What We’re Reading, Week of 7/27

From Frogloop…
Taking Advantage of Wikipedia
Millions of people look to www.wikipedia.org as a starting point when they are searching for information about specific topics. Allyson Kapin of Frogloop encourages nonprofits to bear this in mind, and to create or update their organizations’ Wikipedia entries. She writes that Wikipedia can be a powerful promotional and educational outlet. As Wikipedia becomes ever more fixed in the internet culture, nonprofits should be aware of its potential uses.

From the Nonprofit Communications Blog…
The First 100 Hours: Turning Media Spikes Into Fundraising Leads
Kivi Leroux Miller’s post discusses the importance of turning media coverage into fundraising leads. According to Kivi, media coverage of an organization will lead to a window of roughly 100 hours of increased traffic and search engine hits. This time frame represents an opportunity to raise funds and increase interest. Kivi recommends using customized search ads, a strong landing page devoted to the issue that brought media attention in the first place, and social media. It is important for nonprofits to strike while the iron is hot, and media attention represents a prime opportunity to generate awareness and bring in revenue.

From AFP: Nonprofit Technology Blog…
Twittering for a cause: Web 2.0 and its philanthropic impact
Linking to a post from The Daily Tell, the AFP Blog discusses the impact that Web 2.0 has had on philanthropy. In particular, the post discusses how Twitter has become a fundraising avenue. Through campaigns such as “Tweetsgiving” and “tweet4good”, Twitter users have proven that they are generous to charitable causes. As the use of social media for charitable causes spreads, nonprofits that are not currently taking advantage of social media ought to find ways to get into the game soon.

What we’re reading, week of 3/23

From Network for Good…
Five Things We’re Forgetting When We Take Our Fundraising Online
Rebecca Ruby Higman explores some of the principles we may lose sight of when taking campaigns online. Incidentally, these are the same principles that govern good fundraising, no matter what the medium.

From The Fundraising Coach…
Free podcast: Fundraising in a Recession
We give a hearty endorsement to Marc Pitman’s podcast, examining everyone’s favorite topic in 2009 (and 2010? and 2011? Say it isn’t so!).

From Frogloop…
GuideStar Study Says Nonprofits Need to be Transparent
A comprehensive study reveals the state of transparency in the nonprofit sector, and the effect this has on potential donors. In addition, Guidestar provides steps organizations can take to become more transparent immediately.

What we’re reading, week of 3/16

From A Small Change…
Recession? What Recession?
Jason Dick reminds and even urges non-profits not to discuss the recession. The recession and the poor economy are all over the news, and donors don’t need to be reminded of it. Instead, focus on a message of hope and change.

From Tactical Philanthropy…
2008 Red Kettle Income Fact Sheet
The Salvation Army’s annual Red Kettle fundraising campaign showed a 10% increase in giving in 2008 over 2007. An important point to make is that the campaign only runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Click here for the Red Kettle income fact sheet.

From Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog
How to get your supporters to listen in 4 steps
Katya provides non-profits with four helpful steps on how to get donors to listen. Our favorite is number three—“show, don’t tell”. This makes the message more personable.

What we’re reading, week of 3/9

From the Nonprofit Consultant Blog…
A Plan to Survive
Ken Goldstein writes about the defining characteristics of nonprofits that will survive a recession – “diversified funding, good management, and “learning cultures”" seem to be common among organizations with a more hopeful outlook.

From The Nonprofit Times…
Remaining Optimistic About the Economy
The NPT urges nonprofits not to respond to a challenging economy with panic and distress, and asks readers to share their advice for maintaining focus and optimism during a recession.

From Non-Profit Tech Blog…
Republicans Issue Terrible RFP for Their Web Site
The dialogue continues on website design! Allan Benamer does a point-by-point analysis of how not to issue an RFP for website development, using the GOP as a case study.

What we’re reading, week of 3/2

From NTEN Connect…
Nonprofits and Technology: An Interview with NTEN’s Holly Ross in the Artez Digital Fundraising Podcast Series
NTEN highlights a podcast featuring Holly Ross and Artez’s Philip King – two of iOn’s most oft-quoted authorities.

From Step By Step Fundraising…
Roundup: The Economy’s Impact on Nonprofits & What to Do About It
Sandra Sims continues cataloguing reflections from around the blogosphere on how the economy will affect nonprofits – this installment includes excerpts from the Denver Foundation, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Don Griesmann, the National Council of Nonprofits, Katya Andresen, onPhilanthropy and A Small Change. A great compendium!

From Frogloop…
10 Best Web Content Practices
A great tie-in to our recent post on the importance of good website strategy and design, Allyson Kapin offers her own ten best practices in this area.

