Step 92.
Even if you believe social media is just a fad and is not a viable strategy to attract like-minded people to your cause, you should at least register your organization with the top social networks.
The rational behind registering your name with the top social networks is that you are protecting your charity's name from someone else starting a blog and/or a channel on You Tube with your name.
You may be thinking, "Our organization does not have any videos to post on You Tube so why bother?" Well, not today perhaps but things are changing so fast and you may want to implement such a strategy someday. However, your nonprofit's name may be already taken on these social networks by the time you get around to implementing it.
Just as in the case of protecting your organization's name in regards to securing it for a Web site domain, so should you in the case of the top social networks. 
Step 93. Build Donor Loyalty Through an Experience
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Protect Your Organization's Name
Understand Your Constituent’s Voice
Step 91.
The best online strategy for your charity is when you can meet your organizational objectives while simultaneously meeting your constitutes as well.
In order to accomplish this you must implement two business practices.
1. Allow for your constituents to add their own content somewhere on your Web site.
2. Survey your constituents often, with open-ended question in order to comprehend their thoughts and feelings in their own words.
Here are some great questions to ask your donors in order to better serve them.
1. What do you think is the most important need that nonprofit organizations should be addressing in the world today?
2. With regards to (your org’s cause), how important do you think it is for nonprofits to be involved in (your org’s cause)? (Very important, important, neutral, somewhat important, not important).
3. What two or three areas of the world do you think are most in need of this cause?
4. When thinking about this cause, what organizations come to mind? (Prompt only if necessary)
5. What information do you look for to decide what organizations are doing a good job of (your org’s cause)?
6. How do you like to obtain this information? Mail? TV? Radio? Internet? Other?
7. If you donate to charities that are focused on (your org’s cause), how do you decide which ones to give to?
8. How would you describe (insert your charity’s name) primary mission?
9. What are the primary distinctives of (insert your charity’s name) work? (Wait for answer…) Why is that important? How is (insert your charity’s name) different in this regard than say, (try to use an organization the donor has already identified)?
10. How did you first get involved with (insert your charity’s name)?
11. How would you describe your relationship with (insert your charity’s name)?
12. (If the donor says they donate) What motivates your giving to (insert your charity’s name)?
13. Other than your church, would you say you feel closer to (insert your charity’s name) than other nonprofits, or closer to other nonprofits than to (insert your charity’s name)?
14. Are you convinced that (area of focus of your charity’s program outreach) is an important place for helping? Why should (insert your charity’s name) be focused in (area of focus of your charity’s program outreach)?
15. In what ways do you feel (insert your charity’s name) is the right organization to be (area of focus of your charity’s program outreach)?
16. What things do you believe (insert your charity’s name) is very good at? (Follow up with probing questions about why they believe the way they do . . . )
17. What things do you believe (insert your charity’s name) could improve on? (Same follow up . . . )
18. How do you think (insert your charity’s name) can best serve the our community?
19. How do you feel about the name, (insert your charity’s name)? (Probe the donor’s understanding of your name.)
20. Which of the following (insert your charity’s name) programs are you familiar with? (List your nonprofit’s top six programs.)
21. What nonprofit organizations do you give to?
22. What do you feel these organizations provide?
23. In the future do you plan to give to (insert your charity’s name)? If yes, what would motivate you to make a decision to give? For example, a special mailing on how they are solving their core purpose? If no, why not?
24. In closing, what final advice would you have for (insert your charity’s name)?
Step 92. Protect Your Organization's Name
Get a Second Gift
Step 90.
Up until now, by implementing the various steps contain within this blog book, you’ve been successful at inspiring and capturing a person’s first gift to your organization. Now what?
Let me give you a proven strategy designed to compel people to donate a second gift to your charity.
Many organizations refer to this strategy as either a “Second Gift” or “Welcome Series” strategy. I’ve provided a step-by-step process on what to do after a donor gives your nonprofit a gift via your Web site.
Step 1. Send an instant auto reply thank you email to the donor that confirms their full name, donation amount and designation of gift. For example, Thank you Mr. Todd Baker for your gift of $50 for school supplies.
Step 2. Within 72 hours of the donation, send via postal mail a receipt to the donor that specifies the donation amount along with the gift designation.
Step 3. For donations $100 or above, call the donor to personally say “Thank you” from the organization. On the call, reaffirm that their money is going to the specific program that they designated it towards and provide an update of the success of program itself. You may want to invite the donor to your Web site to read more updates in the future.
