Don't text and drive, but please use it to fundraise!

April 22, 2014 erik Fundraising, technology

Text messaging for solicitation (or stewardship) of donors

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
For those of you who are new to the DonorDreams blog, I’m going chapter by chapter through Lon Safko’s book, The Social Media Bible and applying his thoughts to the non-profit sector in a blog on Monday mornings. Of course, it is Tuesday morning (because Erik just returned from his five month engagement in Texas & New Mexico and he got confused).
Last week, we explored marketing yourself through SEM — Search Engine Marketing — and this week we will explore maximizing your message through using mobile.
Do you remember back in January 2010 when The American Red Cross received an overwhelming response with text message donations after the Haiti earthquake? Well, “overwhelming” equaled $41m! The Red Cross received 4.1 million messages valued at ten dollars each, 95% of which were from first-time donors.
Text Message Donations
Simply put, you advertise the fundraising phone number to potential donors. The donors send a text message, and 60 to 90 days later you receive the donation. Seems simple right?
There are some common frustrations that surround that simple equation, which are important to explore. Many non-profits have and are running similar campaigns as The Red Cross, but there are some large hurdles including the cost of processing.
Mobile Site Donations
As we have discussed through our journey in this blog, ensuring that your website is mobile friendly is critical. It also can provide the opportunity to raise funds. A downfall of text message donations is that there is a limit of $10. This, of course, can leave money on the table for your non-profit.
You can utilize similar methods as text message donations, but direct people to your website’s Donate Now button.
Text Message Cultivation
Beyond the usage of text messaging for the end result of raising money, you can utilize it to build your relationship with your donors to position them for larger solicitations in mind.
Send your donor a few quick messages every month (or even once a month) focused on how their contribution is making a difference. Using text messaging in this manner can keep your donors excited and engaged with your mission.
In a year-end campaign for the Humane Society, donors who periodically received stewardship messages via text contributed online with an increased response rate of 77%.
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get texting!
I am very interested to hear your experiences (both good and bad) with utilizing text messaging for donations or engagement for your agency. Additionally . . . have you used text messaging to donate to an organization? Please share what you liked and disliked in the comment box below.

Can we please stop talking about how bad the economy is?

March 4, 2014 erik Fundraising

That is it . . . I am fed up and can’t stop myself from saying something that has been on my mind for a little while now. Can non-profit organizations please stop running around and telling anyone who will listen that the economy is bad and the recession is hurting their agency?
I hear my non-profit friends (both staff and board volunteers) bemoaning how bad it is and how they’ve been impacted. I know that I’ve heard it at least once a month going back to the 2008 stock market meltdown, which by the way was FIVE YEARS ago.
I totally understand why people were talking about this 12 to 24 months removed from the epicenter, but as I just pointed out more than half-of-a-decade has passed since that time.
The fact of the matter is the recession officially ended in June 2009, according to Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Don’t believe me? Just go ask Google.
In fact, the Blackbaud Index just arrived in my email inbox, and they are estimating that charitable giving rose 4.9% in 2013. Additionally, online giving increased by approximately by 13.5%.
When I see numbers like these, it always stirs my emotions when juxtaposed against comments such as:

“The economy is bad and donors just aren’t giving.“
“We can’t ask people for money while the economy is still doing so poorly.“
“Our agency hasn’t recovered from the economic downturn.“
“Our board members are afraid to ask their friends for charitable contributions as long as the economy is doing so poorly.“

Believe it or not, I heard some variation of each of these comments just this last weekend!
At first, I found myself shaking my head and asking the obvious question, “WHY?” However, I quickly stopped that when I realized that I know the reasons why. Here is what I think drives those comments:

Fear is irrational and people believe what they believe in spite of facts.
Some parts of the country are taking more time to emerge from recession.
Some non-profit agencies never adjusted their revenue model and resource development plan to accommodate for what economists are calling “The New Normal“.
Some non-profit professionals are always looking for excuses to justify poor fundraising performance.
Some misguided fundraising professionals and volunteers think pleading poverty and pointing at the economy makes for a good “case for support” (which really works the opposite way on how donors perceive your case).

