Don’t Go Blindly Into That Social Media World

Seth Godin has gotten everyone talking (some are even yelling) about his latest post that chastises nonprofits for not embracing change and getting on the social media bandwagon. Godin is irritated at nonprofits for not embracing these new tools to “focus attention and galvanize action” around their cause.  And the overwhelming amount of debate about the post  (Beth Kanter, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Tom Watson, to name a few) , has focused on whether or not nonprofits have embraced social media, whether they are “deer in the headlights,” whether they are risk averse, whether they “blow people away,” and so on.

This is a good debate, to be sure, but what interests me in all of this is a bigger question about the role of social media in a nonprofit’s overall resource engine. Social media is just marketing, right?  Some organizations have figured out how to tap into social media to spread the word, build a following and so on.  Some businesses have even seen a spike in sales.  That’s great.   But marketing through social media, just like any kind of marketing, has to have a bigger goal in mind.  You don’t market for marketing sake, and you don’t Tweet just because it’s cool and “everyone” is doing it.  Rather, you have to understand how that marketing activity (whether it is “free” or not, it still takes resources) is going to contribute to, or perhaps detract from, your bigger goal, which for nonprofits is to raise resources to execute on their mission.  So, in essence, nonprofits should be using social media to build donors, volunteers, advocates, supporters, right?  And as such, their use of social media has to be part of a larger resource plan.  Social media is another channel for the distribution of your message. You should not just go blindly into the social media world.  But don’t sit on your hands either, I get it.

I would argue that social media must be one component of a larger overall resource plan for a nonprofit, that brings dollars, volunteers, advocates, etc. in the door.  But first we need to take a step back to understand that resource plan.  Which brings me to a misunderstanding of fundraising in the nonprofit world and to my usual hero Dan Pallotta.  Pallotta’s blog posts are wonderful, and usually I read them while silent “Right Ons” and “Amens” stream through my head.  But his recent post on fundraising left me frustrated that Pallotta wasn’t stepping far enough out on the limb that he usually does.

Pallotta argues that fundraising is a dirty word in the nonprofit sector and organizations work as hard as possible to spend as little as possible on it:

Fundraising is the black sheep of the nonprofit sector. Charities spend as little as they possibly can on it. They talk as much as they possibly can about how little they spend on it. The watchdogs, the IRS, and donors deduct goody-two-shoes points from nonprofits in direct correlation to every dollar they spend on it. Institutional funders penalize charities for spending on it… By extension, fundraisers are the black sheep of the sector’s workforce; second-class citizens to the program staff who are in the trenches every day doing the real work of social change.

He laments this reality and suggests that we better integrate fundraising into the costs of the programs that nonprofits operate:

This is ass-backwards. Without fundraising there are no programs. The less we spend on it the less money there is for programs…We should make fundraising a program domain in and of itself — every bit as important as the medical research, social services, advocacy, and everything else it makes possible. We should consider all spending on it to be a critical “program” expense. Instead of disdaining it, we should invest in understanding and developing it, because unless we do, we’ll never have anywhere near the money we need to address the massive social problems we confront.

These are all valid points, but then I lose him at the end when he claims:

Institutional funders should take the lead…Fundraising should be every bit as prevalent on the lists of their program interests as health, human rights, and global poverty. And when they are, they won’t need to be giving program grants to health, human rights, or global poverty anymore, because the fundraising arms of the organizations they support will be able to fund them on their own.

Huh?  I agree with Pallotta that there needs to be more risk and experimentation with fundraising.  But I would take this much further.  Fundraising isn’t just a “necessary expense,” rather a nonprofit’s resource engine must be fully integrated with and equal to its programs and operations.  We have to move away from the term “fundraising,” which has come to mean galas, direct mail campaigns (which Godin abhors), and foundation grants that are conducted in a vaccuum completely separate from and organization’s programs and operations.  Fundraising has become akin to a gerbil on a treadmill where nonprofits go from grant to grant, direct mail response to direct mail response, email campaign to email campaign, working their fundraisers to the bone trying to make the dollars coming in the door equal the dollars going out the door to run their programs.

