What We’re Reading, Week of 10/26

From A Small Change…
Drowning in Agendas
A great post from Jason at A Small Change that we can all relate to. He discusses the need to balance the time that we spend meeting about a topic and actually acting on it.

From AFP Blog…
Churches connect with parishioners online
AFP posts this quick but interesting tidbit about how churches are vying for younger parishioners online.

From NTEN…
Measuring Organizational Influence In Social Media
A must-read article from NTEN about quantifying the time, effort, and resources your organization is putting into its social media program.

What We’re Reading, Week of 10/12

From Acronym…
What have your members taught you?
A great way to wind down week! This post from Acronym reminds us that we should not only look at what we can DO for association members, but what we can LEARN from them.

From AFP Blog…
New Video Series Helps Exempt Organizations Understand Redesigned Form 990 Requirements
AFP posted a link to a helpful video for exempt organizations that explains recent changes to the Form 990.

From NTEN…
Blog Action Day 2009 Climate Change: Technology in the Climate Movement
NTEN and 9,427 other blogs from 150 countries with 12,896,974 readers are smashing the debate  about what impact the online world has on offline action with these numbers and think about the over 12 million people around the world who are raising their consciousness about climate change. NTEN posts some highlights.

What We’re Reading, Week of 10/5

From TechSoup…
Happy Birthday, TechSoup New Zealand!
TechSoup celebrates the anniversary of their New Zealand partners and their rapid growth.

From Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog…
What Nonprofits Can Learn from Politico’s Success
Kivi takes an interesting look at the success of the Politico website and draws some interesting comparison.

From Acronym…
My Top 5 Things to Remember in 2010 as an Association Professional
Acronym takes a look to a new year and what it will take to be successful in 2010.

From A Small Change…
Eating Excellent Fundraising For Breakfast
Jason at A Small Change has some interesting and inspirational musings about the important of breakfast and successful fundraising.

What We’re Reading, Week of 9/28

From Beth’s Blog…
How LIVESTRONG Uses Social Media To Animate Its Community
Guest blogger Brooke McMillan contributes this insightful post to Beth’s Blog, taking a look at a few tips utilized by LIVESTRONG to ensure success in the use of social media.

From Acronym…
Purpose-driven membership
What is membership? This lengthy blog post at Acronym takes a look at this somewhat existential and lofty question with some interesting thoughts.

From A Small Change…
Results Oriented Fundraising
Jason at A small Change discusses a comment left by one of his readers to an earlier post about quantifying donations and support.

What We’re Reading, Week of 9/21

From A Small Change…
Musings on the Future of Fundraising
Jason at A Small Change writes about the changing landscape of fundraising and his predictions for the future.

From Beth’s Blog…
How to translate social listening into good twitter conversation that supports your objectives
Beth Kanter takes a look at how organization’s can better utilize social listening (the practice of using social networking sites to listen to their members and potential donors) and turn that into constructive communications via Twitter.

From Acronym…
How secure is that golden handcuff?
An interesting article about how organizations should approach at their “golden handcuff” (a program or product so important to a member that it effectively binds them to the organization).

From NTEN…
Online Donors: Why They Leave and How to Win Them Back
NTEN takes a look at an interesting problem and opportunity when it comes to online donors which they have dubbed “the young and the generous” (they tend to be under 40 and their gifts are around $100).

Twitter – fundraising’s magic bullet?

By Robin Fisk

You might be forgiven for thinking that Twitter is more hot air than substance.  Hailed as one of the key developments in recent times, confusion reigns: I’ve heard everything from “Twitter could eventually replace websites as we know them” to the kind of bewilderment shown by a grandparent on Christmas day when the grandchild asks them how their new computer game works.

It’s a fantastically direct communication channel. Whether you’re keeping in touch with the largely mundane lifestyle of celebrities or keeping tabs on friends, you do get it straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak.  But there is definitely a case of those who tweet, and the rest who just can’t see why on earth you’d waste your time doing it.

Fundraisers – caught between hoping it will just go away and feeling they ought to engage just in case it’s the future of fundraising – are just as confused.  So is Twitter more than just an online gathering of IT and media types, or can it make a real differece to fundraising?

