This morning I attend a session on "Attracting and Cultivating the Next Generation of Philanthropists" at the Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference in San Diego. An interesting generational divide was apparent in the session.

As Sue Acri of Ketchum spoke about the generational attributes of the new generation of philanthropists, the conversation quickly turned to using Facebook and MySpace to engage with constituents. That's when one of the "Baby Boomers" said, "Facebook, MySpace and those things are nice, but how do we bring them into a real relationship?"

To which one of the "Gen Y" members in the room stated. "That is a real relationship."

Another "GenYer" added that these young philanthropists "want to participate, but not in traditional ways. We'll start our own organization if we don't like the way you run yours," he added.  In a follow-up question to this young man he said that he and his peers want to engage in various channels, not just the Internet, but since that is the "best and most efficient way to communicate, I assume that if you can't do that well, you're too bureaucratic for me."

After some time, Sue helped people understand that these channels need to be part of a strategy. Creating a Facebook site to say you have one will not pass the transparency and authenticity test for the next generation - a site is not a strategy.

Another person questioned the amount of resources needed and ROI on regular updates to the Web site or tying to keep a Facebook and MySpace presence real. An older gentleman in the back commented that he was glad he didn't have to show an ROI on his annual report. All interesting perspectives based on generational differences and technological sophistication.

As the session was coming to a close a young women in the back of the room, stood up and said, "These are the same questions about Facebook and MySpace that we asked about the Web several years ago. It ain't going away. We have to meet this audience's expectations if we want to engage them."

As I listened, it appears that the research completed with our partners Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research into the expectations of major donors online and today's insight into the expectations of the next generation of donors is closely linked. Nonprofits still have a great deal of opportunity to engage the next generation and major donors through the Internet - "it ain't going away."

It seems we that what we have here, might just be a "failure to communicate." Is that failure a generational gap or a technical gap? What do you think? I welcome your perspective.

I first became familiar with eCRM, not as an employee of a SaaS company (Convio, which is where I work today), but as an end user of Convio's eCRM software.

A charity bike ride I had helped to start in Austin, Texas, in 2000--Hill Country Ride for AIDS--had stumbled along in its first couple of years with around 100 riders and $100,000 revenue for its annual charity ride. When we first encountered online marketing, we were primarily excited about its ability to accept online donations for our event. That first year of using eCRM, we almost doubled our ridership and income!

Over the last six years, our sophistication as a fundraising organization has grown as the functionality of eCRM has dramatically increased. We have delved deeply into the fundraising functionality for teams and individuals through online mail campaigns, team and individual web pages, individual fundraising events like house parties, and viral marketing through social networking pages. This year we are anticipating around 500 riders and we expect to pass our raised income of $550,000 from last year!

That's a pretty impressive rate of growth over the past 8 years. I attribute much of that growth to our ability to promote our ride through online marketing and fundraising. Feel free to stop by my page and make a contribution! :)

Why don’t you start by telling a little about the issue of colorectal cancer.

Cancer that originates in the colon or rectum (colorectal) is the 2nd leading cause of cancer death in the United States, for both men and women. It's a myth that colorectal cancer is an "old man's disease," as just as many women get it as men. Most colorectal cancer begins as a polyp in the colon, although not all polyps become cancerous. You can find more information about prevention and screening of colorectal cancer on our website.

Colorectal cancer caught in its earliest stages, before the disease has moved beyond the colon, can be treated effectively and cured in the majority of cases. However, once the disease has spread to lymph nodes and other organs, odds of long term survival go way down. Until recently, science made little progress in treating advanced colorectal cancer and patients whose cancer had spread to other organs typically lived no more than 6-12 months after diagnosis. My father survived just 9 months after he was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in 1998. Now, there are new treatments for advanced disease, including innovative surgery techniques for dealing with cancer that has spread to other organs. Patients are living longer, and some patients with advanced disease are being cured.  Today my father could expect to live 2 years or more or even be cured.

Still, nearly 50,000 Americans will die of colorectal cancer this year. The statistics are improving, but they won't stay on that trend without continued attention. It's more than just research. We need more patients to enroll in clinical trials, so research can be tested. We need to make sure agencies like the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and others are on the right track to keep progress against colorectal cancer moving forward and that they have adequate funds to do so. Patients need and deserve a seat at the table when it's their lives at stake.