Step 4. Two weeks later, send a “Third-Party Endorsement” letter via postal mail. This is a letter from a well-known spokesperson of your organization (celebrity / political figure) simply letting the donor that they have done a good thing by donating to your organization. Inside the mailing you can encourage the donor to go online and see a video of this spokesperson stating how effective and efficient your nonprofits is at doing its mission.
Step 5. One week later from Step 4., send an email letting the donor know that a special update is coming in the mail.
Step 6. One week later from Step 5., send via postal mail, the special update mailing. The mailing can be one of two things, first, it can be your charity’s strongest appeal in regards to return on investment (ROI) or second, it can be a similar offer that they gave toward initially. For example, if a donor is acquired via “feeding of hungry children offer,” then the best way to get them to give again is to provide the same exact offer at your next appeal (online or offline).
Some of you may be thinking, “Why do we want to cultivate an online donor with offline tactics, such as direct mail?” Because there is a direct correlation with the number of associations a donor has with your organization and their overall financial value to your nonprofit.
Therefore, the more you engage a donor through different media, the more money they will donate to your charity.
Step 91. Understand Your Constituent's Voice
Create Loyalty with ROM Content
Step 88.
Twenty years ago donors were asking of charities “how much of my dollar goes toward overhead? Many donors were shocked if a nonprofit spent more than 20-25% on administrative expenses, (Overhead) out of each dollar raised. However, show me one Fortune 500 company that only spends 25% on overhead to make their product or service . . . they don’t exist. Why do we expect nonprofits to achieve excellence in their field with less compared to for-profit companies?
For example, It takes a lot of money to make an iphone therefore the profit margin is small . . . I get that but it also takes a lot of money for a nonprofit to ensure tens-of-thousand of people won’t starve to death by end of day in some third-world country.
Some times a charity must spend whatever it takes to save lives. Sadly, I know of a disaster relief charity in the United States that refused to respond to Hurricane Katrina because of a misguided budgeting practice, which would have negatively impacted their overhead ratio for that given year. 
Today, that charity is wondering why their giving is down, where their donors went and why they’re no longer relevant. This charity had an opportunity to be a premier organization, instead it decided it had raised too much designated income for disasters and did not respond. Small thinking produces small budgets and big thinking produces big budgets . . . people want to be about big ideas.
The overhead metric is no longer the first question that comes out of a savvy donor’s mouth and should not be the primary metric in determining a charity’s effectiveness. Nonprofits should be graded on their results . . . the lives impacted and not how little they spent on managing the charity. There are charities who boast about spending very little in overhead but in the end, how many people do they help or save?
Donors have evolved their decision “giving” making process and so should charities . . . they understand a big vision takes a big budget. Especially, younger business-minded contributors now want to see how successful a charity’s programs are in addressing the issues the nonprofit sets out to resolve in the first place. This is what I call Return on Mission (ROM).
As I mentioned in Step 12, these ROM metrics is where people validate their purpose in life and their involvement with you as a charity.
The ROM metric is one of the most critical aspects of the nonprofit brand experience. It gives people meaning and does a most powerful thing . . . it leaves those who have joined you in your mission and vision, better. Their lives are enriched and they are filled with hope because you have allowed them to fulfill their destiny through your cause. This is the secret to brand loyalty.
You can never talk about ROM enough. So stop focusing on how little you spend and start presenting how much you do.
Step 89. Conduct Usability Testing
Mine Your Widget Ads
Step 86.
Create multi-use widget ads (something for you and something for them) and they will allow you to capture data beyond an initial campaign. For example, the ibubble widget allows a person to share and decorate photos, it’s a useful application that can be downloaded to a computer to be used whenever people want. Regardless if people ever take the desire action on your campaign or not, you’ll have a direct link back to them for future follow up.
As people use their widget to take, upload, tag and email more photos, your charity will be learning more about the user of the widget . . . their interests, where they vacation, their names, family members, etc. As people tag their photos with descriptions, they are essentially adding to their own profile being captured in a database. The data then can be used to begin and/or round out a psychographic profile of your constituents who use the widget.
It is important for your charity to thoroughly understand the demographic and psychographic profile for each key segment of your constituent base.
Once you've introduced such a widget to your constituents, you'll be able to mine data for future marketing efforts. For example, you may discover that 75% of your constituents have tagged photos with "Fishing Trips," you can use this information to attract potential new corporate sponsors to either unwrite a specific effort and/or to place banner advertisements on your charity's Web site.
You may be thinking that your charity would never allow for-profit companies to advertise on your Web site but let me encourage you not to discount the idea so quickly.