Twitter’s fundraising poster-boy – ‘Twestival’ – ran in February 2009.  It took the form of parties (‘Tweet-ups’) in major cities across the planet, to which Tweeters were encouraged to attend and put some money in a bucket.  The target was USD $500,000, the charity was New York-based Carity: Water.

So, was it a success?  On a financial level you could say not:  projected income at time of writing is $250,000 (although other reports place actual income at half that) - it didn’t meet its target, but then no-one had run that kind of event before so maybe we can give some latitude on that one.  How about the donors – does Charity: Water get the chance to cultivate the those donor relationships for future support?  Not if it was cash-in-a-bucket fundraising that’s for sure.  But those donors may well have tweeted in Charity: Water’s favour, so that their followers would see the cause.  Awareness?  Certainly – I for one would not have been aware of this organisation’s work without the press coverage that Twestival received.

Let remind ourselves of some facts….

Donor relationships are key to long-term loyalty and repeat donations.  Thanking them for their gift, seeking their commitment, inviting them back to see the effect of their donation, asking them to ask their friends to become your donors too – this builds long-term relationships.  One-time cash-in-a-bucket gifts are fine if you just need some cash, but you might be denying yourself the opportunity of a lot more.

Twitter is just a channel.  It needs to be understood and used appropriately: it’s going to be part of your fundraising mix, not all of it.  If it’s iPhone toting media and IT types you’re after, then Twitter might be where you find them.  But sober reality is descending upon the Twitterati: lessons are being learned – the next Twestival is asking for attenders to register and pay up front and targets are more realistic.  Sound familiar?  Of course – it’s fundraising, subject to the laws of ROI like anything else!

What We’re Reading, Week of 9/14

From NTEN…
IT Alignment Is Mission Alignment
An interesting article discussing ways in which IT departments can “realign” themselves to better ensure that they are well placed and helping to achieve a myriad of goals across the company.

From Beth’s Blog…
Dear Causes: Please Share Your Cause Exit Survey Data With Nonprofits
Beth Kanter takes a look at Facebook causes and a surprising feature that should prove useful to organizations who do outreach through causes.

From Acronym…
Why should members join?
Acronym from ASAE poses the questions for readers to sound off on, “Why should members join?” See what people have to say.

From The Chronicle of Philanthropy…
Followers and Friends Not the Only Measure of Nonprofit Success Online
Are non-profits using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook successfully? This is the charge posed by marketer Seth Godin, though Peter Panepento (the author of the post) disagrees.

Interview with David Drinnon from Second Baptist Church

David Drinnon is an associate pastor and the Director of IT & Websites at Second Baptist Church. Their website, second.org, integrates many different technologies and social media is an important aspect of the content they offer on their website. I asked David some specific questions about his experience with social media and websites for a large, multi-site church body, and here is the interview for us all to learn from. Thanks David for taking the time to share your unique experiences!

What is the most common question you get from church staff about the value of social media for your organization’s goals? What’s the most common question you get from church members?

The most common question I get from our staff is, “What value does social media bring to our church?” It is a great question. Many people view social media as a time waster. After seeing posts like “off to a breakfast meeting” or “working for Jesus in my jammies this a.m.” (all real posts on Facebook as I write this), wouldn’t you conclude that you have better things to do? Nevertheless, it does have value and I believe skeptics fail to make a distinction between its common use and its potential use. People commonly use social media as intended by its creators…a tool for self-promotion. They all ask the same questions: “What are you doing?” (Twitter), “What’s on your mind?” (Facebook), “What are you working on now? (LinkedIn), and no one describes it better than You Tube, “Broadcast Yourself.” The Christian ethic demands a different use of these tools. I think Lee LeFever in his video Social Networking in Plain English rightly identifies the potential of these tools. He says that social media allows us to see connections that are hidden in the real world. As a church, this gives us significant insights into the relationships of our members and visitors and becomes a powerful tool for communicating prayer requests, encouragement, birthday wishes, invitations to attend church events, and most importantly evangelism opportunities. The big challenge before our church now, is know how best to use these tools to maximize their full potential.