What does the C3 organization do to help this issue?

C3 is about building a community of engagement around colorectal cancer. Some of our efforts include:

•    The "Cover Your Butt" campaign started last year, in support of three bills in Congress that would guarantee access to colorectal cancer screening and treatment. You can read more about those bills here. Most colorectal cancer awareness campaigns focus on getting people to talk to their doctor about screening. Unfortunately in this country, there are many who know they should be screened, but simply can't afford it. Or, if they do get screened, they can't afford treatment. There are too many Americans who do not have adequate insurance to begin screening for colorectal cancer at the age of 50, and if they wait until they are eligible for Medicare at 65, it may be too late. On Wednesday, March 19th, we held a one-day phone blitz to Capitol Hill we called the "Congressional Butt-In." Despite our very limited budget for promotion, nearly 2,000 phone calls were made to Congress in one day in support of the bills in the Cover Your Butt campaign.
•    Each March we hold a "Call-on Congress." We invite advocates from across the country to join us for a day of grassroots advocacy training, followed by a day on Capitol Hill in meetings with their Members of Congress that we arrange for them. We also work with our advocates to help them build relationships with their elected legislators and their staff. The advocates help us put a face on the issue. We're talking about a disease that affects real people that live and work in their communities. Congress needs to see that.
•    We directly fund research through our "Lisa Fund," named after one of our founders who lost her battle to colon cancer last year. The first research grant will be awarded next month.
•    Publicly-funded research focused on colorectal cancer is happening all over the country. We have a Research Advocacy Training and Support program that works directly with patient advocates - regular people, not scientists - who sit on the committees that design and evaluate that research.

What is C3 doing online to communicate, market or advocate to constituents?

It is much, much cheaper to engage online than through more traditional means. However, there are other factors that make our online communication essential:

•    Many of our constituents are actively fighting disease. It is difficult for them to travel, even to a local event. But often they can get to a computer. And if they can get to a computer, they can email us. They can read our website and newsletters. They can take action online and make phone calls. If we only marketed to advocates we could reach in person, we would be missing a substantial part of our target market.
•    Research changes quickly. Information we publish online on our Research News pages is up-to-the-minute.
•    Some legislative alerts need fast turn around. For example, in 2006, we were told that then-New York Governor Pataki was threatening to veto passage of legislation that would provide treatment for those diagnosed with colorectal cancer through publicly-funded screening. In less than 24 hours, we sent an action alert out to all our New York constituents urging them to pick up the phone and call Governor Pataki's office. There wasn't even enough time for them to take action by email. The email we sent was quickly forwarded all over the state, and it generated hundreds of calls to the Governor's office. A few days later, the legislation was signed into law by the Governor.  

What specific tactics and/or tools have you used to help with these online efforts?

What haven't we used? We got our 501(c)(3) status in October 2005. We signed a contract with GetActive two months later. So we have always been a very online-engaged organization. However, we don't limit ourselves to only what GetActive/Convio have to offer. We have utilized WordPress as the foundation for the majority of our soon-to-be-launched redesigned website. This opens us to that entire community of developers for the plug-ins and enhancements that will help our website do exactly what we want it to do. What's not in WordPress will be in Convio or Salesforce.

The Cover Your Butt microsite is hosted on WordPress.com and was up and running in under 48 hours for a total cost of less than $50.

We started using Salesforce as our main constituent database in Spring 2006. While GetActive gave us a very good retrospective analysis of how we were engaging with our constituents online, we were missing the big picture. Salesforce is better known as a tool for corporations and for-profit businesses. However, they have a Foundation that gives away up to 10 user licenses to nonprofit organizations. Beyond just donating licenses, the Foundation has employees that are doing an incredible job of making the tool really work for nonprofit organizations.

We recently started experimenting with Facebook to help spread the word about our campaigns. While the average age of the colorectal cancer patient tends to be a little older than the average Facebook user, we do find that the most active advocates are younger.

Internally, we are organized around the web, as half of our staff (myself included) does not work out of the main office. We manage projects using 37Signals' Basecamp. We review documents in Google Docs, we are constantly IM'ing each other. I've had better communication with my co-workers at C3 who are mostly 200+ miles away than I've had with co-workers where we've been 10 feet apart.

