Emily P. Goodstein is an Account Manager at Convio. Prior to donning her AM hat, she worked as the Director of the Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom program at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. When she’s not busy helping her fabulous clients raise money and effect social change using Convio tools, she can be found taking photos, live tweeting food truck lunches (and snappy non-profit fundraising tips), or napping. Her favorite possession is the cobalt blue Kitchen Aid mixer she used part of her Bat Mitzvah money to buy (it is still going strong).
I know, I know. You’re not sure what to put in that big open space at the top of the new Facebook layout.
Well, I’ve come to the rescue. I’ve pulled together three ideas from Convio clients who are rocking and rolling with the new format.
Before I jump in, here’s a quick overview of what the story is with the new format if you have no idea what I’m talking about. Facebook Fan Pages (the format used for non-profit organizations) feature a fancy timeline feature and a wide open space at the top for an image… or a call to action… or a screen shot… or something else! The format became mandatory for all fan pages on March 31. Beth Kanter provided some great information about the change on her blog.
So, this new format presents you with a great opportunity to make your organization’s Facebook page more engaging and visually appealing. Here is what other folks are doing… get inspired!
Hollywood Style Oxfam America is using an image from a video they just released as the banner on their Facebook page. How much do you love these animals dining on a fancy dinner? You’re prompted to scroll to their wall to learn more about the video as soon as you see the banner image!
Blended I love the way the image that the San Diego Zoo is using on their banner is seamlessly blended with their profile icon image. Cute, right?
Infographic Is it me, or are infographics more hip than significant glasses or unnecessary scarves? The National Partnership for Women and Families has created this handy infographic to kick off their festivities for Equal Pay Day.
Bonus fourth item…
Get Engaged The Sierra Club is using their banner graphic to provide a menu of engagement opportunities atop their Facebook page. Don’t you just want to sign up and have as much fun as that girl with the hard hat? Me too.
Today’s "Behind the Convio Admin Curtain" installment is full of juicy Convio best practices, and even a restaurant recommendation for stellar chocolate chip pancakes right outside Boston. Read on to learn how Jamie-Alexis Fowler pushed fundraising goals to bring in more dollars for Pathfinder International and leveraged the services of Convio’s Strategy team to amplify her organization’s message.
PS—We call ourselves Convions, but I’ll take Convio-ers too!
EG for CC: What’s your elevator pitch about what Pathfinder does? JAF: Pathfinder provides women, men, and adolescents with a range of quality reproductive health services—from contraception and maternal care to HIV prevention and AIDS care and treatment. Reproductive health is critical to giving people everywhere the ability to make choices about their lives. When a woman has access to reproductive health care, she can make choices about her body and her future—and that leads to more choices about staying in school, starting a business, or perhaps pursuing a role in local government.
EG for CC: How do you describe your role at the organization to friends at parties? JAF: I handle our public relations and online communications. So pretty much anything online--website, Twitter, email--as well as our outreach to media.
EG for CC: Of Convio’s array of online resources, what have you found most useful? JAF: Pathfinder has been a Convio client for many years and having worked at Pathfinder for nearly five of those, I've used quite a few of Convio's resources! I've found the survey tool quite useful for Pathfinder's online work, whether for building our 'Contact Us' section of the website, or establishing RSVPs for events. I'm also a fan of the email tools. From setting up an email send, to running reports, to establishing various email series (ie, a Welcome Series), I've always found it pretty easy to use and effective in meeting our needs.
EG for CC: Please share a few random (unrelated to Pathfinder and Convio) facts about yourself (a fave destination in Boston, perhaps?)... JAF: I absolutely am obsessed with chocolate chip pancakes from the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, MA (near Pathfinder's office). Not only have they formed the basis of many post-training run breakfasts, they have also become an integral part of our weekly website overhaul breakfast meeting.
EG for CC: What are you most proud of regarding your use of Convio with Pathfinder? JAF: Two projects using Convio that I'm most proud of are: Girl2Woman.org, a microsite that we developed on Pagebuilder, and our online fundraising. Girl2Woman.org started as a small idea to raise awareness about the importance of sexual and reproductive health care throughout a woman's life. It turned into our most successful constituent engagement and list-building campaign. Outreach utilizing Girl2Woman.org skyrocketed our organic registration rates drove our Facebook following to record numbers.
