Packaging Your Organization to Communicate Impact The Way the User Wants to Experience It

I’ve had the pleasure of consulting closely with countless unique clients with diverse missions, yet all face a common challenge. They struggle to position their organizations effectively in a manner which communicates the impact of their organization to various demographic segments. The challenge, common among most non-profits, goes beyond messaging to encompass internal operational silos, departmental or programmatic territorialism, false profiling of market segments due to lack of proper evidence, and an overall challenge in defining each organization’s role in changing the world for the community they serve in an appropriate way – all the while addressing the communications preferences of disparate populations. Does this sound like too many balls to juggle in the air? I argue this is not the case.

More often than not, organizations approach challenges such as user-intuitive information architecture (navigation) on their web site and through other communications channels without taking into account how unlike individuals will navigate and interpret information. An exercise recently conducted with one client’s technology and web review board unexpectedly triggered surprised looks as board members realized for the first time that individuals tasked with the same objective in reviewing, critiquing or navigating a web site will not only interpret and perceive navigation, visuals, interactivity, and messaging differently, but will adamantly argue that their views apply to all. They’re all disagreeing, but they’re all right – their way is “the right way.” One of the first lessons I learned in my career in non-profit fund development and marketing came to me from a mentor and VP at the world’s most popular cola creator. In chairing my organization’s PR and marketing committee, he operated under the mantra, perception is reality.

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A very popular term thrown around in buzzword bingo games for the past 20 years or so has been CRM. The for-profit world defined it as Customer Relationship Management and companies like SAP, Siebel, and Oracle have built very large technology companies around the concept. In the nonprofit world we prefer to call it Constituent Relationship Management and Blackbaud is one of a few companies that provide solutions around the concept.

CRM grew out of the disco database marketing days where companies and organizations crunched through mounds of information in an attempt to sell more widgets or reach more people. The problem with relying on just data to make important decisions is that data ≠ information. What decision makers really wanted were systems that could track every interaction, connection, transaction, and other important events to build a more informative picture of the relationship. And thus, CRM was born.

Companies like General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Ford Motor Company, and Wal-Mart spent hundreds of millions of dollars on sophisticated CRM systems to sell more jet engines, shampoo, toilet paper, cars, dog food, and household items. Over the years CRM became a lot more sophisticated and companies like Amazon.com, Costco, JetBlue and Target took things to a whole new level.

What these innovators understood was that it was very myopic to define “customers” as just people that purchased one of their products or services. A much broader view is that customers can also be influencers, trendsetters, early adopters, referrers, and have a hand in other important roles. In a highly competitive global market, managing those relationships and retaining those relationships has never been more important. The word “customer” has been redefined.

Nonprofit organizations have also been making the transition from “donor database” systems to solutions that enable the entire constituent relationship to be managed. They understand that fulfilling their mission and satisfying the needs of stakeholders requires more than just a place to put data about dollars and events. Organizations have been gradually embracing the concept that a constituent isn’t just someone who donates to the organization.

In the past, I’ve given presentations about the three different ways individuals “give” to nonprofit organizations. People give their time, talent, or treasure. (cue the visuals)

An activist might give their time to support a cause, an accountant might give their talent and serve as a board member, and an alumnus might give their treasure through a major gift. (I think you get where I’m going here.) A traditional fundraising model might be entirely based on moving individuals from time to talent to treasure. But a more modern approach is to acknowledge that constituents may have their only interaction with an organization through a time/talent/treasure relationship.

I used to think that this broader definition was overstating the obvious. But I continue to talk to organizations that still have an old school view of things, and worse yet, nonprofits that have a progressive view but are stuck with systems that still don’t get it. The other limiting factor to success is having multiple disparate systems to track and manage different types of constituents. Activitists in one system, alumni in a another, donors in another, major donors in another, corporate contacts in another, online donors in another, volunteers in another, direct mail recipients in another, email recipients in another, and no ability to look across groups to better personalize the relationships.

Bits and bytes won’t entirely solve the need to redefine what constituents mean to nonprofits. This is a bigger philosophical shift to understanding that every individual and organization that interacts with a nonprofit is a valuable relationship that needs to be nurtured and developed over time. Technology can help carry some of the load , but it will take the leaders of nonprofit organizations to point the way.

Sorry for the horrible pun. Sometimes I can’t help myself.

In Montreal, the group L’Itineraire is going to use the city’s old parking meters to help raise funds for the homeless. The project is being led by municipal politicians and they hope to have 34 fundraising meters up and running by the end of July.

I’ve never heard of such a thing before and thought it was really cool and wanted to share it with you. If you’d like to read the full article, it’s on The Chronicle Journal site.

The popularity of giving circles is on the rise today. While I do see the value of combining my interests and money with the interests and money of others to do more good (more money = more good, right?), I am worried these circles will ultimately hurt nonprofits.

I imagine that if you’re reading this you probably know what a giving circle is, but let me just make sure. A giving circle is a group of individuals who pool their money and, collectively, decide where to donate that money.

Giving circles have been around for generations, and they are now becoming much more popular. Even I belong to a very loosely organized circle with some friends who support a couple of causes. We got together because we thought if we combined our money and made one larger gift to a nonprofit it would certainly make more of a difference. Have we made more of a difference? Dunno. Maybe I’ll do some analysis and make a future posting about that.