What results are you seeing online? And how have these helped augment and/or exceed offline efforts?

The New York legislation above is an example of how our online interactions made a quick difference. Beyond that, the best example is the Cover Your Butt campaign. Primarily focused online, we took that campaign to Capitol Hill on March 11th and to our Congressional Butt-in on March 19th. We can see that for every email sent out directly to a constituent about the campaign, it was forwarded and opened at least 5 times.

So far this fiscal year, online donations are on track to exceed mailed-in check donations for the first time. Some find it hard to believe that we have only been in existence for 3 years, as we have grown at a very fast pace. We started C3 in March 2005 with one consultant and one administrative staff member in a single room in Washington, DC. Now we have an office suite in Alexandria, VA a toll-free answer line and 7 staff members. We have a strong reputation both on and offline in the larger colorectal cancer research and advocacy community. Our ability as an organization to use emerging technology effectively has been credited as part of the reason for that success.

We truthfully don't draw a hard and fast line between on and offline efforts. Our focus is entirely on the message, and reaching people without reinventing the wheel or wasting money. If we can get people to a computer, we can provide them with information that we don't have to provide on paper. But we know that true advocacy comes from building relationships. That is why we bring our advocates together for trainings. We have monthly conference calls with them. It's the same with our donors. We are not playing a volume game. We are far more concerned with our level of engagement with both donors and advocates than we are with just spouting out numbers.

If you could give another nonprofit advice about using the power of the Internet and Web 2.0, what would it be?

If you limit yourself to only considering tools designed for nonprofits, you may be missing out. We're focused on what the tool can provide, not the tool itself. The best technology gets out of your way quickly.

Don't be afraid to give up a little control of your message in exchange for the possibilities of opening a dialogue around your issue. Use a tool that allows visitors to leave comments on your site content. Use RSS so other sites can syndicate your content as the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable does with ours. Publish your photos using a sharing site like Flickr or SmugMug. Urge your constituents to use Twitter and their Facebook status to talk about what you're doing. You can try things online that would be more difficult and costly to do any other way. We launched Cover Your Butt for under $50, and now the impact of that campaign is being felt throughout Congress.

C3’s work includes not only communicating with constituents, but also asking them to advocate on issues of importance with elected officials and asking them to support the organizations financially; how do you balance those needs and are you seeing your constituents both advocate and donate?

When people first come to C3, oftentimes they aren't looking to become engaged in a cause, rather they are looking for information that will help them or their loved one navigate their cancer diagnosis. We're there for them with up-to-date, patient-friendly, unbiased information. Through our advocacy work, we also help them see how they can work with us toward a world without colorectal cancer. It's a very hopeful message, and for many who are facing their own mortality, it also touches on a desire to create a legacy. In fact, we have several advocates, who, when the cure for colorectal cancer comes, we will point to and say, "They made this happen." Our donors are advocates who want to invest in such a world.

Don't panic: Technical problems, emergencies and unexpected issues are rare but it can be beneficial to be prepared to deal with and even capitalize on them.

"Man doesn't plan to fail, he simply fails to plan."

Dealing with technical emergencies and other issues can be exciting, (where exciting is a rather ambiguous term). A good way to plan for problems is to ask the rhetorical question you'll ask when in the middle of an emergency: "What else could possibly go wrong?" I promise it can be fun and productive by using the right mixture of silliness and seriousness. Pick your favorite cynic and trudge 63,360 inches in his shoes. Do it now or he will be singing "I told you so" later!

In planning for emergencies it is necessary to weigh the cost/inconvenience of the risk against the cost/inconvenience of the failure.

"Hope for the best, plan for the worst."

The first step in weighing these items is to identify what is critically important to your cause and what are the potential failure points you are dependent upon.

Obviously your site is hosted on a server and you most likely are entrusting someone else to have it backed up with failover options if anything goes wrong. Do you know what the user experience and recovery will be like if something were to fail? What kind of error messages could be displayed for various situations? Please resist the urge to bring back one of those under construction animated GIFs from the early 90's! I know they're cool. You know they're cool. I predict a "retro internet" movement within 10 years that will bring them back along with flashing italics and marquee scrolling text! Back to seriousness... After a problem occurs, how will damage control be assessed and handled and most importantly, by who?

