last week, NTEN released the Content Management System Satisfaction Report (which you can download from their website).  Over 650 people fully completed the survey which covered over 27 different systems.

What I found most interesting was the impact of open source systems on the field:

  • Just over 25% of respondents said open source was in the top 3 of priorities when choosing an CMS
  • Over 1/3 of survey respondents reported using an open source tool already
  • Open source tools (including Drupal, Joomla!, Plone) were given some of the best over all grades by respondents

If you want to find out more about open source solutions, check out the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative.  You can download the report here.

What are you currently using for CMS?  Do you have an CMS or in-house technology staff who manage the website?  If you could ask one question and get a truthful answer in your CMS search, what would you ask?

And then there’s Advocacy

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on April 27, 2008
in reports
. 0 Comments

As promised, I wanted to share some thoughts on the advocacy data included in the 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study from M+R and NTEN (you can read about the email campaign data and the fundraising data, too).

Email Advocacy
The average rate for page completion (filling in a form, etc.) increased from 85% in 2006 to 89% in 2007. Things like improved layout and design of advocacy pages could be the reason for the increase, or that supporters are more comfortble/used to the forms and what to expect when clicking through to the page. I think it is also important to think about the inclusion of auto-complete/fill information either from a personal option on the users’ computers or through a cookie from your site.

Taking Action
Environmental and rights organizations each had about half of their membership taking action in 2007. That is well ahead of health and international organizations. Often, it is hard to simplify the best reason or couple reasons that contribute to the high action rates. Of course, doing everything ‘right’ doesn’t hurt! I suggest signing up on the list for organizations or campaigns that strikes/surprises/motivates/impresses you outside (or in) your sector of work and learn from the ways it is done - how the emails are done (how many, about what, etc.), how you are called to action, how you are rewarded for action if you do take it, etc.

One statistic that is very important to learn from is that of those who are active members, 13% are categorized as ’super activists’ but those 13% account for 42% of the action taken (in 2007). These super activists comprise about 5% of an organization’s list. These are very important members. That much goes without saying; but, what does it mean for your organization’s interaction with them? It’s important to investigate and develop ways for super activists to do the work of cultivating less active or inactive members into taking action, so that you don’t have to. Building a system for interaction between members can allow for further actions that include inviting others to become active when you do, or suggesting actions to your contacts, etc.

Case Studies
#1. Human Rights Campaign

The HRC increased its advocacy response rates in 2007 by a full percentage point and contribute this increase to segmentation of its list. It split the list into five sub-lists based on the members’ past activities/interactions with the organization. HRC could then communicate in a more tailored way with the members on each list.

Today, everyone on the list gets one advocacy action and the one email newsletter per month, plus a fundraising campaign every 2-3 months. Beyond that, audiences for emails are based on demonstrated interest. For example, extra action alerts only go to people who’ve already shown an interest in that issue and to core activists (who have taken 5+ online actions in the page year). Special fundraising campaigns target recent donors. Higher-threshold actions like phone calls and letters to the editor never go to inactives.

Even though there may be fewer people receiving an important action, it is directed at the members more likely to actually do it, instead of becoming another email to someone frustrated by action alerts who only subscribes for the news and information.

#2. Environmental Defense

ED noticed that they were earning 40% of their dollars in the year-end and that people gave at the same rate regardless of how many emails when looking at the data from three consecutive Decembers. In 2007, they took a random 15% of their list and those members received only 3 messages while the rest of the list received 13 (between Thanksgiving and December 31st). The group receiving only 3 messages had a lower donation rate so they plan to do further list testing to find the ’sweet spot’ with their members. What has been the result of list tests like this; if you haven’t yet done any segmenting or testing, do you plan to?

An interesting test that ED conducted on their website took place right on the home page. They used a graphic with polar bears and a call to action for contributions, in one instance, and in the other simply put the donation form in the same spot (top, center of the home page). What they noticed was an increase of 8% more gifts with the donation form, 8% more donations of $1,000 or less and 10% more donations of %500 or less. The lesson they learned was to just put the option completely in front of the visitor, take out all possible clicks, and let them decide right away if they are going to give or not.

What has been the best advocacy campaign/call to action in the last year at your organization? What data did you collect (either quantitative or qualitative) that helped you plan for the next one?

How do your benchmarks compare?

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on April 24, 2008
in reports
. 2 Comments

Today, M+R Strategic Services and NTEN released the 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study.

This “analysis of online messaging, fundraising and advocacy metrics for nonprofit organization” comes with some surprises and some data that shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention to their online benchmarks. The NonProfit Times has a piece on the report here.