The most common question I get from church members is, “How do I ensure that my child is not doing something they shouldn’t online?” Most parents are specifically referring to social media since that is the hub of activity for many young people. Thankfully, I am glad they are asking. Pornography is just one of several issues parents are concerned about, cyber-bullying and predators to name a few. To equip our parents, we have done several seminars on internet safety and parenting in the digital age. We also have a great counseling center staffed by licensed professionals who work with individuals and families facing relational or addictive problems.

You’ve done event blogging to gain a wider audience for the impact of your youth retreats and your blog entry showing the results with web statistics and a map of unique visitors is a powerful visual on the impact. What’s your favorite story that resulted from the event-based blog’s reach and impact?

Wow, that is a loaded question. So many great things resulted from the on-site coverage of our student Beach Retreats. I think my favorite story that resulted directly from our efforts with the blog was a comment shared by a parent during one of our live blogcasts. She wrote,

“I shared the Beach Retreat Blog with a nurse at work today, and she looked at it for at least 30 minutes, asking lots of questions. She is very far from Christ. It was so neat to share the Blog and pics with a coworker, and sense God’s Presence working.

This embodies everything we hoped to accomplish with the blog. The blog connected parents with their students. The event gave opportunities for parents to tell others about our church, and more importantly it gave the occasion for our parents to share with others the good news of Jesus Christ, the very mission of our church.

From reading your blog entry on Equip Them titled “Management & Leadership in a Multi-Site Church,” I learned that Second Baptist is a little different from some churches in that it is a multi-site church. How has social media and website technology helped you unify the church even with five campuses?

It is still too early to see any measurable impact that social media has had on the unity of our church. It wasn’t until earlier this year that we made a strategic move by redesigning our website to better address the multisite nature of our church. Our prior website emphasized our oneness rather than our multiplicity of locations and our site suffered as a result. The navigation and the amount of information made the website unwieldy and complex for our visitors. Our new website does a better job of balancing the two. It is one design across all locations with one home page, yet every location also has its own campus home page that are accessible from the unified home page This allows visitors to choose the location relevant to their needs. As we extend our web presence, we will continuously look for opportunities on how we can leverage the native features of the social media sites to balance our unity and diversity.

What We’re Reading, Week of 8/17

From AFP Blog…
Super Bowl of Conventions Under Way in Toronto
This post from AFP Blog talks about the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership’s annual meeting and exposition. Dubbed the “Super Bowl of conventions”.

From Acronym…
Living through short-term pain
A fantastic article looking at the speech made by Fareed Zakaria at the ASAE closing general session and one of his final points; that “we have got to learn to impose short-term pain for long-term gain.”

From Frogloop…
Online Video: Why I’m a Believer
Changing gears, this post from Frogloop is written by a video convert. Shirley Sexton discusses her initial hesitance at jumping on the video bandwagon and what changed her mind!

What We’re Reading, Week of 8/3 part 2

From AFP: Nonprofit Technology Blog…
Nonprofits use pilot site to post events, causes
Linking to an article from Democrat and Chronicle.com, the AFP blog calls attention to the use of pilot sites by nonprofits. According to the article, over 100 nonprofits are using the “Do Good” pilot site that connects readers with information about a variety of charitable causes. It allows users to post information about events, causes, and nonprofit jobs. Tools like “Do Good” can help drum up support and interest in nonprofit activities in an easy, cost-effective way.

From Beth’s Nonprofit Blog…
Crowded Roads Ahead for Charity 2.0: How to address scaling and cause fatigue?
As the use of the internet and social media continue to expand, it’s important to address the inevitable issue of media clutter. Beth’s Nonprofit Blog discusses the recent coverage given to nonprofit clutter, and offers some insights on how organizations can continue to raise funds and promote their causes in a crowded field.According to Beth, building a movement around a cause rather than a brand, and ensuring that social media initiatives are properly scaled, will allow nonprofits to succeed amidst competition.

From Frogloop…
Is Your Nonprofit Complying with State Charity Regulations?
This week, Allyson Kapinat Frogloop blogs about the regulations that accompany online nonprofit fundraising. If a nonprofit raises money on the internet, than it needs to ensure that it is in compliance with state laws. These regulations can be complicated: for example, as Allyson points out, a charity based in one state may have to register itself in other states if the residents there make donations. Nonprofits should be aware of these rules, and should stay up-to-date on compliance.