In the past with offline communication, charities would not consider such an arrangement with a for-profit company because it would put their nonprofit status in jeopardy. However, online is a different medium entirely and there is no third-class stamp to be garnered through the exclusion of for-profit messaging.
Therefore, decide on good corporate partners that make sense for your charity and go after them aggressively with more than your hand out but rather with quantified marketing opportunities that will move their product lines and create good will.
As you craft Cause-related Marketing proposals to potential for-profit companies, try to agree on a promotion that can be found no place else other than your charity's Web site. For example, if Whirlpool was a corporate sponsor to Habitat for Humanity, they could place banner ads on Habitat's Web site offering the Habitat Washer and Dryer set. Perhaps a portion of each sale could go to Habitat or the set could be discounted for Habitat's constituents.
This is an entirely new untapped revenue stream for charities, that if not for the Internet, would not be possible.
Step 87. Meet Bill
Send Progress Reports
Step 73.
Donor burn out is real but it has very little to do with the number of requests for money your charity makes. However, the main reason why nonprofits burn out their donors is because they do a poor job at quantifying the impact of their giving.
The accounting of impact simply is determining the number of lives either saved, changed, transformed, inspired, or empowered, etc. because of a donor’s gift?
Philanthropy is mostly a transaction of the heart but donors validate their giving with their minds. Therefore, sending progress reports weeks or months latter from a campaign on how the funds raised were used by quantifying lives impacted, not only helps to eliminate donor burn out but more importantly, provides them with meaning of living.
Use your Web site and newsletters as a way to report back to and celebrate with donors and constituents on previous campaign appeals, whether it is online or offline.
Step 74. Improve Your Email Campaigns
Start Your Own Network
Step 34.
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 57 percent of Internet users watch video online, and among users age 18-29, that number jumps to 74 percent. Today, as your organization creates content for your Web site, you need an online video strategy to stay competitive.
When words can not fully describe the totality of the situation, use video, it helps provide your user with a richer brand experience.
Video sharing is one of the fastest growing viral marketing efforts online today.
Repurpose your old footage and/or begin to create new video spots that will move people to action.
Step 35. Utilize Persuasive Imagery for Product Sales
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Baker's Dozen, Gut Check
Surprisingly, many people base critical marketing decisions on a feeling and/or hearsay of what another organization is doing. Twenty three years have lapsed since taking my first fundraising step and I’ve learned you can’t solely base a decision on a “gut feeling.” When I’ve asked charities how they determined their marketing decisions many people have said, “I feel it in my gut.” My response is always the same, “Well personally my gut is only getting bigger and not smarter so what else are you relying on to ensure success?” After a good laugh, the point becomes clear.
Let me help you with a Baker’s Dozen of essentials for making the right marketing and fundraising decisions.
1. Most nonprofits understand the need for tracking results on various fundraising initiatives, but many struggle with analyzing their data to understand giving trends. The data reports you review should provide insight into who and when to market.
2. Each marketing expenditure should be measured by return on investment (ROI). “How much did you spend and how much did you get back?” Stick only with the strategies getting the highest return.
3. Measure your programs by quantifying them by return on mission (ROM). Documented program results play a critical role in raising money for your charity.
4. Net income is the key. It doesn’t really matter what you are spending on marketing and fundraising if your net income continues to skyrocket.
5. Don’t just copy creative ideas from other nonprofits without knowing their results. It is just as easy to copy a bad idea as a good one, but how will you know?
6. Test ideas. No matter how brilliant an idea seems, move forward carefully and conservatively. You want to spend as little as possible at testing an idea to ensure measurable results are achieved. Furthermore, before crafting a test strategy write down what you hope to learn. It will help to ensure you create a valid test.
7. Create a team of people who convene for the purpose of making donors feel extraordinary. It is hard to come up with bad ideas when your focus is sharply on the most important thing.
8. Communicate with your donors on a regular basis. Ask them what they think of your organization and how you can communicate with them more effectively.
9. Document your organization’s positioning and brand strategy and make sure everyone in the entire charity can recite it, but most important, understand it.
10. Have a detailed marketing and fundraising plan with budget, schedules, and media strategy in place for each year.
11. Set aside funds to try new ideas. Undoubtedly, a brilliant idea will surface but if you don’t have the funds to implement it the right way, it most likely will come off the wrong way or not at all.
12. Seek council. You don’t have to be an island in the sea of philanthropy; many people have gone before you so there is no reason for you to learn from the school of hard knocks. Heck, phone me, 360-626-3632.
13. Subscribe to the Nonprofit Times and join one of the many fundraising associations and perfect your craft.