I read it this morning and participated in a webinar/conference call with the producers of the report this afternoon. Some of my thoughts are below, and many more will follow in additional posts. If you want to download the report, you can do so right here.

Data and thoughts…

Email Open Rates
One of the first pieces of information most of us look at when considering our effectiveness online is the open rate for email campaigns. As the report indicates, open rates have continued to trend down—2007’s rate was 17.6% with 2006 being at 21.3%. One important factor to remember, though, that really messes with the validity of these numbers, is the the way opens are indicated. Usually there is a one pixel size image that is embedded in the email so that when it loads on the viewer’s screen, the sender’s server is indicated and a open is registered. Many email applications have a preview window that loads an email even if the viewer doesn’t read it. Alternatively, most email clients viewed in a web browser are set by default not to load images. So, a viewer could read an email and even click through to take action or donate, with an open never being registered on the sender’s server.

People have so many emails to get through every day and it is only increasing. My question to consider then, is how do you become a resource or include value in every email without overwhelming the reader? You still want them to click on the donate or take action links, but by increasing the value of the content of your emails (value doesn’t necessarily only mean information, but options for action, etc.), you can increase your open rate and the number of clickthroughs for donations or action because of the visibility.

Message Type
The report measures the success of emails (open rate, clickthroughs, page completion, and response rate) by the three main message types: fundraising, news, advocacy. Rates have declined for each type from 2006 to 2007 but advocacy actions generated slightly higher open rates and significantly higher clickthrough, page completion and response rates. This says to me: provide options for advocacy and fundraising and news in every message! Diversifying your email lists is important, and there is certainly a lot to the impact those more tailored emails get - but that doesn’t mean that they can’t have tailored and appropriate messages for all three areas in an email.

Clickthrough Rates
In this area, the rates vary by issue sector. The environmental organizations that participated (you can find out which organizations were included in the survey here), had the highest clickthrough rates of all participants. What do their email newsletters have that yours don’t? Are they offering/linking to compelling videos and photos? Maybe including compelling stories and reports that require the reader to click through to the website to continue reading or download. Or, maybe there is a link to community features that require leaving the email.

Message Frequency & Subscribers
The report’s findings indicate a correlation between the number of emails sent and the open rate: “when an organization sent five or more emails per subscriber in a month, the open rate dropped by 1%.” Likewise, “the more messages an organization sends, the higher its unsubscribe rate for that month.” This doesn’t mean that you should be wary of emailing your lists. On the contrary. Focus on key questions though, like: What is pertinent, relates to current events, contributes to a campaign, creates positive actions for members? Or, how can we combine some of these smaller messages into a compelling story or segmented email? Don’t let data that could seem negative, cause fear. It’s good to question what you are doing though so that you can really be sure to send the best messages you have to your members.

There are really so many questions that this report brings to mind that should be discussed and not hidden. I encourage you to ask a hard question about some of your data, and get excited for positive places you can go with the answers.

What benchmarks have you seen your organization’s email campaigns hitting or missing? What do you want to be with your data - and are those goals realistic based on these benchmarks?

I’m going to follow this up with some posts on the fundraising data from the report and discussion of some case studies used to flesh out the numbers.

Has your usage increased, too?

Published
by
amysampleward
on January 3, 2008
in reports
. 1 Comment

TechSoup conducted a web usage survey last year and has just released the results of this year’s survey. You can read more about it and download the results from the 2007 survey on their website.

The general increase of web 2.0 tools (social media / new media tools) is not surprising since there is a growing number of people and organizations providing support and education for those interested in getting started. But, there are a few things that I find interesting.

Survey respondents showed a 19% increase in use of RSS feed subscriptions. Using RSS both to distribute and to consume information online has been a topic at the new media training events I have helped put on for Meyer Memorial Trust and a topic that has always created a lot of conversation among the nonprofits I talk to. One great reference on RSS use is Marshall Kirkpatrick. RSS use will also be the topic for the Portland 501 Tech Club meeting on January 14th, with Marshall as our terrific presenter. (Let me know if you are interested in attending!)

50% said that they participated in an online event or training session related to work, which is an 11% increase from last year. I think it’s great that people are taking advantage of the great learning and engagement opportunities online, especially from organizations like NTEN.

What things have you increased your usage of in the past year? What things do you hope to increase your use of in the year to come? I’d love to hear about it!

Social media, only a matter of time?

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 14, 2007
in reports and socialmedia
. 2 Comments

A new report out from Strategy Analytics estimates that social media could be touching an enormous amount of people worldwide, very soon: about 1 in 6 people, according to the report, will be using social media around the world by 2012 (that is just five years!).

