Jill Ward

#shamelessplug: Take This Fundraising Survey!

Getting people to respond to surveys is a hard nut to crack. Surveys, specifically online, get lost in the deluge of work and personal email, texts, Facebook updates, RSS feeds etc. And, honestly the surveyors don’t always give good and simple reasons to participate. People want to know...why is it important and what’s in it for them?

Well, here's a survey you should take as a nonprofit professional and a few good (and simple) reasons why you should participate.

1. You want to know how other organizations fundraising programs performed in 2011.
2. You want to see where your organization stacks up in terms of goals for 2012.
3. You want to know how other organization’s boards are engaged in fundraising.

If you answered YES to any of the questions above, you should take the The 2012 Nonprofit Fundraising Survey conducted by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (NRC). The report that will come out in early April will give you statistically significant and comprehensive findings that you can leverage to make informed decisions for your organization. Will your organization ever have the budget to conduct a national study to look at how boards are engaged in fundraising? Probably not – so take advantage of a group that will do it for you. The only thing we are asking in return is for you to take survey! The survey is open through January 28 and takes just 10 to 20 minutes.  To make things easy, the questions do not ask for any specific amounts or values.

About the NRC
The NRC and the 2012 Nonprofit Fundraising Survey is a joint project between The National Center for Charitable Statistics, The Association of Fundraising Professionals, Campbell Rinker, Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, Convio, Blackbaud, and Giving USA Foundation. It measures the impact of economic conditions within the community on fundraising efforts for nonprofit organizations and private institutions, compared to previous years. The seven participating organizations each have, at a minimum, a decade of direct experience collecting information from nonprofits concerning charitable receipts, fundraising practices and/or grantmaking activities.

Year-end Fundraising Domination!

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for fundraisers this year? Based on the rock solid fundraising performance by Convio clients, I’m hopeful of what’s to come in 2012. Overall, Convio clients raised 17 percent more online in the last three months of 2011 than in 2010. But, the real impact was made in December when our client’s year-end fundraising efforts came on like gangbusters—raising more than $30 million more online than in December 2010.

Of course, my first question was what made 2011 year-end fundraising different from years past, and I was excited to hear from Sara Thomas, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing at Ocean Conservancy on their year-end success...

“For Ocean Conservancy’s 2011 year-end fundraising campaign we took a coordinated, multi-phase approach that focused on solutions-based messaging and highlighted our successes over the previous year both as an organization and also as a collective movement. It was important to us that we give our constituency tangible actions; reasons to continue supporting us and evidence that we were worthy of their gifts. And everything from our design and messaging, to the various channels we chose to engage with our constituency on, reflected just that. We look forward to continuing the success of our year-end campaign throughout 2012 and working with our committed constituency to expanding the movement for a healthy, sustainable ocean.”

Example email appeals:
10 days out - thank you message  |  1 day left  

Also, Tobi McIntyre, Interactive Media Manager at Canadian Wildlife Federation shared some details about their year-end planning and execution...

What made CWF’s 2011 year-end campaign so special and why do you think it performed so well?

“We implemented a year- end plan in 2009 and have been steadily building it since then. Our campaign begins in August and ends January 1 and is comprised of 3 stages. The first stage is to build our email list, the second stage is to remind folks what great works CWF has done and is doing, and the third stage is our big fundraising push. As our list builds so do our results.”

How will you carry-over your year-end momentum into 2012?

“We have a few solid follow-up campaigns planned for the first half of 2012, building on advances we made in our year end campaign. We plan on implementing our year-end campaign starting in August 2012 again with only a few adjustments – adopting more social media opportunities within our messaging etc. But largely we plan on sticking to our plan that has been successful so far - in marketing when something works don’t fix it!”

Example email appeals:
2 days left |  Happy new year message

Thanks to Sara and Tobi for reinforcing the themes of a multi-phased approach to year-end fundraising and starting early! I’d love to hear more about what made your year-end fundraising season great so please leave comments. And, check out more tips from our latest guide on how to continue your year-end momentum into the new year.

Best of 2011 – Multi-channel

MULTI- comes from the Latin word mulus which means MANY & MUCH. There are way more words out there than I originally thought that start with multi-. So, I thought I'd share a few, and they just might help you improve your Words with Friends score or answer some random trivia questions.....

