Ken Goldstein, MPPA

Ken Goldstein has been working in nonprofits and local government agencies from Santa Cruz, to Sacramento, and back to Silicon Valley, since 1989. He's been staff, volunteer, board member, executive director, and, since 2003, a consultant to local nonprofit organizations. For more on Ken's background, click here. If you are interested in retaining Ken's services, you may contact him at ken at goldstein.net.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Loose Ends: Honors for me and you

While I've been off on my latest Interim Executive Director assignment - and virtually ignoring this blog - it seems I've accumulated two more honors for the blog:


Top nonprofit blogs award
TOP NONPROFIT BLOGS


The first is a listing from The Daily Reviewer on the Top 100 Nonprofit Blogs (click the ribbon above), and the other is a listing on "Alltop" as a Top Nonprofit News source. A big Thank You to each of those web sites for the inclusion!

Now, on to the honors for your organizations and your peers...

My friend, Nancy Schwartz, of the Getting Attention blog, would like me to remind you that the Nonprofit Tagline Awards are now open for voting (click through to vote). Voting is a quick and certain way to strengthen your messaging skills. Through voting, you’ll be able to reflect on what works and what doesn't, and consider how your organization's tagline holds up. And voters can register to receive the free 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Report, with 2,500 tagline examples (to be published in late fall).

There's also time left to recognize the top-rated youth-focused nonprofits through the 2009 GreatNonprofits Youth Thrive Awards (www.greatnonprofits.org/youth). Throughout September the organizations with the most positive reviews will be featured on GreatNonprofits and Guidestar, the premier site for philanthropic research on the Web.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Fundraising Success You Can't Buy

These days more and more nonprofit agencies are looking to online social networking tools and sites, such as Facebook, to see how they can use them to increase donations (and if you're not on Facebook, why aren't you?). Well, here's a great Facebook fundraising success story:
The story began Aug. 11, when Jenni Ware of Redwood City lost her wallet at Trader Joe's, and a woman standing behind her in line — Carolee Hazard of Menlo Park — offered to pay the stranger's $207 grocery bill. The two exchanged addresses. Ware found her wallet later that day and repaid her grocery "angel" $300 - with $93 extra to perhaps get a massage.

But Hazard asked her Facebook community what her friends would do with the bonus amount. Swift electronic responses urged Hazard to give the money to charity - the local food bank, since the act of kindness began in a grocery store.

Hazard, a green activist and former Genentech biochemist, loved the idea, and she not only sent in the $93 that Ware had given her as a "thank you," but matched that amount herself. So did a Facebook friend. And another. And another. Kids have pitched in 93 cents. And since the story has been pushed out on Facebook's own site, others are donating what they can, too, even $9.30.

Hazard has since started the "93 Dollar Club" on Facebook, where people across the globe can easily read the story and comment on the good karma phenomenon. There are links on that page where people may donate to their own food banks close to them. And commenters say they are reading - and giving - from Iran, Israel, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Australia, Hungary, Sri Lanka and beyond.
The result for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, where it all began? Nearly $10,000 raised for Silicon Valley's hungry in a week — the most raised in such a short period of time, according to the food bank.

So, yes, it is quite possible to raise large amounts of money using social networking sites. This is not the only such success story I have come across, and they come from Facebook, from Twitter, MySpace, and beyond. But - and it's a huge but - the secret to nearly each of the success stories I have read is giving up control.

An old expression about good press coverage is that it's like "advertising you can't buy." Well, good viral fundraising is pretty much the same. To be truly "viral" it has to come from your supporters, not your staff, and it has to come on their schedule, not yours, and it has to be their ideas.

Now, that doesn't mean you should be doing absolutely nothing. You should be setting up your Facebook fan page and cause page, and have a Twitter account, and each should be linked and pushing content to your official web site (well-equipped with donation buttons).

Start using these tools as extensions of your current campaigns and to bring in new donors who prefer electronic methods of communication and participation. But don't expect dollar miracles overnight. The magic comes when one of your supporters (or potential supporters) has a "grocery angel" experience of their own and decides to launch their own campaign.

When they do, you'll want to be ready, and easy to find, with an established online presence that they can point to. Because, if you're not online, in place, and ready to receive those donations, another organization will be.

Visit the $93 Club on Facebook (may require Facebook login)