Taylor Shanklin

Last night while pondering what I would write today’s blog post on, I read through other recent posts on Connection Café.  Emma Zolbrod’s post on participant fundraising hit a personal chord.  Emma, thank you for sharing your story and experience with participant fundraising.  I, too, have participated as a fundraiser and athlete in Team in Training’s (TNT) program.  My first event was a century bike ride in Lake Tahoe in 2009 and I’m now training for a triathlon.  Lucky for me, the online tools have been there since my start with TNT.  It is probably also lucky for my friends and family; they get to read pretty emails instead of having to try to understand my chicken scratch handwriting.

Emma’s lessons learned got me thinking: What are some simple online tools that organizations can provide to really help with that “heavy lifting” and make it fun for participants to fundraise?  How can orgs put the “fun” back in fundraising?

As a Convio employee and as a fundraiser I have had the opportunity to sit on both sides of the aisle.  I’ve created widgets and had the chance to use them from a participant’s perspective.  Let me tell you, they are fun!  Watching that thermometer move up and get closer and closer to my goal is exciting.  Not to get too cheesy here, but it really does mean that the money being raised (and illustrated in the widget) is helping a cause that I’m passionate about.

As an organization, you may be reading this and thinking to yourself, “Widgets are pretty but they seem complicated to implement.”  The good news is that it really is not that complicated.  With all of the social media, online fundraising systems and APIs available today, there are many opportunities to provide some fun tools for your run, walk, ride event participants to use that do not have to take up a lot of your time or team’s bandwidth. 

If you have an online fundraising center where your participants can login to track fundraising progress and send emails, consider placing some snippets of code that participants can copy and paste into their personal websites or social media outlets.  These snippets can include the code for a fundraising thermometer or other types of widgets or fundraising badges.  Do you have fundraising milestones?  Consider creating badges that participants can place on their fundraising pages once they reach those milestones.  You may need a little help from  your web administrator, but many online fundraising tools provide pre-made widgets or badges that you can use.  Do you have a YouTube channel or videos that you want participants to share?  Place the YouTube embed snippet of code in your fundraising center so that participants can easily copy and drop that into their own sites.

Today’s web is your podium – a public forum for you to share your ideas with your participants and empower them to take those ideas to their podiums and spread the word about your cause.  By giving participants some fun tools to use, you are doing the heavy lifting in making it easy for them to want to share their story of involvement with your organization.  Remember, people like big, bright, shiny buttons and exploding thermometers.  They just tend to click on them.       
 

Today I could talk about more of what is new in social media or online fundraising strategies.  But, instead, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight an Austin-area organization that is making a difference in the lives of those affected by cancer.  We all need a feel-good story every once in a while, right? 

I was recently introduced to an organization that offers free yoga classes for cancer survivors, in an effort to increase the healing process for those who have battled the disease.  YogaBear is a national 501(c)3 organization with chapters that have recently expanded to Texas.  The Austin chapter, headed by Holly Krenek, is working with Sundara Yoga to offer unlimited free classes to cancer survivors. The idea is that the yoga helps to calm the soul, and those who have undergone stress during treatment can find tranquility through its healing powers.  YogaBear works with survivors to find the right studio for them - one where they will feel comfortable in the environment and with the classes.  

This Labor Day, September 7th, in Austin there is an city-wide Free Day of Yoga event; YogaBear will be offering a special healing therapy session at the Sundara Yoga studio from 2:00-3:15pm.  Whether you are new to yoga or have been practicing for a while, I recommend checking out this event.  It will be a great opportunity to meet those involved in YogaBear's efforts while feeding your own soul with a little R&R.   

In this ever-changing and progressing world of social media it can be overwhelming to “keep up with the Joneses”, so to speak.  Let’s say you are a small or new organization just trying to get your roots planted.  You see all of these other orgs using Twitter, Facebook, Digg, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Blogger and the list goes on….How do you make sure you are using the latest and greatest in new media that will effectively contribute to your movement?  It’s all about filtering out the ones that may not fit your needs as well, finding some that do and going full speed ahead with those. 

I recently had a friend tell me she was thinking about getting off of Facebook.  I asked her why and she said she was tired of reading everyone’s posts about what they were eating for breakfast or other dribble that she didn’t care about. I told her to filter.  If you haven’t seen Joe Schmoe in ten years and you hardly ever knew him in the first place, then delete him off the friend list or don’t accept the friend request in the first place.  I told her to not just get rid of her Facebook account but instead to maximize her relationships on it with those that she is interested in hearing from and to filter out the ones that weren’t proving to be meaningful relationships.  I gave her an example a Facebook friend that I recently had to let go.  We went to high school together but we barely knew each other.  I’d accepted the friend request and then started getting spammed.  Every day I got several messages from this person about join this group or go see this band play and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  My inbox was being filled with things that I just did not care about or have the time to care about.  So, I decided to filter and my Facebooking days have been much more pleasant since because I get information from friends that I do want to hear from and I have more time now to cultivate those relationships. She said “Oh, I should try that.”  This got me thinking about how non-profits can use social networking.  I think so oftentimes we are fed all of this information about social networking and we think we’ve got to do it all.  But, I don’t feel that is really the case.  I think different social networking sites work better for different organizations and serve different purposes.  And some, combined, can work great as well…it’s about finding the right combination and not letting yourself be so overwhelmed by the plethora of online media outlets that you want to just throw your hands in the air.

