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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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.

At a recent conference for science editors I heard a lot of tech buzz words being thrown around—RSS, Wiki, blog, podcast. For that crowd, a lot of the concepts were new. After all, this group still focuses mostly on print journals and many of the editors remember vividly office systems sans computers.

Whatever your comfort zone, these technologies are here and as the public grows more Web savvy, they expect you to be up on the latest trends. One of my favorite parts of this new tech wave is that it’s relatively low impact on one’s budget. The Internet has in fact given Joe Public the keys to authorship through numerous free social networking and blogging sites. (They even let me on!) So, aside from the obvious commitment of time and creativity there’s no reason for you not to join the game.

Next question: What might a nonprofit use such tech for? (more…)

So, I was cruising the Internet, catching up on some articles I thought sounded interesting and I came across a piece on DM News (a marketing periodical) about how to time emails.

I have to admit, sheepishly, that I’ve never really thought about day of week or time of day with regard to sending email. It’s become such an all consuming and amorphous medium that if you’re like me, you start checking it shortly after waking and don’t stop until right before bed–seven days a week.

But when you’re trying to get someone’s attention to act on your product, in this case, your mission, timing can be important. The article, “Timing for Success: When to Fill Consumers’ Inboxes,” gives the lowdown from marketing professionals about when they get the best responses from emails. For example, Tuesdays generally see the busiest email traffic, while Saturday sees the least.

Most of the information is anecdotal, but it offers a great starting place to think about how you can make sure readers have the time to open and respond to your message. Now get emailing!

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!

I just ran across this amazing WWF campaign designed to raise awareness of exhaust emissions in China. This demonstration not only achieved its goal by catching eyeballs as people walked by, but its original concept attracted television and newspaper coverage from not only around the county, but around the world.

The text on the balloon reads, “Drive one day less and look how much carbon monoxide you’ll keep out of the air we breathe.”

The takeaway here is to always be on the lookout for original ways to get your message out there. Getting impressions via alternative methods can have great results, as seen here.

Via, AdGoodness.

Considering people’s ever-shortening attention spans and given the shocking lack of grammar taught in public schools, it’s important to keep your writing straightforward to keep your readers on track. I didn’t do such a great job in that first sentence. We’ll have to see if I can rein in my verbose tendencies. This blog post is really to provide some top tips for writing for the Web. There are a few quirks when writing for the Web that are important to keep in mind.

• Consider your audience. You have people of all backgrounds and experiences surfing as equals. To accommodate this wide-spread audience, you’re going to want to write at about a ninth grade reading level or less. Newspapers generally follow this principle. They want their work to be as accessible as possible and so should you.
• Think about attention span. (again) As we continue on in our sound-byte driven, media overload world, people’s attention spans seem to shrink at a rate equivalent to the speed with which new toys for them to play with are developed. Not to be cynical or anything. What I’m trying to say is that you need to get to your point quickly. If you don’t capture attention quickly, your reader might surf on.
• Think about the mechanics of reading on screen. Depending on the machine a person is using, the screen size and thus the amount of text seen can vary widely. This is one of the reasons that long Faulkner-esque paragraphs don’t work well. Also, it’s really hard to follow visually as you scroll. Keep paragraphs shorter with a decent amount of space in between them.

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Hi all. I’m really pleased to be a new blogger out here in cyberspace. I’ve done some casual reading, kicked the tires on a blog or two, even took a test ride, but this is my first experience really being behind the wheel.

Before I get to the meat of what I want to talk about today, a very quick intro. Unlike some of the others on the blog, I’m a bit less techy. I’m a word person. As such, I want to talk about the power of words…

What first drew you to your own organization? What was it about the mission, the people, the results that made you want to dedicate your time? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Whatever the answers to those questions, those are probably the same things that are going to motivate donors and volunteers. As you all know, it’s much harder to say no during a face-to-face solicitation then it is over the phone or through the mail. If your communications with prospective donors and volunteers personifies your mission, it’s going to be equally hard to say no.

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Attention Junior Achievement chapters - this post is for you! Well, it’s actually for everyone, but Junior Achievements are famous for their bowl-a-thons. These are great, interactive fundraising events that have proven successful for many years - but could they be better?

