My Study Abroad, at Convio

Howdy, Connection Cafe readers!

Have you ever wondered who else works at Convio? Behind the mysterious software curtain? I mean... the people who actually engineer our products.  Or those helpful folks who you've only ever spoken to by phone and always wanted to meet?  Well, today is your lucky day.  As a staffer working out of our DC office, I decided to relocate to Texas for a month and spend some time working from Convio's Austin offices (eating breakfast tacos, getting to know my colleagues and such).  Along with our trusty marketing intern, Sara (Hi Sarah!), I put together a little video about two of Convio's behind the scenes superstars.

So pull up a chair, marvel at how good my hair looks, and get to know Convions Chris and Bonnie!

Integrated Marketing for Nonprofits

Convio and eleven other organizations recently joined forces to create the first-ever Integrated Marketing Advisory Board (IMAB) for the nonprofit sector. Organizations participating in IMAB with Convio are: Amergent; Avalon Consulting Group; Barton Cotton; CDR Fundraising Group; Donordigital; Grizzard Communications; hjc; Merkle; Russ Reid; SCA Direct; THD.  Now, you may look at that list and say, “Wow, don’t they all compete?” and the answer would be, “Yes, we do”.  But that’s the beauty of this group—we are leaving that at the door and really working together to try and advance what ALL of us feel is a critical factor for success for our nonprofit clients.  And we recognize that the sum of our knowledge is far more powerful than each of us as individual organizations.

As IMAB Chairman Michael Johnston of hjc says, “Integrated marketing is quickly emerging as an essential approach to constituent engagement for nonprofits. With the advent of social media and mobile technologies, more and more donors, volunteers and advocates are using multiple channels to interact with the nonprofits they support. It’s critical for nonprofits to understand those different channels, the relationships across those channels and to engage with their supporters across multiple channels.”

Convio’s recent survey, Integrated Multi-Channel Marketing, supports Michael’s statement. In the survey we found that organization size and integrated marketing sophistication do not correlate, and that leadership focus, the right metrics, processes and technology are essential to success.   

A main component of IMAB is our blog. There my fellow board members and I aim to foster discussion and dialogue across the sector, and provide insights into integrated marketing and outline the tools and channels to get the job done. At the end of the day, we want it to be the go-to resource on integrated marketing for the nonprofit sector.

My first IMAB blog post is the tale of two retailers: one that can’t remember that my husband and I have different last names and one that can. You guess which one my Visa bill is more loyal to. The lesson, as I state in my post, is: “a commitment to building an integrated marketing experience and really understanding your buyers or donors is the best investment you can make in long term marketing return and customer loyalty.”

Read more and start sharing your ideas about integrated marketing by visiting the IMAB blog.

Social Media 4 Nonprofits

This morning I have the good fortune to be presenting to a sold-out crowd at the Social Media for Nonprofits Conference in NYC. I’m excited – I think it will be the largest audience I’ve presented to and the company I’m in is nothing shy of spectacular.

While I know we’d all love to be hanging out in NYC together, unfortunately it’s just not feasible. As what I hope is the next best thing, I’m sharing the content from a few of my slides for today and a some notes on them.

There’s a frequent misconception about social marketing that if you say something, anything, you are being proactive. Not so my friends! Celebrities, athletes, mere mortals like you and I say stuff on social networks all the time but that doesn’t mean it’s truly proactive. Did we think about it for more than 10 seconds before writing it? Probably not. We’re probably just posting about how delicious that QuickFire on Top Chef looks.

To be really and truly proactive with you social marketing, you need goals, a plan and the tools to do it.

• Goals: Are you trying to increase awareness? Or are you trying to engage new donors? Knowing your end goal, one that supports your overall business plan, is the first step to strategic proactive marketing. Bonus tip: Have a SMART goal.
• Plan: This goes hand-in-hand with your goal. Consider your timeframe and other channels that include complementary content. Create a comprehensive, integrated plan that includes all your channels, milestones and desired results. Remember to plan far enough in advance that web pages, graphics, print materials, etc can actually be produced to support your initiative.
• Tools: Just like direct mail requires paper and postage, good social marketing has its own requirements. Google Analytics, custom Facebook landing pages, updated Twitter and YouTube backgrounds and a social media management tool can all contribute to your success and ability to measure that success.

For more social media goodness, follow #sm4np on Twitter today, check out Convio's social media resource page or explore our social media related Connection Cafe posts.

Wired for Philanthropy

I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember Steve Martin in the movie “The Jerk” but there is a really funny scene where he explodes into exuberant jubilation when he realizes his name has “made” the phone book—he dances around and says, “The new phone book is here, I’m somebody now!”. I kind of get that same feeling when we publish the most generous cities list every year. I wait impatiently like a kid on Christmas to see who’s coming out on top.

This year’s winner, Seattle, has a long tradition on our list, but never in the pole position. Ironically, as I was flying earlier this month there was a big article in the Airline magazine about the “philanthropy web” in Seattle—mostly rooted in , yes, you guessed it, former (and a few current) Microsoft employees. So what makes Seattle (and neighboring Bellevue at #9) our big winner?

Well, it isn’t more philanthropic in general. The Washington DC metro area far outpaces them in terms of overall philanthropy (online and otherwise). Salt Lake City, UT outpaces every other city in America with a whopping 68% of households that give.

So what is Seattle’s secret?

It’s one of the most wired cities in America.  And although it fell from its 2009 #1 Wired position to #3 in 2010, it still ranks #1 in two of three categories:

1. It has the highest percentage of homes that are accessing the internet via high speed broadband at 4%
2. It has the highest number of broadband service providers at 13 (apparently they like choice in their broadband providers in Seattle)

In the final category, highest number of wi-fi spots per capita, Seattle ranks 3rd at 7 per person. After losing its #1 ranking in 2009, I am sure they are throwing up new Starbucks locations like crazy.  In order to catch Atlanta in this ranking, they will need to get to 16 wi-fi hot spots per person.  That’s a lot of Starbucks.

While our ranking doesn’t exactly map to America’s Most Wired Cities, there is definitely correlation.  The Washington DC metro area makes both rankings with DC, Alexandria and Arlington on our list, as does the San Francisco Bay Area with Berkeley and San Francisco, also both on our list. These communities may not give more in total, but they definitely give more on line.  Perhaps it’s their “wired” nature?  I suspect these same places also pay more bills online and buy more goods and services over the internet, but I haven’t seen those statistics.

Can’t quite figure out how St. Louis, Missouri snuck in there, but I’ll have to ask Gene Austin, our CEO who hails from there.  I am sure he has a theory on that. 

#shamelessplug: Take This Fundraising Survey!

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

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

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

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

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