Happy (belated) Mother's Day to all those moms out there!

With help from my colleagues I just did a quick roundup of some great Mother’s Day email and web campaigns that organizations used to encourage engagement around the holiday. 

Here’s the quick summary with links to examples.  Post your ideas and additional campaigns in the comments.

Create a Mother’s Day Campaign Site
The Ploughshares Fund created a great Mother’s Day Campaign Site with landing pages, content and rich imagery that asks visitors to honor their mothers by giving the gift of peace.

Tie American Mother’s Day to Issues of Mothers Around the World
The International Rescue Committee ran an email campaign that encouraged people to consider making a donation to honor “mothers and their families who are caught in the crossfire of conflict.”

CARE ran an email campaign with similar messaging that led to a strong donation form allowing people to send their mothers CARE-themed eCards after donating.

Encourage People to Act in Honor of Strong Women in THEIR Lives
Planned Parenthood ran an email campaign that leveraged the notion of intergenerational strength to encourage donations.

Appeal with Celebrities Talking About their Mothers
Susan J. Komen Foundation’s Policy Alliance sent an email campaign featuring actor Ricardo Chavira who lost his mother to breast and cervical cancer when he was 16 years old.  In the email donors are directed to take action on an advocacy campaign encouraging Congress to create a special cancer coin. 

Market Gifts that Give Back to the Organization
Save the Children ran an email campaign to encourage people to buy Save the Children themed roses or bracelet to honor their mothers and support the organization.

National Public Radio created an online store geared to Mother’s Day gift ideas.  They drove traffic to the store with an email campaign.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, technology columnist/blogger Ben Worthen wrote an interesting article on the 30^th anniversary of the first spam email. Since that first invitation to an open house for a new computer, spam has grown to an estimated 90 percent of all electronic messages sent.

To celebrate, ok, highlight the anniversary, I thought it was a good time to feature an article and blog post that help you make sure your email is getting through.

The first is from Convio Chief Scientist, Dr. Bill Pease. Culled from his oft-requested conference session on things that affect email delivery and the best practices required to avoid common delivery problems, the article provides insight that can help you succeed.

From the “oldies but goodies” section, Holly Ross (the post is an oldie, Holly is NOT) provided ten steps to improve email deliverability on NTEN blog last year.

Gary Thurek, the father of spam says people started complaining about his email immediately. He never sent another. Now, if only the Viagra pushers and Nigerian Princes would stop… Well, we can wish. But if you want results and not wishes use the opportunity of this infamous anniversary to share these tips across your organization.

In addition, share your best tips here and we’ll compile them for a future post. Also, share some of the worst tips you've heard and we can put them on a list too. We heard some at a session in San Diego a few weeks ago that made our clients and team cringe - things that good email marketers stopped doing years ago were touted as best practices - but that is a future post. You can also visit the resource center with lessons learned from nearly a decade of research and collaboration with clients and partners on email practices.

And don't blame Gary - as he puts it, blaming him for spam is like blaming the Wright Brothers if the airline loses your luggage.

This was a record year for the Hill Country Ride for AIDS, held last Saturday, April 26, in Austin, TX. In a soft economy, we raised more money than ever before by Ride date--$575,000--beating our amount raised as of Ride day last year by $60K. We had 20% more riders than last year. It was a record year for the number of teams and the amount of money raised by teams. I'm pleased to say that Team Convio turned in a very respectable $14,000. And  I raised $7000 individually, surpassing my initial fundraising goal by over $2000! All of my fundraising--and almost all of the Ride's--takes place online, using Convio's TeamRaiser component, which enables individual participants to maintain their own web pages and donations, as well as to roll those up into a larger team's fundraising totals.

What follows for those of you who are interested is my journal entry for the weekend:

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It's Sunday morning, and I am basking in the memory of what is always the best day of the year for me--albeit with sore muscles and the sun still burning on my face!

The 9th annual Hill Country Ride for AIDS began Friday night with registration, packet pickup, and pasta dinner followed by an hour of opening ceremonies. It was a joyous time to greet fellow riders ("You look so different with your street clothes on!"), connect with crew from last year, and to remember why we ride. I sat with my team, Team Convio, through the evening. We heard a moving testimonial from a young woman who lost her "step father" to AIDS.

Back home after packing my gear and getting my bike ready for the following day, I retired early at 10 p.m. for the day ahead. I went to sleep to the sound of a thunderstorm and hail, wondering what the next day's weather would bring. But when I woke up, the rain had cooled the temperature down and cleared out the humidity. It was a beautiful clear spring morning!

I got an on-time start from the house at 6:30 a.m., arriving at 7:15 at Krause Springs, some 35 miles west of Austin, where we would start and finish the Ride. The morning was perfect for riding. Our team of 10 members was resplendent in our gold, white and purple Team Convio jerseys as we gathered at the starting line for a final team picture.

Riding out into the spring morning, the cluster of 480 riders quickly thinned into singles and pairs and small clusters. I rode for most of the morning with my boss and his wife. The scenery was beautiful: the Texas wildflowers were still in bloom in subtle shades of yellow, blue, red, and cream. I pulled into the lunch pit stop by 12:00 and 31 miles, earlier than usual since I had not elected to do the extra 20-mile extension this year.