So, how do you find the right outlet(s) for your cause? The first step is to research.  Take a look at them all and see what other organizations like yours are doing. What are they using and how?  Does it seem to be working for them or do you think you can do it better?  Think about what kind of content it is that you want to share with your audience.  Do you have a lot of video to share? If so, you may want to set up a YouTube channel.  Is your org all about getting the latest updates out quickly? You may want to give Twitter a try.  Or, maybe you want to be able to fundraise directly through your social media outlet?  Facebook may be the one for you.  Let's say you have a lot of editorial content to share.  You may want to set up a blog and integrate a YouTube channel into that.  The possibilities are pretty much endless these days.  My best advice is to have an open mind, do your research and to just get online and play.  Check out all of the various social media outlets you think you are interested in, give them a test drive and just have fun with it.  And, if you try one on that you decide isn't working for you do not stress about it because there will be one that does.  If the shoe doesn't fit, try a different shoe. 

Over the past couple of years I've been on the non-profit side of fundraising. This year I'm also experiencing what it is like to fundraise from a race participant's perspective. I'm training for a century bike ride, and while fundraising for the ride I'm getting to see first-hand what it is like as a constituent to really use the various online avenues available for inspiring my friends and family to donate to my cause. I've run into some pretty cool pieces of technology that have been helping me spread the word. If you are training for a walk, run or ride event, maybe these can help you, too.

So, I recently decided to join the masses and get on board with a high-powered, highly-connected mobile device. I got the new Blackberry Bold and immediately started looking for apps that could help me in my day-to-day tasks. It just so happens that there are some cool apps that are helping me connect to my donors.  Mobile blogging is awesome. 

One of my favorites apps is CellSpin. My phone has the capability to capture video, and with CellSpin, I'm able to shoot video and immediately upload it to my blog, YouTube, Facebook, etc. I'm training with a team, and each Saturday we go out for our long training rides. Before we start each ride I shoot a quick video explaining where we are riding that day, how many miles we will go, and a reminder to my friends donate. Then, with the click of a button I'm able to choose which of my social networking sites I want to upload the video to. It's one way that I'm able to give live training updates to my friends and family. So far it's been a hit. Everyone seems to enjoy laughing at my geeky cycle gear. But, it is driving donations and support.

Another cool app that I've been using is GPSed. This site and app allows me to track the routes that we ride and upload a link to that track directly to my social networking sites. I've found it useful in training because I can keep track easily of my mileage, and keep track of which routes I enjoyed or didn't enjoy. It also has been a really useful tool in showing my family and friends that I am ACTUALLY doing this cycling thing.

My blog is where this is all comes together. I chose to go with blogspot because it is integrated with everything Google. I've been able to easily upload my CellSpin videos and GPSed tracks directly to my blog from my phone! It is so easy - I love it. The blog serves as a central location for all of this technology to come together and work in harmony, providing a place for my friends/family/donors to stay connected and updated on my progress.

If you are training and fundraising for an endurance event, I highly suggest you check out these apps and look into starting a blog about your efforts, if you haven't already. It's helped me in keeping others informed and connected to my cause. 

Have you found any cool apps that help you fundraise? Share the love - comment on this blog and let me know what is working for you.

This afternoon I attended a Webinar about developing a PR strategy for an event, put on by Barkley Public Relations.  The presentation was highly informative and it really got the wheels in my head spinning. They brought up some interesting points on the challenges of keeping an event fresh and exciting, year after year.  Some of the tips they shared, on what has worked for them, stood out and so I thought I would share them with our Connection Café readers.  In a nutshell, here are some of my takeaways from the presentation.

Relationship development. Develop a relationship with local media, ask media bloggers to post something on their blog about your event, analyze your audience and get to know them.  Get media personnel involved as event participants, so that they cover the event from the angle of the constituent.

Find, listen to, engage and empower your participants.  Get participants to post on their blogs about the event.  Contact especially passionate participants and invite them to be “ambassadors” of the event.  Find those involved who are particularly driven to your cause with a significant reason for being a part of your event and empower them to do some of the talking.

Celebrity endorsement. To celeb or not to celeb?  If you are going to use a celebrity, the key is credibility and a true connection to the cause.  But, they made the point that the biggest celebrity is the walker.  Let your participants know how appreciated they are and how they are the ones that make your event possible.

Keep things fresh year after year, but don’t lose your branding.  Be creative in adding new elements to the event, but keep some consistency.  Participants who fall in love with your event will want to continue to participate in years to come – so keep them interested and coming back.

The season never ends.  Keep the momentum about your event going year-round.  Don’t stop talking about it just because next year's event is months away.  At the end of this year’s event, start spreading the buzz about next year.

Oh, and have fun with it!