Taylor Shanklin

Social Media for Stewardship

Everyone is talking about social media these days. Many common questions come my way: How can I get my social media program off the ground? How can I integrate social media marketing efforts with other channels? How can I use social media to raise money? How can I engage my constituents through social media? However, one of the questions I don't get as often is: How can I use social media for stewardship?

Following up on one of Julia's points in her blog yesterday, I'd like to focus in on how you can use social media to show "how their contributions have helped," as she put it. Social media has still not quite yet proven itself to be the best fundraiser. However, I don't think anyone can deny what it is good at; and, that is sharing information. When developing your social media strategies and plan, think first about playing to its strenghts.

The holidays are a fantastic time to thank all of your supporters. Let's say that you send out an email ask this holiday or for end of year. Once all dollars are in and calculated for that particular ask and after the holidays are over and we are heading into January, think about how you can let your donors know how much they really helped. You may be planning an email to go out as a follow up and thank you message. But, think, too about using your social media channels to share your results and thank your donors. This can be as simple as a Facebook post or tweet that says, "Thank you to all of our supporters. We were able to raise $x this holiday that will help us do x." Or, "Thanks to you, we were able to feed x number of people this Thanksgiving".

Now, let's get even more creative. Did your organization do some sort of gift, food drive or animal adoption this holiday? Do you have photos? (Hint: If your event has yet to happen, remember to take photos or appoint a volunteer with the job!) How about posting an album on Flickr, or even turning your still photos into a video slideshow. There are plenty of tools out there - that are free - which help do just this. Check out VideoSpin, for example. If you are putting a video together, and sending out a print piece in the near future, how about putting a QR code on that piece that your constituents can scan and be taken to that "thank you" video? There are many ways you can thank your supporters. I'll leave you with a few of my favorite examples from some amazing organizations:

• AEON Homes Thanksgiving video
• Mobile Loaves & Fishes I Am Here Thank You video
• Homeless Prenatal Program 20 Years in Action - thank you video.

Enjoy and have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

- Taylor

P.S. Scan this QR code for a special thank you message from Convio.

How to get your holiday appeals opened

You may have been planning your end of year appeal messages for the past couple of months, or are getting started on this now.  You probably already have or will put a lot of thought into the content and overall tone of your messages, and perhaps are working across departments on integrating your message into other media channels.  All of that work is an important part of planning and developing your end of year campaign.

But, ask yourself this? What is going to make a possible donor open this message?  How can I stand out? Have I thought about my subject line yet?

Let’s face it, your constituents are very likely going to be receiving end of year appeals from organizations other than your own.  Maybe some they are those less involved with, and others they are more involved with.  Amongst all of the clutter we know to be in our inboxes it is important to think about how to stand out in the crowd.  Your heart-warming story that you have spent hours developing and integrating with other messaging will only get read if your e-appeal is opened.

That being said, if you have already written your subject lines, I’d like to urge you to test them against these tips.  If you haven’t written them yet, then it’s time to get started. When writing your subject lines, keep these four things in mind:

1. Be clear about the substance of your message.  Does your subject line accurately portray the content of your email? It is important that you keep the trust between you and your constituents, so do not be misleading.


2. Keep it short. Keep it simple.  There are a lot of very long, drawn out subject lines toppling over each other in our inboxes.  They end up looking a little jumbled together, don’t they?  Break it up with a short and compelling subject line.  Among all of the long subject lines, a short one will make your message stand out.  It will also be read easier on mobile devices.


3. Consider who you are sending “from”.  Think about this as your return address if you were to send something in the mail to a friend.  Who is it from?  When I’m a possible donor and I see “from” x, will I know who that is? For this, be consistent with the messages that you have already been regularly sending to your constituents.  End of year is not the time to change it up and try something new.


4. If it sounds like it could be spam, it could be spam.  Avoid words that you commonly see in spam emails.  Check out this article that lists most commonly used spam words.  Be sure to avoid things like punctuation marks, as those can often set off spam filters.  I know the holiday season is exciting, but refrain from using exclamation points.

If you have the opportunity to run a test of subject lines with a small group of constituents, that is fantastic.  If your email marketing tools allow for split testing, then select a small audience, split it in half and test two subject lines with this group.  You can see what performs better with your constituency and then send your message(s) out to the rest of your audience with the tried and true subject line.  If you’d like to download a full article on this topic, click here.

Have fun with it and post any follow up comments or brainstorming ideas here!

