Monthly Archives: July 2010

Using Foursquare for Fundraising

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By Andrew Brockman – Achieve Assistant: Nonprofit Research

Foursquare can be any easy promotional engine to tell the world where you are and why others should be there. When someone goes to a certain location, they can ‘check-in’ on their mobile device and Foursquare tallies the amount of check-ins to a location by each individual. This is where it can get competitive: one friend can have 4 check-ins at the gym and another can have 5, so the first person better get their act together!

Businesses enjoy this because it gets more people to their location if it becomes a popular check-in point on Foursquare. However, if your organization gets creative, it can leverage Foursquare in other ways. Take music festivals for instance; if a stage is a check-in point and the festival has multiple stages, a competition can be born right from that. So the question for fundraisers is, how can Foursquare’s check-ins be turned into monetary value? 

Here are some great ways in which non-profit managers have used Foursquare including branding, volunteer management, cause marketing, event promotion and recruitment, and an idea for a shopping fundraiser. Some may see these social networking ideas as a fad, and something that they want to wait to see if they’ll work. The key is that they actually are not that inventive, innovative, or futuristic. These are taking common ways of getting together to raise funds and using social networking to make them work more efficiently and effectively. 
Here are 4 ways to use Foursquare for fundraising:
·         Meet-ups using geolocation to help promote your cause
·         Organization of volunteers in many different places
·         Run/Walks that request pledges for getting to various check-in points
·         Scavenger Hunts
Potential downside: Getting too wrapped up in Foursquare.   As you can see from the above examples, most of the ideas require something else. Just because the geo-location function tells people where your organization is located, this does not mean that people will understand your brand. Likewise, it helps with volunteer management because it can show your volunteers who use Foursquare where the event is. However, Foursquare will not relay volunteer’s t-shirt sizes to the organization. Needless to say it won’t work for a volunteer if he or she does not use Foursquare. 
The bottom line is that most social networking sites will not help your organization without the synergized use of other media. So getting too wrapped up in any of the opportunities out there can hurt your organization. This just follows that simple rule that putting all your eggs in one basket can be bad. Just as with investments, you have to diversify your portfolio to ensure that one going sour does not mean the whole cookie will crumble. 

What is your Net Promoter Score?

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I recently had a chance to read a book by Fred Reichheld about the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Simply put, NPS measures the level of promotion that can happen through grassroots and peer marketing. The concept is based on a 0-10 rating scale that divides customers into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. Here is a description of the categories:

Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.

Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.

Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.
After asking individuals if they would recommend the company or institution, they would rank their response and calculate the Net Promoter Score (NPS) by taking the percentage of Promoters and subtract the percentage of Detractors. Here is good visual from the Net Promoter site
After reading this, I immediately thought of nonprofits and associations.
Nonprofits Service Providers
If you are a museum, what would your members say about the facility, the exhibits or the educational programs you offer? Would they be promoters or would you get some detractors that say the cost of entry is not worth it. If you are nonprofit social service agency, would the beneficiaries of your services speak positively about you and promote your offerings? Or, would they comment negatively about your staff or the quality of service you provide?
Nonprofit Membership Associations
Would your members promote membership to others? What would your detractors say about the membership value? If you offered a lower membership would your members be the first to take you up on the offer and then leave the moment you raise it?
When it comes to fundraising, there are even bigger implications. Would your donors recommend your organization to others in the community? Would they speak positively about your impact and the fundraising tactics you use to raise support or would they simply be a detractor or a one-time giver?
There are potentially new categories to consider for fundraising
Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal donors who will keep giving; supporting both annually and when special projects arise that fuel growth and bigger impact. They tell friends, peers, family and anyone who will listen about your organization and get others to respond to your organization’s calls for action/support.

Passives (score 7-8) are happy donors but will not increase gifts regardless of any additional tactic you use to raise support. They are satisfied with their giving level and will not increase based on your attempts to deepen the relationship. The moment they hear about a new fundraising tactic from another organization, they are intrigued and will move on if you stop trying to engage them.

Detractors (score 0-6) are one time donors who are not invested in your organization and when they talk about you in the public, they mention a recent bad experience (special event or other incident you performed poorly). They may have only given because they felt obligated by someone else or at an event where they were pressured.
So, what is your NPS? What kind of donors do you have and what do you think they would say about you? Launching any campaign or new initiative, you may want to think about how you improve your score in order to leverage their support in the community.

Short vs. Long Email Communications: Which is Best?

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By Andrew Brockman – Achieve Research Assistant

Email campaigns are a great way to stay in touch with your past donors and ask others to be a part of the cause.   But some think non-profit email campaigns need to change. Take what Thomas Gensemer, the leader of the Obama campaign’s online communications, said about non-profit email campaigns; ‘they are a waste of time and should be ditched.’ He advocates for the use of short, direct emails that contain instructions about what should be done by the reader and how that will impact the cause. 

These statements were quoted in a blog on Convio’s Connection Café, but the author, Vinay Bhaget, sees it differently; arguing that because non-profits want to create long-term relationships, the Obama campaign’s tactics are not always the best for non-profits. Bhaget is arguing here for the longer, more content-heavy email campaigns that non-profit leaders and donors are used to creating and seeing. 
So if you are an organization looking to incorporate email campaigns, what do you do?
There is room for both types of email campaigns. The question is not to substitute one for the other, but rather what are we trying to do with your email? 
 
Educating the Donor Base
 
When your organization seeks to educate its donor base about the cause and the need for more programming, a longer email campaign may be better for you. In this situation, a more content-heavy monthly e-newsletter may be good. The donors are more likely to read such a document because of their connection and interest in the cause. 
 
Calls-to-Action
 
However, when your organization is looking for a response, much like a Presidential campaign, it may be more beneficial to create a short email campaign, more like Gensemer’s online communication plan. Creating short email communications with calls-to-action help inform potential donors about giving opportunities and how the support will impact the organization. Likewise, short emails can also show donors how far the campaign has come and how many more funds are needed to get to the goal. 
Both approaches to email campaigns can be worth it to a fundraiser. It depends more on the type of campaign the organization is running. Is it a call-to-action requiring a reaction, or is the organization seeking to educate or build awareness with the existing or potential donor? Both types require different approaches to email campaigns that can be equally beneficial.

What does your organization use?