So, I’m bowling on my Nintendo Wii the other night, and got to thinking about how easy, fun, and approachable the system is as a whole. Even my parents like it! Maybe this bowling game could be put to good use? How about a Wii-a-thon?

Maybe this can actually compete with a real bowl-a-thon, but for certain organizations hosting a Wii-a-thon might appeal to a more youthful audience. This could increase participation, donations, and media awareness. Nobody is really doing this yet, so this might be a good opportunity to get noticed in your community.

Here are ten reasons why a Wii-a-thon might be right for you:

1. Bowler’s average scores are higher (more $$$).
2. You don’t need an available bowling alley.
3. Participants can wear their own shoes.
4. Physically limited bowlers can participate.
5. Bowl-a-thons could span time and location.
6. There is no cost if you have access to a Wii.
7. Bowlers can rock & bowl to their own music.
8. Participants won’t smell like a bowling alley when they get home.
9. Multiple locations could be used to increase participation.
10. Actual bowling is tired, Wii bowling is wired.

Happy bowling!

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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Yesterday, I received an email from Woody Clark, a trust representative from 501(c) Agencies Trust. He has written a short paper on how nonprofits can reduce their unemployment insurance costs, and thought the nonprofit community should know about it. Saving money…who wouldn’t want to do that?

It’s a quick read, so I’ll type no more:

In your State, as in all States, a Nonprofit has two options for Unemployment Insurance while a For Profit Corporation only has one. Typically, a Nonprofit and For Profit pay for unemployment claims through State Unemployment Insurance tax (SUI). But unlike their counterparts, Nonprofits have an alternative choice – to become a reimbursing employer. This means that it can pay the state only for claims paid out to former employees.

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Everest Y&R came up with a great viral campaign for Support, a non governmental organization registered as a charitable trust in Mumbai, India. Their campaign to bring awareness to homeless children was a huge success in coffee shops around India, and got good coverage throughout the world media.

By simply slipping these cutout children into existing table tents, their message was delivered to a captive audience with minimal impact on the community - exactly the way guerrilla campaigns should go down.

The text reads:

Over two lakh children live in places you can never imagine. Help the Children. Donate.

I think it’s important to show that guerrilla marketing efforts should still be implemented when the situation calls for it, despite what happened in Boston two weeks ago. Campaigns like these resonate strongly with an audience who is increasingly turned off by TV, print, and email advertisements.

via Ads of the World

It’s February 1st - have you updated your Web site’s copyright date yet?

If you haven’t, you’re not alone. Forgetting to update is commonplace, and I see it all the time. Data was needed, so yesterday I checked out the top 100 nonprofits. What I found was shocking.

I expected a few would have forgotten, but not 34%. I even saw a few that still were listed as 2005 - wow! But don’t feel bad - the top 100 for-profits didn’t fair much better, with 18% forgetting to update.

Are you still reading? Have you checked your site yet?

There are many ways to handle your Web site’s copyright info, some of which require no updating at all. I took a look how nonprofits and for-profits were displaying copyright info, and was able to identify five buckets to drop each method into:

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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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I just ran across this great viral campaign and had to share it with you all. It’s a CO2 awareness piece that conveys a well-worn message in a unique way. Sure it’s a bit guerrilla, invasive, and possibly illegal, but I still love it. Congrats to BUND (the German arm of Friends of the Earth) - this concept is a breath of fresh dirty air.

Viral marketing is hard to track using metrics, but it gets noticed never the less. Local newspaper and television coverage are both free and potent, so don’t forget to explore concepts like this at your next planning meeting.

via Houtlog

Each week, billions of searches generate millions of dollars for companies like Google and Yahoo!. It’s hard to believe this much revenue can be generated simply from clicks and data retrieval. What if some of that cash could be diverted to your organization?

That question was on the minds of Ken and JJ Ramberg when they launched GoodSearch.com back in 2005. GoodSearch donates 50% of their ad revenue to nonprofit organizations…and the kicker is that users choose which ones. Here’s how it works:

On the GoodSearch homepage, choose from thousands of organizations or add your favorite cause to our list. Search the Internet just like you normally would — the site is powered by Yahoo!, so you’ll get the same high-quality search results you’re accustomed to. Fifty percent of the revenue generated from advertisers is shared with the charity, school or nonprofit organization of your choosing.

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