In terms of online fundraising, Convio's tools have helped Pathfinder meet goals that a few years ago, many on our team would have thought impossible. For instance, our 2011 end of year online fundraising campaign brought in what we raised over the course of the entire year in 2007. We have a long way to go, since Pathfinder has a smaller individual donor base than other groups of our size, but we're pretty proud of what we've accomplished so far! EG for CC: Share an anecdote about a project or specific campaign you worked on through Convio that was particularly exciting or interesting or productive. JAF: We did our first online matching gift campaign, 'Two Months, Twice the Difference,' in 2009 with a goal of reaching $25,000. Some staff were nervous that we had set our goal too high and were worried we wouldn't be able to do it in only two months. We ended up raising nearly $25,000 one month in and raised the goal to $35K! In part, the success of that campaign was due to the great help we had from Convio providing strategy and advice. Based on that initial success, last fall, we held our third online matching gift initiative, raising a whopping $80,000, not to mention that the match was a $2 for $1!
EG for CC: If you had advice to share for a new Convio admin, what would it be? JAF: Save, save, and save! I learned early working in Convio products that if you're in the midst of something--an email, a page edit, etc--that if a colleague pops by your office, or a Skype chat distracts you for a few minutes, you will likely lose your work! Convio's security is great to protect access to your information, but it can also spell trouble if you don't save early and save often!
EG for CC: One secret tip or trick you’ve picked up along the way related to the Convio platform… JAF: That Convio staff are among the best. Any time I have ever had a concern, needed help, wanted a new product feature, or am curious about the best way to do something, I know I can always reach an amazing Convio staff person. It is a treat to catch up with Convio-ers (if that's a word!) at the Convio Summit or even just a friendly chat on the phone. Their enthusiasm for helping nonprofits achieve their missions, and their friendliness in helping us all do it, are pretty much unparrallelled in my experience!
Have you ever wondered who else works at Convio? Behind the mysterious software curtain? I mean... the people who actually engineer our products. Or those helpful folks who you've only ever spoken to by phone and always wanted to meet? Well, today is your lucky day. As a staffer working out of our DC office, I decided to relocate to Texas for a month and spend some time working from Convio's Austin offices (eating breakfast tacos, getting to know my colleagues and such). Along with our trusty marketing intern, Sara (Hi Sarah!), I put together a little video about two of Convio's behind the scenes superstars.
So pull up a chair, marvel at how good my hair looks, and get to know Convions Chris and Bonnie!
I began working with the folks at the Project on government Oversight (or POGO as they’re known by their fans) a few years ago and have continued to be amazed by how their hardworking (yet relatively small) staff strategizes to get the max out of their Convio tools. They’re frequent consumers of Convio’s Community resources and they're are stars of the DC Convio User's Group, too. Team POGO attended the Summit in full force—working to get staff from multiple departments within their office to see the way Convio can enhance the work they do.
When our Connection Café blogging powers that be asked me to profile a member of the POGO team with a little peek behind the Convio admin curtain, I jumped at the chance. Here’s the inside scoop on Bryan Rahija, POGO’s blog editor and self proclaimed jack-of-all-digital-trades….
EG for CC: What’s your elevator pitch about what POGO does? BR for POGO: POGO exposes systemic problems in the federal government that are related to ethics, accountability, and inefficiency—and then it tries to fix them.
EG for CC: How do you describe your role at the organization to friends at parties? BR for POGO: More or less a jack-of-all-digital-trades? A Venn diagram of the projects I work on in a given month would include circles for editing, fundraising, advocacy, web production, and journalism.
EG for CC: Of Convio’s array of online resources, what have you found most useful? BR for POGO: Action alerts! Convio makes it pretty easy to whip up campaigns that empower constituents, expand our network of supporters, and most importantly, catalyze change.
EG for CC: Please share a few facts about yourself. BR for POGO: If I'm not fighting government corruption, I'm probably making music or roving around the country with my band Bombadil. We just put out our fourth release last month! Curious ears can listen here.
EG for CC: What are you most proud of regarding your use of Convio with POGO? BR for POGO: In general, I think we try really hard to make sure we're making the most out of the software. A recent example of that might be the SEC Revolving Door Database, which I think is pretty neat both in terms of providing valuable information to the public and using Convio in an interesting way.
The database houses hundreds upon hundreds of post-employment statements filed by former employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission. At first glance, these documents might just look like a big pile of boring government paperwork—but when viewed together, they illustrate a disturbing pattern of government officials leaving the public sector to go work for the industry they once regulated (more on that here).
All that info presented a fun challenge on the Convio side—how to present these documents in a useful way to the public? We ended up partnering with Firefly Partners to build a database of the documents hosted on Convio CMS, which you can search by employee name, former SEC division, and by their new employers (firms like Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, etc.).
EG for CC: Share an anecdote about a project or specific campaign you worked on through Convio that was particularly exciting, interesting, or productive. BR for POGO: The best anecdote might be our campaign to support Franz Gayl, a Marine Corps science advisor who was retaliated against for blowing the whistle.