Regardless of whether or not you believe these reasons, the reality is that we need to shake ourselves out of this mindset. Our clients deserve better and whining has never been shown to solve problems.
So, what should you do to combat this mindset? I suggest the following:

Involve your volunteers in developing a new resource development plan and answering this simple question: “If how we raised money before the recession doesn’t work anymore, then what should we do to secure the resources we need to fund our mission today?“
Involve your volunteers in developing a new case for support document and build consensus to stop talking to donors about the economy.
Be the change you want to see in the world and stop talking about the economy.
Take your volunteers by the hand and go with them on cultivation and stewardship visits with prospects and donors.
Engage in benchmarking activities and compare your agency’s fundraising performance to other non-profit organizations (e.g. check out Blackbaud’s performance comparison tool by clicking here).

What are you doing to combat this insidious, self-defeating mindset that is still pervasive in many non-profit boardrooms? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can learn from each other.
On a side note, before you take me to task with comments about my insensitivity, please know that I know there are people out there who are still hurting. I have never said there weren’t. In fact, I know some of those people, and I am sure you do, too. However, the reality is that non-profits cannot wait until there is no more unemployment. Our agencies cannot wait until economic indicators are back to the ridiculous 1990s levels. Those who wait for that to occur won’t be in business for much longer. Let’s rediscover that often-celebrated “American spirit” of picking ourselves off the ground and doing the hard work to get our agencies moving again.
There! I’ve said it . . . now please feel free to excoriate me. 🙂
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Dear Non-Profit President / CEO / Executive Director,

February 18, 2014 erik Fundraising, Planning

My online friend, Marc Pitman is hosting this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival and asks his fellow non-profit bloggers to write an open letter to executive directors in honor of President’s Day. For those of you who don’t know of Marc, he is well-known to friends and business associates as “The Fundraising Coach“. As the coach describes in his call for submissions post, he runs into CEOs who think hiring a development director gets them out of their fundraising responsibilities.
I have run into the same situation many times, and this open letter is my President’s Day gift to those executive directors.

Dear Non-Profit President / CEO / Executive Director:
Congratulations on making an important investment in your agency’s resource development program. Hiring the right fundraising professional should help take you to bigger and better things. You’re embarking on what is surely a fun and exciting organizational journey. Enjoy it!
However, the road ahead is full of potholes and obstacles.
First, please know that you can never abdicate your role as the agency’s “Chief Development Officer“. Sure, you’ve just hired someone to take on that role, but Harry Truman said it best when he said “The buck stops here.” Your fundraising role may look different now, but you will likely still be involved in some capacity with:

Cultivating prospects & stewarding donors

Soliciting donors

Supporting fundraising volunteers

Your focus may shift from more annual fund activities involving pledge drives and special events and move more towards major gifts and cultivating long-term donor relationships.
What is most obvious is that you’re role as “fundraising visionary” is more important now than ever before.
Why? Simply because there are more chef in the kitchen.
As you open your executive director toolbox, you will find many different tools that you need to become proficient at using, including:

written resource development plan

fundraising dashboards and scorecards

donor database (or CRM)

staff and volunteer job descriptions

However, one of the most powerful tools that you need to master is the annual performance plan for your new employee — the development director.
If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it too many times, where an executive director fails to provide the newly hired fundraising professional with a written performance plan. Instead, they simply say: “Go raise some money. Chop-Chop!”
Please don’t be one of those Non-Profit Presidents. You are better than that. Besides, not providing your new employee with a written annual performance plan is akin to setting them up for failure. How? Why? Because they don’t know what success looks like at the end of the year. They aren’t mind readers and don’t know what you’ll be grading them on other than raw dollars and cents.
For those of you who are new to annual performance plans, here are a few tips:

Make sure each objective is measurable

Make it clear what it will take for the employee to go from a “meets expectation” to “exceeds expectation” for each objective

Link the performance plan back to the agency’s written resource development plan or strategic plan

Ask for feedback and input from your new fundraising partner and make any necessary adjustments

Finally, once you’ve cemented a performance plan in place, sit down with the new development director and engage in a clear discussion around what your new role could and should be with regard to resource development and fundraising.
Well, I hope your President’s Day was awesome and best of luck on your fundraising journey.
As always, I raise my glass to you and say, “Here’s to your health!“

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Your agency can use Twitter to engage donors and supporters

February 3, 2014 erik Fundraising, technology

Tweet this!

