Why it’s Time for Nonprofits to Get Social

By Monish Ahuja

The American Association of Fundraising Council recently stated that 60 percent of public charities saw a decrease in donations, with arts, culture and humanities organizations hit the hardest. The findings aren’t surprising, as more than 80 percent of philanthropic dollars are contributed by individuals, many of whom have been financially impacted by the economic recession. When this affect is coupled with a reduction of government funding, nonprofit organizations have been left to find inexpensive and innovative ways to reach new donors to not only continue serving their beneficiaries, but also keep their doors open.

One of the most inexpensive and effective ways for nonprofits to reach new supporters is to utilize social media. Social media’s use and impact on society has been strongly felt over the last few years. Now, no matter where you go, a Facebook icon, Twitter handle or QR code isn’t far behind. So why is social media so important for nonprofit organizations?

• Numbers game – nonprofits looking to reach new supporters need not look further. Facebook recently announced it had exceeded 800 million users. Twitter boasted triple digit growth over the last two years, and Google+ has 50 million users three months after launching.
• Connect the fan base – social media not only allows nonprofits to connect with their supporters and fans, it also allows nonprofits’ supporters to connect with each other. A 2011 Mashable study showed that 59 percent of 30-49-year-old social media users, when asked what they looked for in philanthropic social media, responded that they wanted to interact with other donors.
• Reach individuals with disposable income – a recent report revealed that more than 66 percent of social media users averaged an annual salary of $50,000 to $75,000 – a range that is believed to be the benchmark of comfortable living and provides donors the confidence to give.
• Third party organizations are making it easy for donors – in addition to the direct outreach from nonprofits, third party organizations such as Cause Layouts™, a cause-based Facebook fundraising tool, are making it simple for donors to give back by simply logging on to these popular social networks. Cause Layouts allows users to customize the appearance of their Facebook profile, promote their favorite cause, and share a specific charity with other Facebook friends. For every original user download, Cause Layouts will donate $1 back to the selected charity.

It’s challenging to predict how the ever-evolving social media space will grow over the next 18 months. However, it’s imperative that nonprofit organizations leverage these spaces to reach new supporters, strengthen their fan base, garner donations and utilize third party programs that make it simple to give back.

Monish Ahuja is the president of Cause Layouts, a cause-based Facebook fundraising tool offering a free, turnkey solution for charities and nonprofits to increase donations through the power of social media. For every original download of a Cause Layout, the company donates $1 to the selected charity.

The Power of “LIKE” Marketing

What do you think? Do you agree?

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Source: Facebook: The Future of Marketing

2nd Chance for Pets wants to Help You!

Have you thought about what would happen to your pets should something happen to you? More than half a million animals end up in US shelters each year simply because their human passed away or became ill and had never made plans for the continued care of their pets.

2nd Chance 4 Pets (www.2ndchance4pets.org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, all-volunteer organization focuses on helping to make sure pet owners have planned for the possibility that their pets might outlive them.

The organization’s director, Amy Shever, will lead three free PetSmart Charities webinars Nov 7, 8 and 10. The webinar will outline what options are available to ensure “lifetime care” for pets and how you and your organization can help pet owners in your community plan for the possibility that their pets might outlive them.

To register for one of the live webinars go to: https://petsmartcharities.webex.com/mw0306ld/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=petsmartcharities

Caffeine, Pixels, and Pivots: 3 Tips for Starting a Nonprofit-Focused Business

This is a special guest post by my friend Dodd Caldwell from BellStrike.com

I don’t like to tell people what to do.  Situations and circumstances change and my “expert” advice doesn’t always fit.  But I’ve learned a lot recently about starting a nonprofit-centric business so I’ll just share a few things that mattered to Bellstrike (and may matter to you).

Coffee Meetings Matter – Caffeine isn’t the only element that makes coffee shop meetups so important.  It’s the education.  In the early days of Bellstrike’s development, I asked a lot of local nonprofits for a bit of their time to run my ideas by them.  I didn’t try to sell them on Bellstrike; I didn’t even have anything to sell.  I just told them what I was working on and asked them to pick it apart.  Most everyone was happy to oblige.  Getting feedback from potential customers and not just from friends was invaluable.  These short coffee meetings made Bellstrike what it is today and continue to shape us.

Impeccable Design Matters – Pixel-perfect design isn’t very prevalent around the nonprofit world.  That’s why it’s so important – great design can help any nonprofit-centric business standout even more than it would in other industries. Bellstrike received an initial rush of exposure and much of it was due to our design.  But design isn’t just aesthetics.  Design encompasses so much more: usability, personality, details, and aesthetics.

Usability – Take an otherwise complicated process and make it intuitive.  In order to make sure we did this with Bellstrike, we conducted a lot of user-testing on individuals over the age of 55 with lower incomes and little internet experience.  We figured if we could make it easy for them, it would be easy for most everyone else.

Personality – Some people aren’t going to like Bellstrike.  They’ll think it’s too playful or unprofessional.  That’s OK because some love it.   We wanted to set an approachable, fun, refreshing tone throughout our brand – from the videos, to the hidden goodies, to the way we word our copy.

Details – People notice details. On the day we launched, we had multiple people email us screenshots of typos we made deep within our Terms of Service.  I didn’t even think anyone actually read those.  Also, most companies don’t spend a lot of time designing their Help page, but we wanted to make even our less prominent pages as easy on the eyes as they are to use.

Aesthetics – When most people think of design, they think aesthetics.  To get the right look, we hired a world-class designer and illustrator.  Even when it comes to elements like buttons, we want beauty, not just functionality.  And we love typography.  With new developments on the web, beautiful fonts can now be used for dynamic text.  In the past the world was stuck with just a few web-standard fonts.

Drastic Change Matters – A “pivot” is a drastic change in a business model that still retains some of the core ideas of that model. I first envisioned Bellstrike as an Etsy for nonprofits where each organization would create a profile and upload content to it.  Donors would be able to browse for organizations to support.  But I noticed that the competitors in this space were already executing pretty well.  I also seriously doubted whether donors “shopped” for nonprofits in this way.  Finally, after talking to potential customers, I realized that every nonprofit wants their own branded, donation-enabled website.  But they oftentimes have trouble creating and updating it.  That’s where we found our opportunity.  I decided that Bellstrike would become a website creation platform.  And we may very well make other “pivots” in our future.  It’s good to stick to your guns but once you realize your plan doesn’t make sense, why not switch to a different weapon?

Whether you’re a non-profit or a for-profit, if you’d like hear more about what I’ve learned, contact me Bellstrike.com, doddcaldwell.com, or on Twitter @doddcaldwell.