For collecting donations online, it may be worthwhile to have a backup method of collection. This can include a second host/server, payment processor and even pointing donors to an offline donation method if needed. I have seen several offline donation methods set up including pointing to a form, phone number or email address to either continue collecting donations or gather phone numbers or email addresses to be alerted later when it is possible to donate once again. For large donation campaigns, existing or emergency call centers can be utilized to continue accepting donations if set up in advance.

For email and advocacy action alert mishaps the most common recovery method is a mea culpa. Everyone gets to do it once: send an email either to the wrong audience or with broken links or some other mistake that reminds you both how small and large the internet is. I have seen some accidents resolved with web trickery including rerouting bad links or using meta refreshes to push the user from the bad link to the correct one. With broken links in an email, these fixes need to be very fast because, in general, the majority of the audience will view the email and take any action within the first few hours of receiving it.

"If you want to survive out here, you've got to know where your towel is."

The final step in preparing for emergencies is knowing the escalation path. You will likely need to know who in your organization will need to take action or be alerted. Also make sure you know the escalation process and procedure for escalating high priority problems.

"It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark."

It ain't all bad. A great way to make planning for emergencies fun is to also include strategies for turning a potential problem, emergency, or sudden opportunity into a good thing. For instance, you might see a much greater than anticipated response to a campaign that overwhelms your system. As soon as the system is stabilized reach out again to those who tried to donate or take action, thank them, apologize and let them know that the response has been so incredible it overwhelmed the system!

I was forced to watch at least one episode of American Idol last year because of the "Idol Gives Back" program. In general it was a great success but I hope to be your favorite cynic, I saw it as a missed opportunity. During the window of collecting donations the server performance was atrocious and the conclusion was "look how successful this was, the server was killed." There was a big opportunity there to say the demand was so great we have come back for an encore. Don't even get me started on the lack of Fox Network's understanding of eCRM. They made sure these were one time donations and did not make it easy for the non-profits benefiting to continue the relationship with the donors; few saw usable housefile increases.

On a similar note, be prepared for potential events, news items and opportunities that could require quick, emergency-like response to capitalize on. While strategizing on handling bad emergencies, take time to focus on potential good ones.

My last tidbit of disaster preparedness is this: Always have a hidden stash of chocolate. That's what my mama always said.

Earlier this month, we saw the release of a new report "Ready to Lead?", an enlightening survey of the next generation of would-be nonprofit leaders by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Meyer Foundation, Idealist.org, and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. For those of us who believe that strong leaders are the backbone of strong and successful organizations, the report has some troubling warnings along with some hopeful signs.

It concluded that while there is a diverse and committed next generation of nonprofit leaders waiting in the wings, there are roadblocks to their wanting to make the leap into the highest levels of nonprofit service. Commonly cited barriers include a lack of mentorship from existing executives, overwhelming fundraising responsibilities, lack of a real work-life balance, and insufficient life-long earning potential. This comes on the heels of a 2006 study that showed three out of four executive directors planned to leave their jobs within the next five years because of burnout, inadequate compensation, and overwhelming responsibilities for fundraising.

Hmmm... sound familiar? Our nonprofit leaders of both today and tomorrow, despite their vision, vigor, and values are daunted by the challenges of personal finances, fundraising, and family obligations.

As organizations face financial hardships or seek to drive all "overhead" out of their budgets, often the first cutbacks come at the expense of training in emerging technology and leadership development. We do this at our peril. It undercuts our own ability to recruit and grow talented and committed nonprofit professionals at the time when we most need to fertilize the soil for future development. Having a meaningful job where you can make a difference does not mean you should do it for no money, no hope, and no opportunity.

Board members, your legal responsibility is to make sure the organization is well managed and fiscally sound. So what's your leadership development plan? It's better to grow the talent you have than to keep training new staff off the street. Pay them like the stars they are because without them, you don't have an organization. Insist on creating a place where the best and brightest people in your field want to put their hearts and minds.

Existing nonprofit leaders and executives, are you worried there's a group of committed employees ready to take your job? You should be so lucky! Mentoring isn't a burden, it's an investment. Of course nonprofit jobs are demanding, but they should also be rewarding, stimulating, and intellectually challenging, too. The difference between good and great is the strength of the team around you. Mentor a strong leader — I promise you'll get as much out of it as she does.