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
I think the morning after the “big game” is a great time to unwrap the impact of utilizing Twitter. It was hard to watch the game without seeing a ton of hashtags encouraging viewers to follow the excitement or learn more about a company or product by following it on Twitter. Lon Safko, author of The Social Media writes about “microblogging” in chapter 13, which begs the question: “What is microblogging and what does it have to do with Twitter?”
Simply stated, microblogging can be described as the act of sending a text message or sharing videos, photos, or audio. It allows you to make friends, give and receive advice, and most of all, get up to the minute news. Of course, the most familiar microblogging tool is Twitter, which is something your non-profit should be using.
There are many benefits to Twitter, but to maximize those benefits it is important to first cultivate a strong community of supporters, and even more importantly, remain relevant. Twitter is not meant to set and forget. You need to provide real-time updates (e.g. photos, videos and engaging questions are all great ways to attract attention).
Another way to utilize Twitter is as a fundraising tool. There are countless stories of successful fundraising through the power of Twitter. In my local community, Community Crisis Center, a domestic violence shelter raised over $150,000 in two weeks using Twitter and social media. This was unheard of in our community, but is possible with the right formula.
As I took a deeper dive into other organizations that have successfully raised funds utilizing Twitter, I stumbled on Twestival. Twestival describes themselves as, “The largest grassroots social media fundraising initiative in the world.”
How does Twestival work?
Twestival is a movement that uses social media for social good by connecting communities offline on a single day to highlight a great cause. All local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of the ticket sales and donations go directly to local non-profits who organizers identified as having an incredible impact.
What I loved about this group was that: 1) a volunteer had to register an organization . . . a non-profit could not register themselves and 2) you receive a mentor to help make your “event” a success. This is a great way to gather support for your organization, but you need to be careful. More likely than not, supporters will not be sustainable for the long term (e.g. donor turnover is very high among people who contribute to your twestival). However, it is possible these individuals might continue to follow you on Twitter or Facebook and become loyal investors if you work hard at engaging them.
If you plan on adding Twitter as one of your agency’s fundraising strategies, like any effort, it must be intentional, strategic and consistent. Maximize your efforts by highlighting volunteers, special events, and educating about your mission and how you are meeting your mission.
How have you used Twitter to engage donors or share your mission? Please share your experiences with raising money utilizing social media or specifically Twitter.

Is your non-profit ready for an increase in minimum wage?

January 30, 2014 erik Fundraising, Planning, volunteers

obama When adjusted for inflation, the current federal minimum wage is smaller than it was when President Reagan was the President of the United States. Democrats in Congress have been making the case to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for the past year. Ten states in 2013 raised their minimum wage laws, and President Obama is signing an executive order increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 for all government contracts.
Here is what the White House said in a statement it issued prior to the State of the Union:

“Hardworking Americans — including janitors and construction workers — working on new federal contracts will benefit from the Executive Order (EO). Some examples of the hardworking people who would benefit from an EO include military base workers who wash dishes, serve food and do laundry.”

Of course, all of this got me thinking about non-profits who take government money and sign those contracts. Are they included in this executive action?
After doing some research . . . I’m still not sure, but I believe the answer is “NO”.
However, there is a bigger question here . . . What should your agency be doing to get ready for a prospective increase?
Now some of you probably read this question and think, “Oh Erik … you’re such a worry wart. This is just pre-election season chatter. Nothing is going to happen. This is all posturing.”
While I know you are right, the facts are still the facts, and the trend arrow is pointing in the direction of $10.10/hour. I say this because we can look at state governments and use them as a barometer, and 10 states increased their minimum wage in 2013.
head in sand In my humble opinion, non-profit professionals have two choices:

You can put your head in the sand, cross your fingers and hope the minimum wage does go up (and what does that say about your feelings for your employees and clients???)
Or you can be proactive and start making plans today for what will likely happen at some point (if not next year then some time in the next few years)

As a planner, I like option two. It is like my mother always said, “It is better to be safe than sorry.”
So, what does planning and preparation look like? Here are just a few preliminary thoughts:

Start talking about what this looks like with your agency’s HR committee
Dust off you Salary & Compensation Plan (or revise those salary scales) and assess where your employees currently are and what a potential law change would change that picture
Start budgeting and funding small wage increases NOW because going from $8.00 or $9.00 to $10.10 is easier than going from $7.25 to $10.10
Engage your resource development committee in constructing a fundraising plan for 2015 focused on increasing your organization’s revenue

I believe focusing on revenue increases is the biggest thing you should be focused on right now. Too many non-profits cut-cut-cut after the economic recession hit in 2008. Of course, this means there is no more fat to cut and all future expense budget adjustments will be cuts to organization muscle and decreases in service.
It really boils down to one question in my opinion:

Don’t your clients deserve better than program cuts and staff layoffs?

Let’s get proactive and focused on the future again!
What is your agency doing to prepare for a possible minimum wage increase? Who are you engaging? What plans are you making? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and plans. We can all learn from each other.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Resolving to do things different in 2014 at your non-profit

January 29, 2014 erik Board development, Board governance, Fundraising, leadership, organizational development, Planning

5 Things Non Profits can Strengthen in 2014

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
2014 resolutions As I’m sure you aware by now, I like to reflect back on things that have occurred and create a plan to avoid their reoccurrence. As such, I’ve been thinking about things our field can do to be stronger.
1. Build Better Boards
You’ve seen me write it before and it’s still true, everything flows from the board. Weak boards hire weak leaders who manage weak agencies. Sometimes it goes the other way, weak boards hire strong leaders who do whatever they want because the board is asleep at the wheel. Neither contributes to effectively governed agencies.
Strong boards hire strong leaders who build strong agencies.
For more information on building strong boards, please see previous posts on board development.
2. Create Succession Plans
Agencies that have great leaders need to plan for that leader’s transition as much as agencies with weak leaders. In fact, and among other things, one of the signs of a great leader is the strength of the agency once they’re gone.
Whether your exec gets fired, wins the lottery and moves to Jamaica, or retires after decades of excellent service, your board will need a plan to hire a new leader.
The Anne E. Casey Foundation’s Building Leaderful Organizations and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Nonprofit Executive Succession Planning Toolkit, offer a comprehensive look at planning. Each may be much broader than you need, but both can help you figure out what you need.
3. Build Capacity
Most agencies and most leaders, even and especially the ones that are great, can continue to build their capacity. Whether you have experienced tremendous growth, have a new leader, have downsized and now want to rebuild or if you just want to increase your strength, capacity building is the way to go.
Some larger national organizations have proprietary capacity building tools. If you are a part of a national organization, ask if such a thing has been created. If it has, use it. If it hasn’t, suggest it is.
For those of you who are standing alone, The Marguerite Casey Foundation’s Organizational Capacity Assessment tool is the best and most comprehensive I have seen. “It is a self-assessment instrument that helps nonprofits identify capacity strengths and challenges and establish capacity building goals. It is primarily a diagnostic and learning tool” that was designed to help agencies serving low income communities. Even if your agency has nothing to do with that community, this tool can help your agency be stronger.
4. Consider Mergers
There are lots and lots of organizations out there, some doing very similar work with very similar values. If your agency is struggling, is strong or you have a leadership transition, it might be a good time for your board to consider merging with another organization. The decision may be no, but it is an option worth putting on the table.
Again, some larger national organizations have merger tools. If you are a part of a national organization, ask if such a thing has been created. If it has, use it. If it hasn’t, suggest it is.
For those of you who are standing alone, I encourage you to reach out to your local community foundation or local nonprofit resource center for assistance. Here are a few links for your consideration:
Bridgespan’s Nonprofit M&A: More Than a Tool for Tough Times
Wilder Research’s What do we know about nonprofit mergers
And from the Nonprofit Finance Fund, a report with the same title What do we know about nonprofit mergers.
The larger our field grows, the more we will compete for limited resources. Can we be stronger together?
5 Get Better at Communicating with Donors
I am consistently surprised by the way some non profits communicate with their donors, or don’t, as the case may be. Here are some questions for you to assess your donor communication practices:

Do donors receive a formal thank you note, on letterhead, that includes the amount of their gift within 48 hours of your receipt of their gift, regardless of the gift amount?
Does it include the appropriate IRS language?
Does someone call to say thank you to your largest donors?
Does your Exec or a member of your board call those donors periodically to update them on the agency’s activities?
Do you have a gift acceptance policy?
Do you have a development plan?

If the answers is no to any of these questions, that is a great place to ramp up your practices.
For more information on resource development, please see previous development posts and Donor Dreams, for which I also blog.
The non profits in my community and communities across the country and the world are moving the needle on the issues they exist to impact. With on-going assessment, the implementation of best practices and constantly striving to be better and do better we can continue to make our world better.
How do you think we can best strengthen our field? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Robbins on Pallotta on The Overhead Myth

January 22, 2014 erik Fundraising, organizational development

Dan Pallotta, Dreams, Overhead and Accounting

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog

Have you seen Dan Pallotta’s TED Talk entitled “The Way We Think About Charity is Dead Wrong?” It challenges us to question the way the public thinks about nonprofits and also the way we think of ourselves.
He says the right question is to ask “about a nonprofit’s dreams.” The wrong question is to ask about a charity’s overhead. Overhead is not the enemy.
Overhead including part of the CEO’s salary, the fundraising & support staff, the facility, utilities and the equipment in the administrative offices supports the provision of programming.
Organizations that have minimal overhead also have minimal capacity. Overhead is a part of growth, and challenging a non-profit’s ability to increase overhead comprises their ability to grow program services.
I’d also add that non-profits, like the rest of the world, get what they pay for.
While many nonprofit leaders are exceptional at getting goods and services pro-bono (read: free), it is hard to find excellent leaders to work for free. Some have the financial luxury to be able to do that – and that is wonderful – but most of us don’t. As such, I love Pallotta’s point about our society not wanting to pay a lot of money for people who are helping other people, but having no problem at all with people making a lot of money not helping people.
The other part of the overhead issue is this: It’s sometimes an accounting choice.
I used to have a Board member who said “There’s cash and there’s accounting.”
If you have a non-profit who books their CEO’s salary across the programs (based on a time study that reflects how much time they actually dedicate to programming) it will look like appreciably less overhead than the one who doesn’t. Even though the first CEO probably makes more than the second.
If you ask the question about overhead and don’t ask any follow up questions, you won’t get the right information. And any question that doesn’t get you the information you seek isn’t the right question.
Pallotta’s illustration of someone who really cares about hunger yet chooses against becoming a non-profit leader and ‘takes a huge salary working for a for-profit company and then gives $100,000 to a hunger charity, becomes a celebrated philanthropist and Board member of that charity supervising the person who became the CEO, while still making multiples of that CEO’s salary’ is brilliant!
He goes on to challenge us to “ask about the scale of their dreams; how they measure their progress toward those dreams and the resources they need to make those dreams come true.” Also brilliant!
I once heard someone say that to raise a million dollars you need to have million dollar dreams. The guardian angels who will fund your agency in full, no questions asked, are far and few between. As such, some questions for your consideration:

Do you have million dollar dreams?
Does your non-profit have a generous, or even reasonable, compensation package for the staff?
Can you communicate your organization’s impact?
Do you challenge the status quo?

For Board members and community leaders: Are your expectations for non-profit staff different than your expectations for your own staff?
Culture change is hard and so is changing the world. Let’s start asking the right questions, getting the right answers and allowing our non-profits to dream. Let’s fund the dreams that improve our communities!
As always, I welcome your experience and insight.

