Social Media Reality Check

Re-posting from Care2.com's blog, frogloop:

The U.S. Population Does Not Spend Their Day Using Social Media

Guess how much of the U.S. population (comprised of 311,446,341 people) uses social
media these days? The stats may suprise you.

Twitter: 1.1 % of the U.S.
population is on Twitter. (source: April 2011 results from Experian Hitwise.)

Facebook: While Facebook says that they have 150M U.S. “active” users,
which is 48% of the U.S. population, only 50% of active users login any given
day. So 24% of the U.S. population logs into Facebook on any given day to check
or post updates. (source: Facebook)

LinkedIn: 0.37% of the U.S.
population is on LinkedIn. (source: April 2011 results from Experian Hitwise.)

YouTube: 19.94% of the U.S population is on YouTube. (source: April 2011
results from Experian Hitwise.)

MySpace: 1.19% of the U.S. population is
on MySpace. (source: April 2011 results from Experian Hitwise.)"

Holy moly. 1/4 of Americans check their facebook page EVERY DAY. That's actually pretty revolutionary when you think about it, especially when you consider how relatively new the site is in the grand scheme of things.

Still, 75% of Americans don't check it every day. And 52% of the population aren't on it at all.

It all goes back to who you're trying to reach. If you are looking to highly educated, computer saavy individuals, it's probably still worth it log on and spread the word, but only as an augment to other strategies.

A Different Kind of Funding for a Different Kind of Film

A Different Kind of Funding for a Different Kind of Film

I have lots of admiration for creativity and entrepreneurship this filmmaker shows in crowdsourcing funding for his next film. He's literally funding it "frame by frame!"

Putting a face to a cause...

Thought this was the funniest fundraising idea I've ever heard...

Your moustache makes a good point

Keeping your Organization on the Road with a Dashboard

An important element of running a successful development program, and a successful organization, is to have effective management and reporting tools in place.

This article from BlueAvacado presents a nice model for reports to the board that help managers present information about the organization at the adequate level of detail, with coding that aids in comprehension. They call it a Dashboard and it looks like this:

Just like a traffic light, the green areas represent areas where things are running smoothly, yellow represents caution, and red represents danger. You can create one of these matrices for each major area of operations: Development, Finance, Human Resources, Programs, Compliance, Risk Management, Board Involvement, etc.

The key is to focus on measurable indicators of performance, rather than process oriented issues. Also, give appropriate levels of detail: not too much & not too little. Also, the benchmarks should be set at the time that goals are determined so management can quickly grasp which elements are working and which ones need more attention to support the the organization's needs and goals.

Check it out:

http://www.blueavocado.org/content/nonprofit-dashboard-and-signal-light-boards

Choosing the right email provider

Here's a helpful blog post from Heather Rast at Insights & Ingenuity about how to go about choosing the right bulk email provider when you are running a small or medium-sized shop. She also includes a list of helpful articles and resources for email marketing providers that should be very helpful for anyone looking to do email marketing for the first time.

Contact, Belief, Ability

A very helpful article by Kim Klein about identifying major donor prospects:

https://www.compasspoint.org/askgenie/details.php?id=53

In sum:

"You are looking for three things in each prospect:

• Evidence that the prospect is connected with someone in your organization,
  so that you can establish contact.
  
• Evidence that the person believes in your cause (or a similar cause), which
  includes evidence that the person gives money to similar organizations.
  
• Evidence that the person has the ability to make the size gift you
  want."

Advice on Planning a Charity Auction

I ran across this how-to on planning a charity auction on CharityNetUSA. It's a good intro to the nuts and bolts... http://charitynetusa.com/blog/?p=103

For my part, I think auctions can be a great source of revenue, but they require creativity, persistence, and a dedicated staff person or volunteer to do it "right."

Consider doing a themed auction- targeted to the audience you are trying to draw, or something that will bring home your mission. Be thoughtful while making solicitations for gifts. What can the donor get out of it? How does their product or service play into the theme of the event, or appeal to the audience?

Approach items it with the eye of a marketer. Can you group related donations to create a package that is more valuable than the sum of its parts? Package together theatre tickets with a limo ride and a dinner downtown and promote it as a killer date night! Can you provide an experience that the bidders could never put together for themselves? If you have access to important or famous people, see if you can get them to donate their time doing something fun or valuable with the winning bidder. Get a famous golfer to donate a round of golf for the winner and two of their friends. Or get and influential business or civic leader to donate a business lunch and see how much people will pay to bend his or her ear! Your celebrity's time doesn't have a fair market value, so bidders can deduct the cost of their bid above whatever expenses are involved, making it a more attractive way to give.

And just like all fundraising, in-person solicitations work better than more passive forms of asks. Many folks throw together a silent auction to augment their galas, and just stick the auction items in a corner for people to bid on in a rather passive manner. This doesn't give donors the visibility they could get for their donation, and really isn't optimizing the value of what is donated. So consider getting a professional auctioneer to do a live auction. It will put the fundraising activity front and center and since it's a public event, a good auctioneer can play on the peer pressure and competition to raise the bids.