Philanthropy Gathering in Music City USA
I had the distinct pleasure of presenting to the combined gathering three different philanthropy organizations in Nashville, TN this week. The groups were AFP Nashville, the Partnership for Philanthropy Planning of Nashville and the CNM CEO Network.
What a fantastic idea of joining the groups together for NPO thought leadership in the community. The venue was even special with the use of a superb meeting facility at the Inman Center at Belmont University.
I have always found that anytime you bring together 70-80 top notch development professionals, and allow them to network, magical ideas start sprouting up. Such was the case here in Nashville with the conversations buzzing around me. My main task was to take my time to sprinkle a few more seeds about and see what germinated.
My two main topics to discuss with speeches to such development professionals are ethics and the use of technology in our sector. In Nashville I focused on the latter.
In particular, my presentation centered around the revolution we are in the midst of regarding communications with prospects, members and donors. I focused on three areas that have changed drastically in the last 24 months. There were:
- The NPO Web Site
- The Use of Email
- The Use of Social Media
Here is a slide to provide a bit of an overview of each. First, the NPO Web Site...
Moving into the new realm of being open and willing to share the ability to add content on the web site is scary for many NPO's. (Especially those with no one younger than 60 on the board of directors...) By the way, the goal I am referring to in the slide is to obtain permission to communicate on a regular basis! This is certainly needed for email these days and can also equate for "friending" in Facebook or "following" in Twitter.
Secondly, we explored the use of email...
You will notice a circular communications cycle. Each "trip" around builds a stronger relationship. It also allows you to garner more details in the database. I emphasized, and a few stand up testimonials from the audience verified, such details in the database allow proper segmentation and personalization of the email. You can be every bit as sophisticated with email as you can with direct mail. You can even report back who opened and read the email, which would be a dream come true for those relying strongly on the direct mail world!
Lastly, we zeroed in on the newest communications tool that is growing rapidly by the day. Of course I am referring to social media...
The slides are referring to my last story I shared about charity: water. They have embraced the social media method of communications in a huge way. Here is a video with the full story. Notice how many folks they are communicating with daily! Check them out on Twitter.
In case you are wondering how to move into this exciting new world, I have two suggestions to jump start your quest.
- Sign up for Beth Kantor's blog, her ideas are super.
- 2. See if your NPO's name has already been used on the most popular social media sites via this handy tool.
I wish all of you reading this post only the greatest of success in harnessing these wonderful new communication tools. Perhaps you will be like some of our eTapestry customers who are able via such tools to DOUBLE their Donor database each year!
Referring back to my last blog post "We’ve Come a Long Way Baby" I mentioned my first car was a 1967 Camaro. Ironically, the founder of Papa John's Pizza, John Schnatter was also pretty fond of his vintage Camaro. He recently found and repurchased his early car he obviously loved. Sometimes two different minds do think alike!
I think his Camaro would take my old robin egg blue six cylinder one at the nearest drag strip, but I did purchase mine for a mere $1,600 in hard earned $3.50 per hour cash, which is a bit less than John just shelled out...