“It is clear that user generated media will increasingly compete with professional media when it comes to the attention and free time of users,” comments Martin Olausson, Director of Digital Media Research at Strategy Analytics. “However, if professional media companies choose to embrace social media applications it will enable a more direct and positive relationship with consumers, which will in turn drive increased engagement and loyalty.”

Mack Collier suggest some interesting questions to consider given the reports estimates and what they would mean for everyone.

Some additional things to consider with this news, especially for nonprofits:

  • How are you using social media tools now? (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, NetworkForGood, Change.org, Wikis, RSS, Podcasts, YouTube, etc.)
  • How will you engage with new audiences and more people as the online community continues to grow? (Does your social media strategy account for engagement now?)
  • How will you adapt to new tools as they emerge? (With more people using the current tools, the need for additional, different, and evolving tools grows.)
  • How can you do your work and serve your community better with more tools and users? (At the end of the day, you still want to be saving the world and not just connecting, right?)

What are your answers? Or, what other questions do you have?

Forrester helps you create a social strategy

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 12, 2007
in marketing and socialmedia
. 3 Comments

POST is Forrester’s terrific new model for step-by-step strategy development using social media tools. With the ever-growing list of new media tools available for the for- and nonprofit organizations to use, picking the best tool for the project becomes a big issue.

Last Friday, my colleagues and I put on a training event for nonprofits on using social media. As part of the day’s workshop, participants split into small groups and were provided with a scenario about a nonprofit facing a certain dilemma and prompted to create a strategy that involved social media tools. Nearly all of the groups in the jumped right in to discussing tools available and consequently how they might use them. This lead to a lot of circular conversations and frustrated, not to mention overwhelmed, participants. With direction from the group leaders, though, the planning was quickly back on track.

Forrester’s POST approach, keeps you on track by making sure you don’t jump to the icing of the cake before you have decided what you are even baking.

In the POST process, you have four steps including: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. Addressing the issue of People means looking first at who the audience before doing anything else.

After you are confident about who you are reaching and some of their online characteristics, you can move on to Objectives. This is where you really think about what you are trying to do. Think small. Saving the world is on everyone’s list, but probably not quite as doable as provide event participants with collaboration and conversation access.

With your audience and goals in check, start thinking about the Strategy. Strategy doesn’t mean the social media tools, though, don’t rush! In this part, you want to focus on what the technology tools will change for you and your audience. How will things be after you have implemented the tools?

Okay, now you can pick the most applicable technology tools to use. It will be easier to see the right tools from the plethora that exists because you are looking through a specific lens that has the audience, goal and strategy layers. You will now be able to also have a more constructive view of why some and not some other options.

I wish that I would have had handouts of the POST method for our event for participants! Conversations and planning could have been much more focused. I am confident that in the future, the POST method will be able to help organizations across the spectrum fine tune their social media strategies and help get more direction to the new technology integration.

The POST process is a terrific way to help nonprofits and for-profits in their media decision making. Forrester, and specifically Josh Bernoff, has done terrific work on this. You should head over to Forrester’s website or to their blog to learn more about POST and the great work happening at Forrester.

POST will be featured in Forrester’s book Groundswell. The book is on pre-order now to be available in April. You can place a pre-order now if you are interested.

Nonprofits ahead of the curve!

Published
by
amysampleward
on November 28, 2007
in reports and socialmedia
. 0 Comments

Many folks are pointing today to the research and report by Eric Mattson and Nora Ganim Barnes, Pd. D. about the use of social media tools by nonprofits. “Blogging for the Hearts and Donors: Largest US Charities Use Social Media” is based on the results of a survey of 76 executives from the list of 200 Top Charities by Forbes. Mattson and Barnes compared the results of the phone survey to the data on social media usage by the Fortune 500, Inc. 500, and college admission departments. Charities across the board are ahead of the business and college groups when it comes to integrating social media tools (including blogs, video, social networking, podcasting, message boards, and wikis)into their marketing, outreach, and fundraising strategies.

You can read about and download the report here.

One of the things that I found most interesting is the low response for familiarity with and usage of wikis. Wikis are a terrific way to collaborate, connect event or training participants before, during and after workshops, and organize collective learning spaces for a department, organization, or community. Is your organization utilizing a wiki to share knowledge or work on projects together?

I was happy to see that “charities are blogging at a higher rate than any group of businesses studied to date.” It is encouraging that organizations are recognizing the power and ease which blogs offer to provide information quickly to donors, supporters, reporters, and the community. Most organizations’ communications staff are the ones maintaining and writing the blogs. Is this the same at your organization? How do people in organizations and outside of organizations view blogs from the executive director/ceo?