The case for developing your agency's Gift Acceptance Policies

January 15, 2014 erik Fundraising

With whom is your non-profit in bed?

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
bedfellows1 Politics — and non-profit fundraising — make strange bed fellows. Most non-profits look for donosr and sponsors. At some point, there will be a conflict between the mission of the non-profit and the reputation (earned or unfair) of the potential sponsor. Some donors and sponsors will be better for your mission than others. A Gift Acceptance Policy can help you determine what’s best for your organization.
When I used to run local Boys & Girls Clubs, the national organization — Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) — held a workshop encouraging board members and executive staff to talk through potential gift acceptance liabilities. The scenario they offered was this:

“A local restaurant, known for well endowed waitresses in skimpy uniforms, who’s owner is the friend of a Board member, wants to donate $10,000 and conduct a public media blitz connecting the two organizations.”

bedfellows4 Of course, my brain immediately went to the possibility of a billboard with two scantily clad waitresses in low cut very tight Boy & Girls Clubs tee-shirts. (Note: Boys & Girls Clubs, among many other amazing and life changing programs, have self esteem programs for young women as well as a similar program for boys teaching them what it means to be a man.)
BGCA offered the question “Do you accept the gift?”
The two Board members with whom I attended immediately said, “Yes!” My reply was “Over my dead body!”
bedfellows2 BGCA encourages its local Club leadership to talk about such things, and Clubs across the country are better for it. Since I opened my consulting firm, I have found that this to be the exception, not the rule.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation, in addition to the incredibly negative press it received in 2012 for its decision to defund and then re-fund Planned Parenthood, was also cited on NPR.org for its “2010 ‘Buckets for the Cure’ campaign with Kentucky Fried Chicken. Some studies have linked fatty foods to a higher risk of cancer.”
According to the documentary philanthropy.com, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) got in trouble with some of its supporters for accepting a large gift from Coca Cola. At the time, Coke was accused of sucking up (literally) the limited drinking water supply from the very poor in India to support a local bottling plant. Some WWF supporters claimed that Coke was only supporting the WWF to buy its way back into love.
Is there a similar PR problem in your non-profit’s future? Does your organization have a gift acceptance policy?
Polices, like plans, allow you to frame and respond to the question at hand. Do you know — and like — with whom your non-profit is in bed? Could you defend it publically? As Komen, the World Wildlife Fund and others have learned, the day might come when you have to.

2014 predictions for the non-profit sector

December 31, 2013 erik Board development, Fundraising, Planning

predictions3 It happened again yesterday. A non-profit friend of mine called and we talked for an hour about their revenue model and fundraising issues. Questions included:

We need to start doing more with private sector fundraising. Everyone at our agency agrees on this point. It is in the new strategic plan. But after lots of talking no one wants to do anything. What should we do? How do we move forward?
We are very dependent on government funding. How should we start diversifying our revenue streams?
Our revenue strategies that worked well prior to 2008 no longer work very well. We want to course correct, but the people sitting around our boardroom table were recruited with an old revenue model in mind. Can we ask these people to help us make the necessary changes? Or do we need to change the people sitting around the table? How quickly can all of this be done?

Ever since the economy changed in 2008, non-profits have been wrestling with these kind of questions. What economists and politicians are calling “The New Normal” has non-profit leaders scratching their heads and wondering what to do about it.
I’ve seen some non-profits pivot nicely, and I’ve seen many more struggle. This trend will continue into 2014!
Based on this prediction, I think the following trends are also likely to follow:

Non-profit boards and staff will continue re-examining and tweaking their revenue model. (Click here for more info on different types of non-profit revenue models)
Non-profit boards will continue to struggle with who should be sitting around their boardroom tables as they attempt to change their revenue models.
Non-profit staff will continue to struggle with developing and using volunteer engagement strategies and tools in an effort to move their agency FROM a pre-2008 revenue model TO a new 2014-and-beyond revamped fundraising plan.
There will be renewed interested by non-profit boards and staff to engage the services of fundraising professionals who can provide technical assistance around these questions.
The word “bankruptcy” will be used more and more by donors, stakeholders and the news media in 2014 to talk about non-profit organizations and municipalities (e.g. Detroit, etc) who weren’t successful in tweaking their revenue models.