To those of you on the front line, don't wait for someone to pull you up the ladder. Take your nonprofit career seriously and reach out to a leader you admire — in your organization or another — and start the conversation. Learn about technology your own. Read and understand the reports to your board. Network. Ask your friends in the for-profit world how you might be able to benefit from any training or tools they have. For those of you who have been at it a while, take advantage of the new public service loan forgiveness program to eliminate your higher ed loans after ten years of nonprofit service!

The good news in "Ready to Lead" is that despite all of the apparent challenges, there are smart and capable professionals ready to take on the work for social change. Commit yourself to taking the next step toward making it happen.

Do we have an answer to the age old question - "can money buy happiness?"

Maybe not, but researchers from Harvard Business School and the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, say their research suggests that how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn.

The study, published this week in the journal Science, was featured in an article in the Monday, March 21 edition of The Boston Globe. The article and study, Money makes you happy - if you spend it on others, suggests that money, spent on other people can make you happier.  

It is a fascinating article. The people who reported the highest level of happiness were those that were giving money to people or causes in need, regardless of income. 

So tell your volunteers, advocates, and other supporters it's time to be happy - give. We can all make the world a happier place.

According to the article one of the researchers, Elizabeth W. Dunn, wrote up the study, close to Christmastime. She "decided that instead of giving her family things, she would get them gift certificates to a website that allows people to choose various philanthropic projects to support.

"I've never gotten more positive responses to any gift I've given my family," she said. "I was giving them the gift of giving."

Shout out to Watt Hamlett, one of Convio's fine Solutions Engineers, who shared the article with me.

Earlier today we released a new study with SeaChange and Edge Research showing quantitative results that prove major donors are in fact "wired" and online. For nonprofits who have resisted using online communication strategies over the years,  this research illuminates a major proof point that online efforts can and do elicit responses and donations from the “wired wealthy” – those who donate at least $1000 to a single organization over an 8 month period.
Internally, we’ve discussed the implications and impact these types of findings could have on various nonprofits, but it’s been noteworthy to point out bloggers' reactions to these findings.

Kami Huyse at Communication Overturns noted that “many non-profits are missing the boat with this Web-savvy constituency” in an entry discussing the report's findings this morning. Huyse also noted the work of Beth Kanter, a social media consultant for nonprofts and prolific nptech blogger, as a prime example of how to connect with donors. She cited Beth’s recent success with raising money using social media during the America’s Giving Challenge.

Joanne Fritz of Nonprofit Online Orgs points to a major take-away of the research that “even though these 'Wired Wealthy' give online and use charity websites, they are not terribly impressed by those sites.” She also provides a list of links to other information on wealthy donors.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Elizabeth Schwinn also wrote an article on the wired wealthy data along with Read Write Web’s Josh Catone who also posted a entry about the research.

All this new data brings up another issue I’ve heard discussed recently: the economy and how it might and/or will affect chartable giving in 2008. Changing Our World's President Christopher Watson recently wrote a memo addressing this issue. In this four-page document, Watson points to some interesting information and data about how philanthropy and organizations have changed along with five facts nonprofits should know about the economy.  His overall point of the memo is that “nonprofits must be guided by an understanding of the past history of philanthropy within the economy and the stability of future flows of giving, not by the short-term fluctuations of particular markets or isolated business cycles.”

This insight, paired with the Wired Wealthy data, should help reassure nonprofits using online communications - whether they be email marketing, online fundraising, social media or other tactics – that 2008 will indeed be a good year to spread nonprofit seeds online to drive results.

For years now I’ve believed that the Internet could play a much more meaningful role to support mid-level and major gift fundraising.  I’m really excited to now have some quantitative research that confirms many of my beliefs and adds some really exciting new insights.

In early 2007, Convio, SeaChange Strategies and Edge Research embarked on a research effort to study the preferences and behavior of high-value donors who had given at least $1,000 to a single charity over 18 months and who had an email address on file with one or more nonprofits. We named this constituency, the “Wired Wealthy”.  We recruited 23 organizations to participate and received responses from 3,443 high value “wired” donors to a Web survey in the fall of 2007. The respondents said that they donated on average $10,896 per year. We followed up with select donor phone interviews and separately, invited nonprofit organizations to participate in a survey of their online practices with high-value donors.

