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Posted in Organizational Change
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06/16 2008

Quantifying Video

I had an
interesting request form one of the readers the other day about the roi
of video and its impact on increasing donations. It is an absolutely
valid question, and also a very difficult one to answer. Unlike direct
mail and phone solicitation Video is not a self contained fund raising
technology, it is a component and part of a strategy. Here is my
response to her in hopes it may answer some questions out there about
the value of video.

Here is what I am going to say about video and actual measurable
impact; it is exceedingly hard to prove that video generates MORE
donations. The thing with videos is that it creates a more sticky user
experience and therefore should increase donations by virtue of
increasing traffic. We are in the middle of a Prototype sharinghope.tv
I  am not sure if we are remeasuring donation patterns but more
importantly I am not sure that you can dollar quantify affinity.

One
of the most interesting things I have ever heard about donation patters
came from Sheraz Haji former CEO of Get Active. He said that the more
touch points that you have with constituents the longer their donor
life span is AND the greater their overall giving. They may give less
to specific donation opportunities but they give more often and more
overall.

Unlike direct mail that has a specific solicitation
to an specific audience video is a living component on the net and may
or may not attract. I would say with good tracking and analytics you
can see the number of visitors and the donation activity. How many
visitors and how many donations ad how large. You can compare them to
your other channels. The winning combination should, in theory, always
be a cross channel multi layered approach to attracting donors, and
giving them value for their donation.

As a closing note SHaring Hope. TV earned a bit more media coverage recently on local Austin News.

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Posted in Organizational Change
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05/16 2008

NTEN, Chris Brogan and Guys with Beards

Have you heard of NTEN? Simply put they are THE membership organization of nonprofit professionals who put technology to use for their causes. And one of my favorite organizations on the planet. Mainly because they help us run the local Austin 501 Tech Club and they get it. How do I know they get it? Well they ask people like Chris Brogan to guest lecture on their webinars. Check out the latest one that Chris did here.

Of course my tips are not as a great but Beth Kanter encouraged me to do this so enjoy!

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03/16 2008

SXSW Panel: The Future of Volunteers

000_0003If you want to engage more people as volunteers, you must do two things. So says a panel of nonprofit execs composed of (left to right) David Neff, American Cancer Society; Ford Cochran, National Geographic; Patricia Goldman, March of Dimes; and Randal Moss, American Cancer Society.

The two things you must do are to first  create opportunities for  your  volunteers, donors,  and other constituents to interact with your organization, online as well as in  the real world.

The second thing is that this interactivity should be built around storytelling.  Take a look at these six  Web sites and you’ll see that they meet both criteria.

National Geographic’s My Wonderful World
National Geographic’s Photo Camp
National Georgraphic’s Web site   where you can be the photographer and upload stills or videos. The best get spotlighted.
March of Dimes Share Your Story site
American Cancer Society’s SharingHope.tv
Second Life, home to many nonprofits, inclusing the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life, which last year netted $100,000+

Randall Moss pointed out that if you want to recruit volunteers, you must find their communities and go to them there. This reminded me of an earlier panel called "What Teens Want Online" where the teens said they were in MySpace and Facebook and that that was how they communicated with each other.

If you want to reach out and engage new volunteers, figure out a way to allow them to interact with you and to be able to tell their stories to you and others (while you’re telling your organization’s story to them). David Neff had some further advice:

  • Be honest
  • Be responsive
  • Spot trends
  • Speak up

Interactivity and storytelling. Those are your keys to success.

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03/16 2008

SXSW Panel: The Future of Corporate Blogging

000_0007

“A single individual can impact a multi-million dollar
corporation,” says Lionel Menchaca, Dell’s Computer Media Manager and Chief Blogger. One of the
ways an individual can do that is through the two-way communication that a
corporate blog offers.

Lionel was one of four panelists discussing the future of
corporate blogs at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival.

He went on to mention that blogs are not for every company.
But if you think your company is ready for one Mario Sandar of LinkedIn.
suggested you answer several questions:

  • Are you ready for it?
  • Is it worthwhile?
  • Do we allow comments are not?

Kami Huyse of My Pro PR pointed out that you can use metrics
to measure your blog’s success.

First of all, define what you consider a success. Look at your competition. Benchmark yourself against your
competition. How many mentions did you have versus your competition. How many
mentions were positive versus negative. You can measure analytics,
subscriptions, comments, tonality of comments, sales, conversion tracking,
among others.

Lionel points out that you should use blogs to meet or
exceed customers’ expectations. He recommends three steps:

  • Listen
  • Analyze
  • Take action

As a result of Dell’s active participation in the
blogosphere, negative comments have dropped from 48% to 20%. (Lionel also
shares the credit with other changes Dell has made.)

Dell has introduced IdeaStorm, which he describes as
combining elements of a message board with Digg. Customers can propose ideas
and those ideas are voted up or down by the community. One of the first ideas
was to use Linux as an operating system. That idea, since adopted by Dell, has
generated more than 600,000 comments.

Mario, who operates LinkedIn’s blog says that his
company wanted to establish a “playground of ideas.” His company has three
goals for their corporate blog.

  • To educate their users by providing product demos and other
    information
  • Customer support
  • Breaking news

Their’s is one of the newer corporate blog having only been
published for nine months.

Kami pointed out that in today’s
digital age, the speed of feedback is increasing. Blogs allow you to rapidly
receive feedback, then get your message out to your customers and other
communities. She related a story about
one of her clients, “a large marine mammal park” that banned juice boxes with
straws because the straws could choke the dolphins. Those parents with juvenile
diabetes rebelled and posted about it in a JD forum. (Children with JD need the
sugar in the juice in case their diabetes flares up.)

The marine park found the post and after an initial misstep
involving “corporate speak,” had juice boxes with flip tops ready at the
entrances within a week. During the decision making process the company
participated in the discussion by updating people in the forum.

LinkedIn responded to a similar customer issue on their blog
and was able to resolve it within one day.

Yes, there is a future for corporate blogs and for those run
by small businesses. These blogs are a great way to rapidly get feedback from
your customers and to get out in front with your breaking news.

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