Is your organization currently engaged in asking questions like the ones with which I started this post? Are there additional questions you’re asking in your boardroom? What do you think about these five predictions I’ve made? Am I full of bologna?
Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Why your non-profit agency should be blogging

December 30, 2013 erik Fundraising, technology

Non-profit blogging: What’s In It For Me?

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger

Last Monday, we explored chapter 5 of Lon Safko’s book “The Social Media Bible” and talked about how online forums might be helpful to your non-profit organization’s fundraising program. This week, we explore chapter 6 where Safko unpacks the history and power of blogs.

A little history

As we discovered last week, online forums or communities became public in the 1990’s. Using various online communities, people posted to bulletin board systems and forums. People started posting online diaries or journals that documented their personal activities to these sites, and they often included pictures and video. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, blogging began to move from personal diaries to include other topics.

If you are reading this- you can check “reading a blog” off your bucket list!

The very first guest blog that I posted on the DonorDreams platform addressed the key issue that all readers address every time they open an email, visit a website or visit a blog. Of course, it is the question of “What’s in it for me?” (aka WIIFM). What’s cool about today’s post is that we’re going to discuss WIIFM with regards to both reading a blog and writing a blog.

WIIFM? – Reading Blogs

We all know there is only so much time in the day, and while we work to fulfill our day-to-day job duties, it remains challenging to also fit in personal development and staying up-to-date on industry trends. Who has time for trainings and conferences?

There is an easier way!

I recommend hitting the web and taking a look at some blogs that speak to your profession.

Select a few that you can remain committed to reading. Subscribe to those blogs, and content will be delivered to your email inbox as frequently as the blogger publishes. Some bloggers write a monthly post, others do it weekly, and some (like our friend Erik Anderson at DonorDreams blog, try to post something every day).

My suggestion is to set aside about ten minutes into your schedule at the beginning of your day when you’re powering up your computer. Dedicate those 10 minutes to your professional development by reading a blog or two that you’ve subscribe to and speaks to your professional interests.

If you are not sure where to start you can ask colleagues about some of their favorites. Here is a short list of blogs that I suggest you check out:

For more suggestions, please check out the Blogroll section of the DonorDreams blog. If you have suggestions of other blogs to add to blogroll, please use the comment box to share your suggestion and Erik will add them to our online community. (Isn’t he always saying something like: “We can all learn from each other?”)

WIIFM?—Writing a Blog

This is the first time that I have ever blogged. I did one or two guest spots here on the DonorDreams blog platform, but this is the first ongoing guest spot that I have had.

The first several times that I sat down to write- I ended up:

stopping and doing the dishes
making a phone call to my mom
writing a little . . . erasing it
playing a game with my kids
finally pushing through to finish

Much like anything, with practice, it becomes less intimidating and each time I sharpened that skill a little more.

Any time you enhance communication with your donors or supporters, you continue to build trust. Depending on how you structure your blog contents, a blog can:

engage donors
keep them updated on news
align your organization with national trends or initiatives
demonstrate how your organization is working to meet needs and solve problems.

If your agency is striving to become a donor-centered organization, your blog content should be focused on:

appreciating and expressing gratitude to donors
showing donors that you are using their investments how you said you would during the solicitation visit
illustrating the impact that contributions are having on the lives of your clients and throughout the community

Blogging is a great way to show relevance within your industry. I believe that anytime you can differentiate your organization as an expert in a certain area, you build trust and accountability.

Are you thinking about starting a blog? If so, don’t just jump in and start blogging this afternoon. Ensure you are committed to the time it takes. Make sure your dedication to consistently blogging is a sustainable commitment. The worst thing to do is start with a bang and fizzle out.

So, now it’s your turn. I would love to hear more about your experience blogging. If you don’t blog, then please tell us the comment box to tell me about your favorite blogs.

Does your organization currently use blogging? If so, who is the target audience? Share your ideas for blogging for your organization. Do you think blogging is worth your investment of time?