For the nonprofits who shared data with us, this segment of donors represents just 1% of their active donor file, but 32% of their annual revenue. We believed this constituency was active online and that their philanthropy could be influenced through online engagement. Our hypothesis was proven correct:

• The responding donors have been using the Internet for an average of 12 years.
• They are online an average of 18 hours a week; 80% have given online and 51% prefer online giving. 
• 66% of respondents said they visit the Web site of a cause or charity before donating for the first time; of those, 49% say they visit in nearly every instance when they are considering a donation to a new cause.
• When asked how email communications influence their giving, 42% responded that they are somewhat more likely to give;18% are a lot more likely to give again to a charity if sent email with news of recent accomplishments; 41% said that they are somewhat more likely and 33% are a lot more likely to give again if sent email about how their donation was spent.

We believed that nonprofit organizations had not determined the best way to communicate with high value donors. Provided with a variety of potential strategies in the nonprofit survey, 35% said they have devised special e-communications for higher dollar donors only; 24% said they adapt email solicitations for higher dollar donors; 16% said they send email updates to high dollar donors, but not email solicitations; and 9% say they suppress high dollar donors from all emails.  Furthermore, only 31% of nonprofit organizations indicated that their major donor fundraisers were very involved in their Internet strategies.

We hypothesized that the “wired wealthy” had high expectations online that were not fully being met by most nonprofits. Once again, our hypothesis was proven correct:

• Only 8% of donors agreed strongly that charity Web sites are inspiring, and just 7% agree strongly that charity Web sites make them feel personally connected to their cause or mission.  
• Furthermore, only 8% of respondents agree strongly that emails from causes they support to be inspiring or report that these emails make them feel more connected to the cause. 
• In general, high-value donors want to have more control over their online experience, controlling both the type of content they receive/see and the frequency of communications.

Our research confirmed that not all high-value donors are the same. We observed very clear segmentation between constituents who wanted a high touch relationship -– who we termed “relationship seekers” -- and those who preferred an efficient giving experience with limited communications –- who we termed “all business”.

We are going to present this research next Tuesday April 1^st at the AFP International Conference and will be presenting it again at the DMAW/AFP-DC Bridge Conference in July. We will also host on an online Webinar.

Nonprofit organizations have made major strides in the last few years to integrate offline direct response fundraising with online marketing. The next untapped area of opportunity is mid-level and major gifts. I encourage you to read our full report “Wired Wealthy - Using the Internet to Connect with Your Middle and Major Donors” online, and attend one of our presentations so that you can maximize the online opportunity with your high-value donors.

Today is the final day to vote for your favorite mashup at the NetSquared Mashup Challenge.

There are more than 122 projects vying for the prize, click here to visit the mashup gallery and find your favorite.

Which project will I be voting for? I like Peter Deitz SocialActions mashup.  Check it out.  This project unifies advocacy opportunities and other social actions from multiple platforms to compile a tag cloud and visual map for browsing.  It's a smart effort and demonstrates the potential for what Open platforms can accomplish when linked together.

An interesting thing happened during the various sessions concerning the ROI of social media; A lot of people showed up to listen, and no one had any answers. I had a conversation with Eve Smith of Easter Seals about this and we decided that the silver lining was we weren't behind anybody else. The confirmation that nobody else seemed to know how, or even what, to measure was comforting, in a sense.

I was especially interested in the results of the impromptu survey Beth Kanter took during her session, asking how many of audience members were formally, informally, or not at all measuring their social media ROI. The results were overwhelming for the latter, and I was just dying to jump in and ask, "Is that because you don't know what to measure?" But I didn't, so I'll ask it here? Are most non profits not measuring the ROI of their social media efforts because they don't know what to measure?

If there was anybody willing to go out on a limb and provide a solid opinion on the ROI of social media, it was Justin Perkins, whose calculator says negative 90%. He was quick to follow up with a challenge for the audience to beat the calculator, but also a warning to put your efforts to better use. My opinion is that Justin's calculator is a decent start, but far from complete. Here's why:

• It measures cost versus revenue, but it only takes into account donations and advocacy related income. What about the myriad of other ways an organization has to engage and profit from a constituent, like volunteering, event participation, and referrals?