Check out the report and poll your own organization to gauge your internal familiarity and usage—you could be surprised!

For-profits using your cause for marketing?

Published
by
amysampleward
on November 19, 2007
in marketing and reports
. 1 Comment

As more organizations in the for-profit sector take on the causes of nonprofits, reports like the one from PRWeek and Barkley Public Relations emerge. This survey of the field shows the view growing importance of cause marketing in the for-profit sector, from Whirlpool and KitchenAid to Newman’s Own. More consumers are basing their decisions of where to put their money on where a corporation is putting its money.

Corporations enjoy the benefit of giving back to a cause that aligns with their established brand and “heart,” as well as the attraction and retention of consumers drawn to the same cause. Nonprofits targeted through these cause marketing campaigns gain added financial support and recognition.

But what about the millions of nonprofits that are working throughout the country but are either too small to gain the attention of potential corporations or are working in the same field as a much larger organization with more visibility? If your organization provides special meetings and events for children with life threatening diseases but serve only those patients in your local county’s hospitals, a corporation may choose to market with Make-A-Wish Foundation instead because there is a much larger consumer base that already knows that organization and its work.

Cause marketing can really benefit all three parties involved: The corporation, the cause/nonprofit, and the consumers. Everyone can feel good for being a part of positive social activism.

But back to those very small nonprofits…Contact local corporations and discuss how they could sponsor an annual event, fundraiser, or even commit to a 5 or 10-year cause campaign. Be sure that the corporation is one that your nonprofit feels comfortable aligning with, has a mission and public presence that is similar enough to align with your organization, and you are ready and willing to commit to the partnership on your end, too.

What do you think about corporate cause marketing? Is it an entirely different kind of philanthropy?

Grantmakers losing out on the same technology benefits as nonprofits

Published
by
amysampleward
on October 31, 2007
in reports
. 0 Comments

I blogged about the Grassroots Technology report recently published from INOM that highlighted the successes and barriers for grassroots organizations integrating technology into the office and field. The Technology Affinity Group recently published the 2007 Grantmakers Information Technology Survey Report, which has some similarly disappointing results and much fewer signs of hope.

The Council on Foundations conducted the survey of grantmaking organizations via its online survey and benchmarking website. Organizations can use the benchmarking tool to make unique comparisons of the data to go beyond the report’s included statistics.

Anyone who has worked in the nonprofit technology sector can attest that staffing is always an issue. It is often the department that isn’t even a department, projects completed by staff with other titles and job duties or by consultants. Grantmakers are increasingly interested in helping nonprofits increase their technology facilities, whether by staff, education, or hardware. BUT, as this report shows, grantmakers need to be looking at their own organizations before trying to understand how to best help nonprofits.

“Thirty-two percent of respondents indicated the party primarily responsible for technology was the finance/administration staff and 25 percent of respondents indicated the party primarily responsible for technology was in-house technology staff. An Additional 19 percent reported that consultant was the party primarily responsible for technology.” Foundation staffing numbers can be more accurately represented by relevant peers, rather than foundation asset size (as the number above represent) by using the benchmarking tool online.

Technology staff that a foundation does have, is frequently not included in strategic planning (65%), and 84 percent of organizations surveyed said they do not have a technology plan, or have one that is not up-to-date (71% and 13% respectively). Foundations are more likely to have a disaster plan than a technology plan.

Barriers for technology implementation and maintenance are similar to those of nonprofit organizations with cost and lack of staffing coming in as the highest constraints. Following those, lack of training and lack of organizational commitment are the next most frequently cited barriers—again, echoing many of the complaints that nonprofits have voiced.

In two areas that the recent report on grassroots organizations did not cover, we find more disappointing news for grantmakers. The use of open source software in most categories is decreasing. This worries me the most as open source is a terrific way for nonprofits to support software development and decrease costs. Knowledge management is the other unique area, especially important for larger grantmakers, with less than exciting news. Only 2 percent have implemented a knowledge management system!

More than one third (38%) indicated they were not interested in knowledge management, and 47 percent indicated they were trying to define what knowledge management meant to their organization.

A very discouraging report (the third of its kind, COF has surveyed grantmakers in 2003, 2005 and 2007) for the philanthropy sector. Grantmakers should be at the forefront of technology use and capability internally and for external communications. Grantmakers will need to turn these numbers around to better serve, lead, and support the nonprofits they are encouraging to use technology to its fullest.