5. multi-tasker – the performance of multiple tasks at one time
4. multi-loquent – speaking much; loquacious
3. multi-ped – an organism with many feet; as, a centipede
2. multiplicity – the quality of being multiple; as, a multiplicity of thoughts
1. multi-channel – pertaining to communications, usually full duplex, on more than one channel simultaneously

And, now that you have a few more words to use on game night, check out the top 5 blog posts this year on my #1 favorite multi- word... multi-channel!

1. CRM Glossary
2. Leave it for Tomorrow
3. Dad, Girl Scouts and Thank You Letters
4. Predicting Donor Behavior
5. How to Chat it Up with Major Donors

P2P Innovator Winner: United Way of Lake County

Congratulations to United Way of Lake County (UWLC) for receiving the 2011 Innovator Award in the Peer-to-Peer Fundraising category! Check out what Valerie Petersen, Marketing Communications Associate at UWLC, has to say about their Page It Forward personal fundraising campaign and how they exceeded their goal by more than 50 percent.

 Here's a quick snapshot of how their Page It Forward campaign performed:

• Launched a multi-channel campaign which incorporated email, direct mail, mobile giving and social media to put a contemporary twist on the traditional book drive concept
• Used Convio Personal Fundraising to allow one UWLC employee to raise money from friends and family; the individual collected $2,000 in 24 hours
• Created a follow-on personal fundraising campaign that raised more than $16,000 in five 24-hour periods
• Collected more than 154,000 books over the course of the campaign, exceeding their target by more than 50 percent

Spread the Love and #BAD11

Once a year, Blog Action Day unites bloggers around the world to focus on an important global issue and to create a dialogue that transcends international borders. This year, Blog Action Day’s focus is FOOD as it coincides with World Food Day that aims to increase awareness, understanding and fuel year-around action to alleviate hunger.

The stats on world hunger are staggering:

• According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, close to one billion people are chronically hungry.
• Hunger is the world’s No. 1 health risk and kills more people every year that AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
• There are more hungry people in the world than the combined populations of the US, Canada, and the European Union.

The stats on how many Americans are hungry and undernourished are equally troubling given our abundant resources:

• According to the Department of Agriculture 15 percent of Americans go hungry or specifically are “food insecure” meaning they can’t afford to eat right or eat enough.

Taking a closer look at a particular region of the US, hunger affects close to 1 million individuals throughout the Delaware Valley (area surrounding Philadelphia). That’s the service area for Philabundance, an amazing Convio client that provides food to approximately 65,000 people per week through direct services and network of 500 member agencies. The organization serves low income residents at risk of hunger and malnutrition, of which 23 percent are children and 16 percent are senior citizens. As a small contribution to Blog Action Day and World Food Day, I would like to recognize the achievements of Philabundance in helping to reduce hunger in their service area and highlight an innovative campaign that has increased awareness, raised funds and helped to grow their body of supporters.

About the Campaign

For the past two years, Philabundance has promoted the Spread the Love campaign as a two week virtual food drive that matches every new fan on Facebook with a jar of peanut butter or jelly donation from the org’s food industry partner, Wakefern/ShopRite. The concept of ‘spreading the love’ was inspired by the PB&J (a staple item that is in high demand by the community due to its richness in protein and affordability), the viral nature of the campaign, and the Valentine’s Day time frame, February 1-14.

Results
The launch of the campaign was an immediate success resulting in ShopRite donating a total of 3,800 pounds of PB&J to the community and Philabundance increased online donations by 100 percent. They also added and mobilized 2,265 Facebook fans during a 14 day period — 155 percent increase from start of campaign. In 2011, the results keep getting better! ShopRite donated 4,750 pounds of PB&J, increased online donations 111 percent over 2010 and in the first few days alone, and they were able to beat last year’s Facebook fan growth by nearly 114 percent.

Philabundance along with so many other food banks are helping reduce the level of hunger and food insecurity in the US. The ‘Spread the Love’ campaign is just one of the great programs that Philabundance offers throughout the year, and is a true reflection of the power of paying it forward and establishing supporter momentum that has helped build their online community and overall supporter network.

Take Action Against Hunger

• Live in the Delaware Valley or just want to stay tuned into the amazing work of Philabundance? Become a part of their community.
• Here are five ways to act against global hunger from the ONE campaign
• Learn about Oxfam America's GROW campaign a celebration of food with daily blogs, photo roundups, competitions and loads of ways to get involved and take action. 
• Whether you blog, host an event, Tweet about #BAD11 and World Food Day continue to participate in the discussion on October 16, 2011 and beyond