• It fails to account for the pace of content delivery in social media. By assuming that each person engaged by social media will only donate once, it assumes that people follow the same patterns they do with email. In social media, it is acceptable to present new content on a daily basis. For example, Defenders of Wildlife post a new update in Facebook with a very high frequency. Now, if the content is angled just slightly differently, it's like a whole new campaign. The opportunities to support the organization are presented more frequently and in a more varied way, and I think they'll eventually result in more frequent support.

I do recognize that more frequent support isn't exactly in evidence yet, but my suspicion is that the frequency of support is actually up, but the actual donations are being made yet. By that, I mean an individual is looking more often at the content of an organization, and they are mentally engaging more often. The trick will be to figure out how to turn the mental into the financial.

I too am at the NTEN conference this week and yesterday Fred Waugh and I slipped away to go visit a new client of Convio’s, The National World War II Museum. Frankly, I was blown away at both what they have amassed (a C-47 hanging from the ceiling in the main entrance as one example) and their vision for the future. Stephen Watson, COO, and Paul Parrie, Director of IT,  hosted us and gave me some insight into their vision of the future. While there certainly are statistics, tanks, weapons, and jeeps galore, the main theme of the museum is to remember what arguably was the most important event in the last several hundred years.

The youngest vet from WWII is now 81 and many of them are at the museum for first hand accounts of their missions and memories. The team at the museum is dedicated to making sure that we never lose sight of why WWII needed to take place and how a country that was fresh off of a recession had to amass the spirit and commitment to take on such a daunting task. This was a war that involved little debate, but nevertheless it was one that taxed our country beyond belief. What is particularly exciting about their vision is how focused they are on the generations behind us Boomers. They really want young people (all of you non-boomers!) to understand the commitment, leadership and sacrifice a country made in a truly world struggle.

So MPower has announced the availability of their CRM product as an downloadable open-source toolkit. (http://mpoweropen.com)

Why is this significant you ask?  Because it opens the door for further innovation on their platform (open pun intended) yet maintains the accountability and reliability of your standard vendor-backed application.  This hybrid approach is not new, but in the nptech world it's only just coming en vogue.   The smart folks at CivicSpace Labs have been offering a similar approach for a while and are steadily gaining clients and building a great tool for nonprofits.  I'm excited to see MPower adopt this strategy and look forward to following the imminent innovations that will come as a result.

I just attended the NTC session "Five Ways to Set Up / Amp Up / Screw Up Your Email Messages", hosted by Madeline from Watershed, with TJ from Convio, Heidi from CDF and Nzinga from Watershed.

As always, Madeline delivered an excellent session, full of clever quips, intelligent insights and rationale suggestions.

One that got me thinking is the idea of offering email subscription options.  What I'm talking about are sites where the organization asks "are you interested in topics a, b, c, etc., let us know and we'll keep you posted on these issues".  Sounds logical right?  But here's the problem... asking people for their preferences is notoriously a flawed approach because what we actually do and what we say are usually much different.

A smarter approach to interest-based email segmentation is to assign interest values based upon behavior, not preferences.  In other words, over a period of time your organization can analyze response rates, advocacy actions, fundraising conversions, etc. and use that data to populate interest values for subscribers more accurately than relying upon the preferences an individual will self-select.  Granted... you need the data, the tools and the capacity to get it done, but the payoff is worth the effort.

And there's another reason to limit or avoid subscription options - people are already reluctant to join yet another email list because they're concerned about spam and volume, and if you say "check each issue you would like to hear from us about: climate, poverty, animals, disease, etc. etc." the potential subscriber sees that list and thinks "hmmm... I'm actually interested in all of those, but does checking each one mean I'll receive X more email from this group? I think I'll just leave that blank". 

So what's a group to do? If you have a good reason to believe self-select options are good for your unique strategy, do it.  But consider also maintaining a non-public set of interest preferences you populate over time based on behavior. 

3.    Web 2.0 - Unlike video and phone, this is an area where nonprofits can really see the obvious benefits right now. Services like Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and blogging are changing the past one-to-many model of the past and allowing for direct feedback and engagement on the Internet. Some useful and interesting sites discussed included Kiva, Goloco and the new British government e-petitions. Examples like these show that enhancements in technology and online strategy can truly help nonprofits and other organizations trying to make a difference in the lives’ of people around the world.