Only 12 miles to go after lunch, but what a 12 miles! At 6 miles out, we encountered "The Hill." This was our steepest climb of the day, and the Ride had posted volunteers to run alongside us as we cranked up the last hundred yards of the hill. I was grateful for all my training that enabled me to grind it out without getting off my bike, but my heart rate was 170 by the time I crested the hill! We stopped for a well-deserved rest at the top to enjoy the incredible vista before us and to cool down on popsicles at the hilltop pit stop before riding into camp.

It was mostly downhill the final distance. At 5 miles out, we encountered a new feature of the Ride: the 2-mile "Ride of Silence." I rode through it solo, remembering the names of many friends and acquaintances lost to AIDS. I coasted into the finish line to the shouts and cheers of the many people lining the road. It was truly a triumphant moment--and I was beat!

By finishing early this year, I was able to take advantage of some of the recreational amenities of the camp: a wonderful swim in the natural springs pool, complete with a pounding waterfall to soothe tired muscles, then a relaxing chair massage in a quiet grove of trees.

A shower and change of clothes later, I felt human again as I walked down the hill to the ampitheatre for the Remembrance Ceremony. This is always the most solemn event of the Ride, a time to remember why we ride and to hear a list of names read of people who have passed away from AIDS. The list grows longer each year as the Ride grows and more people want to remember friends and loved ones.

After the ceremony, we ascended the hill to gather for a Mexican dinner under a big tent. The silence broken, over 800 people--riders, crew, friends, and family--gathered to enjoy one last meal and to hear the final totals for the Ride. This was a record year, with more riders (480) registered than ever before, and more money raised than ever before--$575,000.

What an awesome day!

One of the key benefits of the Software as a Service (on-demand) model is the unique insight that the model provides from a data and analytics perspective. Because of that model we are able to obeserve aggregate data that helps nonprofit professionals answer three questions:

1) What online metrics should I focus on?

2) How is my organization doing? and

3) What targets should I set for my organization?

As a company we have 9 years of cummulative data and experience in the nonprofit sector, and a team of employees and partners with even more personal experience and expertise in analyzing data to provide actionable insight to our clients and the market.  Today, we are exctied to share the results of the second annual Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study with the market. The NonProfit Times has featured the research in their current issue.

One of the lead researchers, Vinay Bhagat, sat down with us for a series of interviews on the study. Today, Vinay discusses the value of the research and some of the key trends. 

Convio clients can get the full report in the Convio Online Client Community. Visit our Web site for a summary of the benchmark report and to learn more.

We would be remiss if we didn't thank the study authors Quinn Donovan, Lynette Perkins and Vinay for the many hours they put into completing this project.

Have you read the Wired Wealthy yet?  If not, Tom Belford in his popular blog, the Agitator provides a great framework of questions to keep in mind as you read the paper.

“I finally got through my reading pile to a report released about three weeks ago by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research. The Wired Wealthy is an important study of the online behaviors and preferences of major donors (i.e., individuals giving cumulatively $1000 in a year to a given cause, through any means).

Twenty-three nonprofits provided research access to their donors in this category ... typically the 1% of donors in their universe who give almost one-third of the money.

The report drips with valuable data and insights. In fact, if you raise charitable money and do not read this report, you oughta be fired!

On the other hand, the firms and individuals who produced this report, of course, deserve a raise! And kudos too to the groups who shared their donors for the project.

No single blog post can do justice to the richness of information in The Wired Wealthy. So I won't dribble out a bunch of teaser factoids here.

Instead, to encourage you to read it yourself, I'm simply going to list some of the questions you will find answers to (or at least guidance on): 

• Can you treat all your "Wired Wealthy" alike? The authors found three segments within the Wired Wealthy universe -- Relationship Seekers, All Business and Casual Connectors. What are their critical differences and what are the implications for communicating with each segment online?
• How do these donors relate to whiz-bang online stuff like videos and social networking tools and sites?
• How do they grade (your) nonprofit websites? How often and why do they visit them? [Warning: some depressing news here.]
• How much of (your) email communications do they read ... and how do they grade them? [More depressing news! Clue: the report refers to an "inspiration gap."]
• What kinds of online communication would be welcomed by all three segments of the Wired Wealthy?
• Do they expect to be giving more money online in the future? How do they feel about direct mail?
• What online activities do they undertake in support of the causes and charities they contribute to?
• Just how important is it to be responsive to the individual preferences of these donors and to customize communications accordingly? [This is a Pass/Fail question!]
• To what degree are nonprofits honing special online approaches to the Wired Wealthy, and are the right people involved?

If these questions -- and insight into their answers -- are not important to you, then either you are not a fundraiser, or you are not a fundraiser with a future! Read The Wired Wealthy!"

The catchphrase “Keeping up with the Joneses” is a familiar concept for most Americans.  It refers to measuring yourself against someone, usually a neighbor, using some sort of comparative measurement such as the car they drive or the brand of clothes they wear. 