Touted as a way for people to get more involved in the fundraising process and to make a bigger impact with their donated dollars, giving circles make it hard for nonprofits to get access to individuals, where connections and real relationships are built. It’s through these personal relationships we build with volunteers and donors that our organizations grow, and how we “move” donors through a variety of stages, ultimately to a place where they are sincerely engaged in what we do. Giving circles take away our access to the individual and limit the interactions we can have at a one-to-one level. And, as giving circles grow and their interests change, it’s difficult for nonprofits to find funding for multiyear projects.

And, larger, more organized giving circles can require significant accountability reporting about the impact their contribution has made. While larger nonprofits may have the staff to fulfill these requirements, my friends at smaller organizations tell me they are hesitant to go to giving circles because of the reporting burden. Says a friend, “Going to our regional giving circle is like going to a major foundation. There are just too many hoops to go through, and I don’t have the staff to do this.” At the same time, she has found that several of her “rising donors” now give exclusively through the circle, effectively eliminating her access to them directly.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Happy Fundraising!

The 2007 running of the Daytona 500 brought with it a lot of advertising and promtions from the multitude of NASCAR corporate sponsors. Amid the flurry of comercials were promotional ads for The NASCAR Foundation’s annual NASCAR Day fundraising event.

NASCAR Day is now in its fourth year as the major public-facing fundraising initiative of the The NASCAR Foundation. In exchange for a $5 donation, participants receive a commemorative NASCAR Day lapel pin. The majority of the donations come from the many corporate partners and sponors affiliated with NASCAR and its participating motorsports teams.

This is the second year in a row that the organization has partnered with Blackbaud Interactive to develop an online micro-site to promote the event. Last year’s NASCAR Day was the largest and most succesful to date with over 3,000 companies across the country participating to help sell over 100,000 pins worldwide.

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I was intrigued by this recent article about SAP and others incorporating collaboration features like wikis, forums, blogs and widgets into their products to help encourage communication among users. One of our main goals with products on the Infinity platform is to get beyond the idea of these apps being a ‘data storage’ tool and really focus on the ways in which the products facilitate and improve business processes. We’re already well on our way to meeting this goal through features like customizable, easy-to-use business transactions (such as sending receipts or posting to GL), and better integration of reporting data into these functions.

But a huge part of facilitating processes involves communication among people and departments. I’m wondering what we can do to better allow users to communicate with each other through our products? And where would this type of functionality be most useful? We’ve already taken steps in this direction in specific areas - Major Giving cultivation, for example, where we’re looking to improve the ability of fundraisers and their managers to communicate progress and status on their prospects. But I think this is an area we can explore further and really take advantage of some of the newer tools available to us.

It seems like there are some key characteristics of situations where in-product collaboration would be most useful:

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We talk a lot about nonprofits using the social web to attract and engage donors, but the concepts trend more towards awareness than action. Using MySpace or YouTube to deliver your message to a broad audience is one thing - getting them to act is another.

That’s where SixDegrees.org, AOL Instant Messenger, and Network for Good come in. Someone had the brilliant idea to put these three ingredients into a giant Web 2.0 blender in the hopes of producing a tasty, social fundraising smoothie – and it looks like they have succeeded.

With Kevin Bacon as the natural pitchman, 6Degrees.org is asking donors to choose a nonprofit, then get 6 friends to give to the same organization. Network for Good is covering the online donations, while AOL’s MySpace equivalent AIM Pages handles the social aspect. The idea is to use a social network to form impromptu giving circles…got it?

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[Jim enters blog and steps up on soapbox]. How dare you treat my $25 donation as such an insignificant drop in the bucket. I could have had a decent meal, bought a new shirt, gone to a couple of movies. Or, better yet, I could have given this money to an organization that cares and appreciates my support of their mission! [Jim steps down off of his soapbox]

Here’s the story. Over the past several months I have made small gifts ($25) to a number of CLIENT organizations that I worked with during the same period. To be exact, I made 10 gifts of $25 each: seven made online, two sent by mail, and one handed to someone at the organization while I was onsite. These gifts represented my first donations to these particular organizations, and were undesignated so that the money could be used where it was most needed.

So far, so good, right? Here is where it gets interesting. Take a guess at how many acknowledgments I received for the 10 gifts I made. It’s less than half – actually, it’s way less than half. TWO! Two thank yous out of 10 gifts made! One from an online gift, and one from a mailed gift. And, yes, every organization had my mailing address and I did not indicate anywhere that I did not want to be acknowledged for my gift. Don’t blame this on me!

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Happy New Year! I am excited about the start of a new year, and I cannot begin to tell you how “new” this year really is for me. I have a lot to celebrate, much of which I will share with you throughout the year. But, I do want to proudly announce that I am cancer-free! I just had to say that again. More details about that to come.

When I was asked to become a blogger, I was a bit surprised. Someone thought you might be interested in what I have to say. Believe me, I have a lot to say - just not sure others wanted to hear it. So, you be the judge. I hope you’ll give me lots of feedback, disagree with me when you think I am crazy, share this with your friends and colleagues, and teach me lots of new stuff.

That’s it for now - I plan to post at least a couple of times this coming week. Some of the topics flowing through my mind are centered around the care and feeding of donors - old and new, especially as we begin a new year. I’ll put my thoughts into whole sentences and post them right here.

Until then, happy fundraising!

Jim