June 2009 - Posts
I recently had the opportunity to participate in the culmination of a superbly executed fundraising campaign. What made it superb was that our client (the Communities Foundation of Texas - CFT) was able to raise over $4m for 353 Dallas based nonprofits using Donor Bridge. How was it done you ask? Well to put it simply, they made a plan, committed to it and then executed passionately!
CFT's plan included three main elements; selecting the technology, empowering their staff and developing a marketing plan. For this blog, I will only focus on the latter; the marketing plan. CFT called a meeting and literally wrote down every individual who could help them get their message across; donors, volunteers, partners, companies, media, etc. CFT then grouped them into different categories to determine what role each of these individuals would play in their campaign. Then CFT prioritized that list to know whom to contact first. For instance, CFT knew that they would not be able to mobilize the Dallas community without the support of the nonprofits. So CFT called focus groups of key nonprofits to get the word out and their buy-in. CFT then partnered with the Center for Nonprofit Management whom nonprofits already trusted and virally it flowed. Of course, there were many follow-up with the nonprofits and their partners to ensure their message was consistent and being told.
So you ask, what does this mean for me? Well having visited many of your websites, I noticed that many of you are conducting fundraisers. For success, you will need a plan to reach your fundraising goals. To that end, can you make a list of every donor, supporter, volunteer, friend, family member, co-worker, fellow student, etc whom you could ask for help with your fundraiser? Do you know what role they will play for you? Will some make donation asks? While others actually run the event? How will you notify them you need help? Of course, I must plug EmailNow. How will you will follow-up with them? For those that can't give time can they give money and vice versa? How can you make it personal for them? My wife is on our local PTA and always brings one of my children to her meetings which now has my oldest child very interested in volunteering.
The net result is simple. A one page plan of the activities you are going to execute to achieve your fundraising success is worth its weight in gold. Better yet, it will likely only take you 15 - 30 minutes to develop this one page plan that you will refer to often, hand-out to newly recruited volunteers, iterate until your goals are met and use as baseline for your next fundraiser.
As always, if you have an product suggestions or simply want to share a great story about online fundraising please do not hesitate to email me at kirk.sadler@blackbaud.com.
Happy Fundraising!
I always liked that commercial from Wrigley's on Doublemint gum, "double your pleasure, double your fun". Well June 2009 is just that type of month for users of BlackbaudNow. For the entire month all your donations will be tallied and 21 organizations will have their June donations matched up to $2,500. That's right; we have entered the home stretch of the BlackbaudNow Sweepstakes.
So pull out all the stops and take advantage of this rare opportunity. Translation, if you have not told your supporters about your website now is the time. By the way, EmailNow is a great way to do that because each email sent from BlackbaudNow will have a journal record on the donors history so that you know the last time you reached to that person. Even if you have told your supporters, tell them again, as I bet they did not know about the matching contest.
As always, if you have an product suggestions or simply want to share a great story about online fundraising please do not hesitate to email me at kirk.sadler@blackbaud.com
Happy Fundraising!
I am back again. I just finished reading an article at Guidestar titled Do-It-Yourself Fundraising: How to Get Money for Your Nonprofit. This article is filled with lots of sage advice, but my favorite is "you have to ask". The number one reason people don't give money to your cause is that they were not asked. This always reminds me of one of my absolute favorite college professors at Auburn University (War Eagle for those of who follow SEC football). He always said to me and anyone else who would listen, "there is no such thing as a stupid question other than the ones that do not get asked".
I have thought of that statement many times since graduating 17 years ago (yes I am 40) and have tried to use it wisely. Your supporters and prospective ones would love to give to you, but often do not know there is a need unless you ask them directly. Yes, they visited your website. Yes, they came to your weekend fundraiser. Yes, they read your newsletter. However, if you do not ask them they may or may not give. Why not increase your odds? Studies have shown that simply asking increases the chances of magic happening; turning visitors to donors!
Now just take a minute and think of your next opportunity this week (heck, why not today) to ask a donor to give again or someone you just met online or face to face how to become a donor. When you ask, please be sure to include "what's in it for them". For example, please tell them that their $10 gift will pay for food for two puppies for a week or that their $25 gift will cover the costs of five immunizations for an elderly person. Whatever the reason, be specific. Not only does this help the donor make a connection with your cause, but it helps them realize you have thought this through.
Happy Fundraising!
Welcome to the first blog post for a new blog from Blackbaud called "The Basics". My name is Kirk Sadler, and I am the Product Line Manager at Blackbaud responsible for BlackbaudNow. I choose the title "The Basics" because it just felt right in our current economy. When the economy is doing well we sometimes forgot what really is working as it seems that everything we do brings in more money; face to face, phone calls, emails, direct mail, etc. Each method has positives and negatives, but we rarely think about them much when times are good. However, right now, when ever dollar of expense and revenue matters we dig a little deeper to understand what can I do right now to maximize my revenue and minimize my cost and energy expended. It is for those reasons, that we are delighted to offer BlackbaudNow to small, growing or grass roots nonprofits. We know your time is precious and the more you can spend on your cause the better off our society will be.
To that end, with BlackbaudNow you can be up and running in minutes with your own website, have the ability to collect online donations and steward / cultivate those donors with email for the next ask. We launched the new service on March 30th with PayPal and in just over 60 days we already have over 325 clients using BlackbaudNow. I am going to focus in on one recent client who has had extreme success raising money with BlackbaudNow and Twitter. For those of you who are not aware of Twitter it is service to allow you to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
In fact, Blackbaud's very own Chad Norman publisher of Webby Things got so jazzed up after the last The Nonprofit Technology Conference that he decided take matters into his own hands and raise money to Help Give Back to the NTEN Staff with BlackbaudNow. What's truly amazing is in JUST six days he raised $730 with only one approach, Twitter. Now if you gaze into my crystal ball and imagine 30, 60, 90 days into the future NTEN can begin cultivating these supporters using EmailNow for future interaction or financial support simply because each donor is stored for later usage. What's even more amazing, is that this did not cost Chad anything. Each service was there at his fingertips to leverage for NTEN. He knew the fastest way to reach everyone was digitally.
That said, I want to hear from you in terms of your creative ideas on how to fundraise online. So please let me know your thoughts by just clicking on kirk.sadler@blackbaud.com and shooting me an email.
Happy Fundaising!