Invariably, as anyone who has gotten caught up in this trap can attest, trouble eventually arises because of asymmetric information, or the idea that one party has more complete information than the other.  For instance, after trying unsuccessfully to match the Joneses lifestyle, we find out that the Joneses are not like us at all.  Turns out that the reason they could afford that new car and fancy vacation was a recent inheritance they didn’t tell anyone about.  Or maybe they simply project the perception of success while secretly drowning in a sea of debt.  In other words, the Joneses are not a good comparable if you have any hopes of not ending up in the poor house.

Nonprofits struggle with this same concept of information asymmetry.  We know exactly how our organization is performing across key metrics such as fundraising, email file health, and mobilizing advocates, but have little or no empirical data outside our organization to compare ourselves against.  “We’re doing better than last year, but are we leading or falling behind our peers?” is a common question for many nonprofit leaders.  And who are my peers anyways?  Even on the rare occasion that we get a glimpse into how another nonprofit is performing, we are still left to wonder if they are really a good comparable or not for our organization?

Because a Public Broadcasting Station’s mission and how they operate is very different than a University or Disaster Relief Organization, it is important for nonprofits to compare their individual results against a group of peers that is most like their own; ideally based on multiple dimensions.  For example, organizations with a common mission,  email sophistication (use a proxy like the size of their email file), and their organizational budget, would be a good place to start.

Undoubtedly, relevant benchmarks are important for nonprofits to measure themselves against.  But this list of dimensions is by no means exhaustive.  So before we all run out comparing ourselves to everyone on the block, don't forget our friends our friends the Joneses.  Your online results are just part of the picture.  What an organization is doing offline via their direct mail programs, events, telemarketing, and how well these programs are integrated will have an impact on online results.  And at the end of the day, remember every organization is different -- each with its own strengths, organizational challenges and goals.

Jeff Brooks of the agency Merkle-Domain publishes a great blog called the donorpowerblog, the premise of which is that "More than ever before, donors are insisting that you share power with them, not treating them like passive ATMs".  I very much subscribe to this philosophy.

Jeff and I however differ in our opinions on the value of donor research.  Jeff recently posted in response to our Wired Wealth Research  that:

Most organizations that pay attention to what their donors do will probably find these survey results to be a bit hysterical and slightly out of step with reality.

That said, this survey should get your attention. It signals a change in response medium that's likely to become significant quickly. Not only wealthy donors, but donors across the spectrum are turning more an more online to give and otherwise interact with charities. Donation revenue is migrating from the mail to the web, and that means we need to become effective at communicating online."

As Jeff points out, it is generally better to observe what people actually do vs. what they say they do however we must remember that current donor behavior is strongly influenced by how nonprofits engage them.  If we have conditioned our donors to respond via mail and don't make the online experience as compelling as their online banking, shopping, or travel booking experiences, surely it influences their behavior?

The point of a donor survey was to understand the "gap" between donor stated preferences and how nonprofits perform today.  Observed behavior and data is important but we should not ignore the voice of the donor in helping derive next generation strategies.

Back in 1999, if I just observed what donors were actually doing online with nonprofits vs. observing their behavior with commercial entities and surveying them about their preferences, I would never have started Convio!

Vinay Bhagat

Founder & CSO Convio

Wired Wealthy Study co-author

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! :)

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.

Welcome to Connection Café, a blog created from the hearts and minds of the employees of Convio. Our vision for this blog is to aggregate the latest trends, ideas and best practices for nonprofits online. Through discussions about online communication tactics, the latest in Web 2.0 strategies and integration of offline and online campaigns, we hope to share insight and create an open and honest dialogue in the nonprofit technology world.  

Unlike other corporate blogs you may have looked at, you won’t find information or sales pitches about our latest product and service offerings here. Instead, we are venturing out and doing something different - we’ll be writing about the issues you care about and the topics that can help you succeed online. From time to time that means our products and technologies and how clients are using them to get results will be part of the discussion, but we don’t want it to be a sales pitch, so let us know if we cross that line.

Connection Café will discuss how the Internet is fundamentally changing the way people connect with causes, forcing nonprofits to rethink the traditional models for communication, advocacy and fundraising. We want to share our internal resources and expertise with you, as well as information from our Fusion Partners and point you to other online sources that are having the same, or better, discussions. Bottom line, we want to keep you better connected and engaged with the people, ideas and technology that are driving the industry.

Over the past eight years, we’ve kept you connected with our Convio Connection newsletter, presence at industry events and our online client community. Now I’m inviting you - the nonprofit Executive Director, the weekend volunteer, the marketing/communications expert – to connect with us once again by being a part of our online discussion.

So, when we think we have something valuable to share, you’ll see it here. And while it may be natural for us to draw from past work experience, this blog is not about Convio as a company but rather the people, ideas and technology that are fueling the industry we serve. If you see us veering off that path or becoming too Convio-centric, send a note or post a comment to let us know. You have my word that we’ll listen to what you have to say.

I hope that each person who reads this blog will find something beneficial in the editorials, news and multimedia content we produce.  We also want to read your comments, get your suggestions and do our best to answer your questions – or find someone to answer them.  I encourage you to reach out and give us feedback from time to time on what we’re doing well and what we can improve on.

 -Gene, CEO