This fall, POGO partnered with the Government Accountability Project (GAP) to launch an online campaign in support of Gayl after he lost his security clearance for exposing the need for some lifesaving equipment needed in Iraq. We urged our constituents to contact the Secretary of Defense and voice their concerns. Nearly 4,000 people took action. A few weeks later, the government agency responsible for protecting whistleblowers moved to protect Gayl, and cited the POGO/GAP campaign in a brief that called for a delayed putting Gayl on indefinite suspension without pay.
The intervention by this agency ultimately led the Pentagon to reinstate Gayl's security clearance.
That's a bit of a wonky explanation, but the long and short of it is we played a role in helping reverse the retaliation against a whistleblower whose heroic actions saved the lives of thousands of Marines. This press release has more details and a statement from Gayl thanking GAP and POGO, and here's a link to our action alert.
EG for CC: If you had advice to share for a new Convio admin, what would it be? BR for POGO: Bite the bullet and take the training courses or watch the videos—better now than when you're up against a deadline of "immediately."
EG for CC: What's one secret tip or trick you’ve picked up along the way related to the Luminate Online or Luminate CRM platform? BR for POGO: I've become a bit of a query junkie these days. No super amazing tricks in particular to report, but I've been having fun using queries to answer questions like: how many of our constituents have taken action more than three times? What is the biggest "source" for people who wind up unsubscribing? In which congressional district do we have the most supporters? Information like that can help guide our strategy down the road.
Break out the Manischewitz …. or apples and honey, it’s time to ring in the new year!
I know what you’re thinking—take a page from the Nordstrom playbook and don’t rush the seasons, Emily. Alas, I’m talking about the Jewish new year (also known as Rosh Hashanah), which begins at sundown on Wednesday. I dusted off my former Jewish non-profit staffer cap then connected with a few savvy folks* within Convio-land and am here to share some Jewish High Holiday online marketing tips with you.
To Appeal or… Not? Many Jewish organizations assume that just because its shofar time, it is an obligatory time to send out an appeal. Think again, buckaroos! Some organizations (especially those that are providing a service around HighHo time, say Hillels providing SERVICEs to Jewish college students, more on this later) will have great success with a High Holiday appeal. This is not necessarily a given for all organizations.
Consider using this time of year to send out a cultivation message, reminding your housefile members of all the excellent work you’re up to. Think about incorporating a soft ask and capture some of the feel good Jewish energy often stirred up by round challot to reiterate your mission. September to December is a great time to raise money.. but give some thought to whether your mission supports a High Holiday specific ask.
Hype Services, Like Services Some organizations who provide a service see a huge spike in online giving around the High Holidays (think of tickets to services for college students or the planting of a tree in Israel). Consider working a very specific and tangible service into your ask around this time of year—especially incorporating a seasonally appropriate tie-in. I love the National Council of Jewish Women and American Jewish World Service Rosh Hashanah ecards, putting a little web 2.0 spin on the tradition of sending New Year cards.
Multiples of 18, and Beyond Make your fundraising ask culturally relevant by using multiples of 18 as suggested donations. (Based on the experience of my informal focus group, donors often entered in multiples of 18 even when they weren’t suggested.) Think about using the numbers that correspond to shofar notes around Rosh Hashanah to tie in additional Jewish content to your ask.
Tishrei or December? Apples and honey or funky 2012 glasses: end of year is king! Jewish organizations are like other non-profits in that fundraising toward the end of the year will always be a powerful and profitable time to encourage giving from your housefile. Donors are looking to maximize tax deductable gifts before day one of the (secular) New Year. Use the High Holidays to begin stewarding donors and think about incorporating Chanukkah language or imagery into your end of year asks (it is late this year)!
December 25 If you’re an organization with a housefile composed of different faiths, consider the language you use in your end of year messaging. A very Christmas centric message could be off-putting if you know much of your constituency doesn’t celebrate Christmas. But, don’t be silent on Christmas Day! If many of your usual donors are not Christmas celebrators, they may not be up to too much else on the holiday itself and would welcome a well formatted, engaging email appeal that day.
I’d love to hear about your other High Holiday online strategy tips. What worked last year? What are you trying this year? And which recipe are you using for brisket?
*Special thanks to Convio strategy consultant rockstars, Miriam Kagan and Scott Gilman, for their help with this post!
Read on to learn how Jamie-Alexis Fowler pushed fundraising goals to bring in more dollars for 
What could be better than a fabulous organization getting recognized for the important work they do by the entire Convio community during our recent 
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