“Sound Off” in Fundraising Success

An open question to our readers, via Fundraising Success…

How has the economic downturn affected your fundraising, in terms of both strategies and results?

To send responses/comments, e-mail: mbattistelli@napco.com. Responses should not exceed 100 words. Your ideas, insights and opinions could be published in an upcoming issue of FundRaising Success magazine.

We’re curious, too, particularly on the “strategies” part. Are you changing the tone of your appeals, or implementing a much larger-scale organizational change that affects fundraising? How are donors responding? Has there been any internal controversy about how best to address the economic climate? Any additional insights are encouraged in the comments section.

What we’re reading, week of 1/5

From Philanthropy.com…
Caroline Preston writes about How Small Foundations Can Protect Themselves From a Madoff-Style Scandal. Jack Siegel, author of Charity Governance, provides a list of low-cost steps foundations can take to avoid losing money with an unscrupulous investor.

From around the blogosphere…
2009: New Year, New Strategies… really? Maybe a few. Here are three different perspectives we thought were new since we last wrote about this topic.

Step by Step Fundraising provides useful and intuitive tips for successful fundraising campaigns and events. Additional links are posted for further information.

Beth’s Blog’s provides 52 tips for non-profits (that’s a lot Beth). What’s new? An important fact Beth points out is that organizations have to tweak their strategies and take in to consideration the current economic crisis.

NPTimes talks about how organizations need to reassure their donors that they are donating to a worthy cause – transparency and communications. Advice is given on how to do handle wary donors and make sure they continue to find value in your organization.

What we’re reading, week of 12/15

From Idealware…
Raising Money in a Down Economy
Eric Leland expresses some skepticism about vendors encouraging organizations to invest in more software for fundraising in a down economy. “
I would argue that a thoughtful evaluation of existing systems can often yield substantial bang for the buck, while leaping into new systems is fraught with peril.”

From Beth’s Blog…
Social Media Gurus Offer Their Predictions for 2009: A Few That Might Resonate With Nonprofits
Beth Kanter recaps a near-exhaustive list of 2009 predictions from social media experts around the web. A great weekend read – includes posts from 16 different gurus.

From Tactical Philanthropy…
The One Thing You Need to Know Before You Donate to Charity
On the subject of measuring nonprofit effectiveness, Sean Stannard-Stockton offers some great insights on the two questions donors need to answer before giving money to a charity: Before donating to any charity you should be able to answer two simple questions 1) “What is this nonprofit’s strategy for affecting the cause they are working on?” and 2) “How is this nonprofit different from other nonprofits working on the same cause?” It might seem like I’m setting the bar really low with these questions. But I believe that if most people asked themselves these two questions, the nonprofit sector would be radically transformed. We agree!

What we’re reading, week of 12/1

From Non-Profit Tech Blog…
Are you a “nonprofit” or a “charity”?
Allen Benamer examines the frequency of the search terms “nonprofit” and “charity” cross-referenced with the dates of seasonal giving peaks and world disasters. The key learning? The news media talks about “nonprofits,” donors looking for a cause talk about “charities.”

From The Fundraising Coach…
Tips for Fundraising in a Recession
Marc Pitman offers a detailed list of tips (some not so obvious) for fundraising during a recession – particularly important, we think, are the tips he gives for interacting with existing donors: stay upbeat but admit that times are tough, be flexible, and don’t abuse donors with panicked appeals.

From around the blogosphere…
The discussion of Twitter for Fundraising continues! Here are three different perspectives that have been published since we last wrote about this idea.

Beth’s Blog gives some down-and-dirty technical advice on how to actually turn tweets into donations:
If your organization tweets it, will they donate?

Idealware talks about the real power of Twitter for groups:
Why We Tweet

And the NTEN Blog offers some perspective on the whole issue:
Twitter Isn’t the Point

What we’re reading, week of 10/20

From Give & Take…
Economy Forces Social-Justice Group to Shut Down
One of the first real nonprofit casualties of the economic crisis, San Francisco-based Changemakers has been forced to close. In the comments, readers discuss what this might mean for the future of social justice philanthropy.

From onLine…
How Twitter is Driving Action and Growing Up. 140 Characters at a Time
Avi Kaplan discusses the maturation of Twitter as a social action platform. We’re interested in hearing about how readers have made Twitter work for their organizations… any stories to share?

From Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog…
Carnival late edition: more graph fun
Katya Andresen adds to the carnival of nonprofit consultants’ “graph fun” challenge, with an all-too-familiar graph from Jeff Brooks illustrating the hindrances of branding in fundraising.