Jonathan Weldon

Cake in Face

In case you haven't noticed some odd looking facial hair over the last month, November, or as we like to call it Movember, is Mustache Growing Season. Movember is a "moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men's health.” This all started back in 2003 where a couple of friends in Australia, where a Mo is slang for mustache, decided to grow a mustache and raise money for some good causes. All proceeds raised during Movember go to the causes it supports, specifically the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG (read this article if you’d like to learn more about where the money goes). Here at Convio we had 17 team members donate their faces to men’s health and collectively we raised over $5K (not to brag but I finished first on our team, raking in over $1800). This blog post is about my month long experience of raising awareness & money for men's health, as I grew my Mo.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned was the power of embarrassing oneself for the greater good. Yes, the mustache itself was ridiculously embarrassing, especially in the first few days of growth (maybe weeks?) but seeing that this was my second year, I had to take this one step further. So I challenged my supporters to help me exceed a fundraising goal of $1500 by promising they could put a cake in my face if I exceeded my goal.

If you have ever asked yourself, "Do challenges change donor behavior?", I can attest that they in fact do! I literally saw the average donations jump from around $25 to $50 almost immediately after the challenge was issued. (I've also inspired my co-worker Corey Pudhorosky's NTEN fundraising efforts so check out his embarrassing fundraising efforts for another great example). Similarly, I had the great fortune of having a matching grant from a colleague, the awesome Betsy Gressler, who matched dollar for dollar all donations up to a certain date. Again, donations spiked during that time frame as people took the opportunity to double the impact of their donation (or perhaps they were thinking about the cake's impact on my face?).

The beauty, or perhaps horror, of growing a mustache, is it really is a conversation starter. Whether I was talking to old friends or new acquaintances, I was constantly explaining the story behind my new facial growth and thus spreading the world about Movember & consequently men's health. I also took to Facebook, Twitter & my Movember MoSpace where I was able to solicit pledges directly, post regular updates of the Mo growth and find funny ways of challenging people to donate. Even people who didn't donate were educated via my updates regarding the importance of men's health and maybe even scheduled a wellness check with their doctor.

Ultimately the lesson I would give any NonProfit focused on peer-to-peer fundraising would be to find ways of empowering your supporters to not only raise money on your behalf but have some fun at the same time. Men's health, and specifically prostate cancer, isn't usually something you want to laugh at, but we only live once and if you can find a way to do good while having fun, you're going to give your constituents, and those you support, something invaluable, a big smile and a good story.

My Audience is My Community

I recently attended the McPherson Co-op meeting and later the Public Media Development & Marketing Conference (PMDMC) in Pittsburgh, and I can't say enough about what a great host city Pittsburgh was, but more importantly, what amazing work PBS & NPR Stations are going to accomplish in the coming year. As the (relatively) new Convio Account Manager for our Broadcasting clients my primary focus was to absorb as much as I could about the Public Media goals and interests, as well as spend some quality time with my clients in attendance (my manager might add to not get too far behind on my other work). So in many ways, I was a sponge trying to soak up as much information as I could.

One theme that stuck out among all others, originated from WQED’s President & CEO, Deb Acklin who said, “My Audience is my Community”. The quote was made in reference to the transition that she made from for-profit media to public media (it’s hard not to wonder if her instincts weren’t a foreshadowing to the collapse of the News of the World). Given that perspective, it’s no surprise that WQED is the home to Mr. Rogers, yeah, the ‘wouldn’t you like to be my neighbor’ Mr. Rogers, so I think it’s safe to say they know a little something about nurturing one’s community.

And according to Amy Sample Ward, a nonprofit rock star with NTEN and presenter at PMDMC, one of the best ways to engage your audience is to listen to them. And once you’ve listened,

it’s time to engage your audience in conversation and then to finally to start having real conversations with that community. Amy’s presentation focused on engagement through social media channels but others are engaging through other channels as well. For instance a hugely popular idea was WQED’s initiative to put a QR Code on their membership card, so members could easily access the member benefits available to them via their web-enabled Smartphone.   Another incredible idea of talking with one’s community is KQED’s idea of a pledge-free drive where members who donated over $40 received a code to listen to a pledge free stream of the broadcast online. While not for everybody, their session at PMDMC had one of the largest audiences with quite a lively Q&A.

So I encourage all stations, and for that matter all NPOs, to go out there listen to your audience and find the best to engage them, as ultimately they are your community.

All About the Pledge

On road trips as a child my dad would frequently joke that if we drove long enough we’d eventually find a pledge drive on a local NPR station. Later in life, when I traveled extensively for my job, I’d call him when the town I was visiting was in pledge and my wife, who travels for her job, loves to do the same with me.

Personally, I love pledge drives, (no not because I’m hoping to complete my collection of NPR Travel Mugs) but because there are so many great examples and unique ways that the Public Media stations are reminding, sometimes imploring listeners, to support the amazing work they do. By no means is this an exhaustive collection, but here are few favorite examples that I've seen recently.

Clearly we have to start with the Alec Baldwin pledge drive promos that hit the air in 2010. According to the website, “Alec Baldwin told producers at WNYC that he'd be willing to do some promos for the upcoming Fall pledge drive, and suggested getting Ira Glass involved. So Ira and David Krasnow and Rex Doane wrote and produced several spots featuring Alec and a bunch of public radio hosts and announcers.” If you haven’t heard these yet, they are flat-out hilarious. But the beauty is they gave NPR a great way to make fun of themselves, all while still making a larger point: Support your local NPR station.

Speaking of local NPR stations, my station KUT-FM, did a great job of promoting sustaining giving during their most recent pledge drive. We all know the importance of building a strong base of sustaining givers but for many organizations, the question is how. Part of KUT’s answer was to promote it heavily on-air, in their direct mail efforts and online, but here was the kicker for me. They are entering sustaining donors into any and all drawings for the rest of the year. So anytime KUT runs a promotional drawing, their sustaining givers will be automatically added. The idea was a huge hit as they added a large number of sustaining givers to their membership (my wife and I included in that group).

As for a totally new idea and not technically in pledge, as far as I know, KQED is the first and only station to offer a GroupOn to build their membership base. I’ve reached out to the team that implemented this offer for additional details but haven’t heard back by ‘press time’. Despite that, what I do know is they have 531 new members from the offer! Considering the list file that GroupOn possesses, as well as their web traffic, in my opinion this was a great way of building their membership base leading up to their pledge drive.

So are there any amazing Pledge examples that I missed or should know about? And I can’t be the only person who loves pledge drives so let me know what you love (or hate) about pledge drives.