Today is your day

I'd like to keep it simple today and encourage you to do a little exercise in motivation inspired by a couple of recent Seth Godin blog posts, particularly one from today. While I had plans to post on a case study, this morning while thumbing through my emails I came across a call to action from Seth to do something very specific on End Malaria Day, today.  It made me stop to think more about why we are all here at this particular web address and why do we want to read about online fundraising.  In short, I think the readers and contributors of this blog in some way want to do something great to change the world for the better.  Well, today is your day to start or to perhaps reevaluate how you are making that happen.

Seth urges his readers to do three things that will spread the word and help support funding for nets.  Simply put, he said:"What would happen if you did that? What would happen if you stepped up and spent a few dollars?  Here's what would happen: someone wouldn't die."

Today, I'd like you to take out a post-it note.  Write this on it: Today is my day.  Each day is your day to do a little more, to make a little more progress.

Take that with you everywhere you go.  Post it up on your monitor, on your bathroom mirror, on your car steering wheel. Put it simply, like Seth.  If people take action - simple action - for the cause you are passionate then about what will happen? Will a life be saved, will a child learn how to read, will a hungry man be fed? 

Be clear with your constituents and keep it simple. Remind them that today is their day as well.

The Center of Your Universe

Content. Your message. Your story. Your needs. It’s that information that you are trying to convey to your audience whether it be a specific call to action, news piece, announcement or thank you message. In today’s world there is an abundance of places where you present this content. You have direct mail, your website, social media sites, email and other various offline marketing materials or happenings. So how do you bundle it all up and tie it with a bow, while maintaining a cohesive message and your sanity? Recycle your content.

Sure, your messaging and language will need to be a little different to fit the specific channel where you are sharing this, but don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel for each channel. So many times we can fall into the trap of having one person working on direct mail, another on email, another on social media, and so on. This can lead to duplicated efforts and non-cohesive messaging.

Instead of continuing to work in silos, here is a simple step you can take to improve your multi-channel marketing efforts: set up a meeting. Pulling together your various teams or team members, sit down in one meeting room, and work out a plan to come up with your main marketing pieces across channels. Once you have an idea on what your “big picture” campaigns are, you can work together to pool content. Then, each individual marketing guru can re-work that content for the medium they specialize in.

For example, do you have your graphics already planned out for your next direct mail piece? Want to integrate it with your online? Use the same images and just dust them off a little bit, tailor them for the web and reuse them in your email marketing as well. Take it a step further and use the same tag line too! Integrating your campaigns can be as simple as the couple of steps that it take to simply recycle your content.

Have other tips and ideas? Please share them here!

Why do we give?

Amidst the hustle and bustle of working on new and exciting ways to fundraise, have you ever stepped back and just thought to yourself “Why do ‘we’ give?  Why do I give?” It is easy to get caught up in the next best thing in social media or the latest story for this month’s fundraising appeal.  With all the chaos that non-profit professionals juggle, it can also be easy to lose sight of the heart of the matter.  But, perhaps taking a moment to pause and do so could open up our eyes to a whole new fundraising “vision”.   By better understanding why people give and who donors are, we can better communicate with them.

While doing a little research recently, I came across several studies that looked deep into the matter of demographics:  what age group gives to whom, which ethnicity prefers giving to which types of non-profits, and the list goes on.  There are many numbers, theories and statistics floating around.   I started to think to myself, “OK, this is a lot of great information, but I think it could be looked at little simpler”.  What is the true heart of the matter? It’s your donors – who they are and what inspires them.  What are donors? People.  They are people like you and me, people affected in some way by a disease, or disaster, or financial circumstance.  While maybe not directly affected by misfortune, we all seem to know someone or somehow have been touched some issue that a non-profit organization strives to fix.  We have a connection, whether it be personally or just in our intrinsic nature to feel and care.  In Storytelling and the art of Email Writing, M+R put it simply, and I think best.  They say that we give for the following reasons:

It makes us happy.  Flat out, we just feel like “good people” when we give.

It makes us feel important.  Donating our money or time to the greater good makes us feel like we are contributing to something bigger than ourselves. And, that is a good feeling.

We want to be part of a success story.  Hey, if a horrible disease can be cured, who wouldn’t want to say they had something to do with it?

Others are giving.  It’s in our nature to want to jump on the bandwagon of something good.  While we may not think to give on our own, when we see others doing it – our friends, family, celebrities, etc. – we want to be a part of that too.

Taking a look at our core, our human nature to enjoy feeling happy, important, successful and communal, it is easy to understand why we give.  Understanding why we give can help better craft our interactions with our donors, our community.  Next time you are working on a fundraising appeal, keep these simple things in mind and remember that your donors are like you. People. Good people. After writing it, read your appeal outloud back to yourself.  Would you give?