That is “ass-backwards.”  The only effective way for a nonprofit to achieve its mission, and ultimately social impact, is to fully integrate their programs (the social impact they are trying to achieve) with their core competencies (what they do better than anyone else) and their overall resource engine.  This overall resource engine must be a diverse combination of activities that generate support for and work with, not detract from, the mission of the organization and the organization’s core competencies, like this:

I’ve written about this critical alignment before, and it seems to me that this integration of the three core activities of a nonprofit are rarely integrated effectively, or even recognized by those commenting on the sector, like Pallotta and Godin.  Any marketing or revenue-generating activities that a nonprofit embarks on must be chosen and invested in–with resources like money, staff, board and volunteer time–in accordance with the organization’s mission and core competencies.  And the marketing and revenue-generating activities from which a nonprofit can choose include things such as: individual donor cultivation, solicitation and stewardship; direct mail acquisition; online fundraising; foundation grants; earned income businesses; and yes, even social media.  Just as nonprofits should not shy away from social media because they are afraid of risk and change, they also shouldn’t run towards it if it doesn’t make sense in the overall picture of how they can effectively integrate their mission and core competencies to create a sustainable resource engine.

Nonprofits shouldn’t fear social media, nor any other technological, social, or financial shift in our world.  Nonprofits, just like any other entity, need to be aware of their environment and adapt their business to survive and thrive in that changing environment.  But it all has to be based on an integrated strategy.  Yes, be open to new things like social media and experiment to see how this new development might enhance or contribute to your mission, and your resource engine, while working with your core competencies.  But don’t blindly go there without understanding how it fits.

The bottomline is that the pace of change is speeding up for all of us.  Nonprofits have to be more open to change, yes, but any change still has to be digested and made part of an overall strategy that integrates mission, competency and resources.  I think Godin would be the first to agree that we are nothing without an integrated strategy.  So don’t jump on that bandwagon without one, just because Godin tells you that you are “paralyzed in fear.”

Tags: Beth Kanter, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Dan Pallotta, Fundraising, Marketing, nonprofit, Seth Godin, social media, Tom Watson

New Results in the Social Media Fundraising Debate

There has been much debate about how effective social media, particularly Facebook, can be at fundraising for nonprofit organizations.  An article last April in the Washington Post touched off a heated debate by claiming that the Facebook Causes application, which helps supporters of a nonprofit get their friends to donate, has not done much to increase overall fundraising.  As the article argued:

The Facebook application Causes, hugely popular among nonprofit organizations seeking to raise money online, has been largely ineffective in its first two years, trailing direct mail, fundraising events and other more traditional methods of soliciting contributions. Only a tiny fraction of the 179,000 nonprofits that have turned to Causes as an inexpensive and green way to seek donations have brought in even $1,000, according to data available on the Causes developers’ site…[and] fewer than 1% of [people] who have joined a cause have actually donated money through that application.

Beth Kanter, Allison Fine, and many others jumped all over the article and its analysis.  Their ultimate argument is that social media is just another tool in a fundraiser’s toolbox with which to build relationships with potential donors.  Just as you build relationships over time offline, you have to do so online, and Facebook Causes (and Twitter, and blogs, etc) are another way that nonprofits can spread their net and spread their message and attract followers who can help spread the net, etc.  As Allison pointed out:

Causes on FB enables us to tell our own world – distinct from the world -  about the issues, campaigns, orgs that they are passionate about. We can bring our networks of friends, our ingenuity, our passion, our time, our expertise to support causes.  It enables lots and lots of people to learn about causes and to share them with their friends easily, quickly and inexpensively…The bottom line here is that Causes isn’t just about raising money, it’s also about raising friends and awareness, and in the long run turning loose social ties into stronger ones for a cause may be more important than one-time donations of $10 and $20 dollars right now. Our rush to judge this application effective or ineffective over a very short time period with a primary user base of very young people is off base.

So I am rehashing this argument because an online fundraising company, Charity Dynamics, (which happens to be headquartered in Austin) has just had some revenue-raising success with a new Facebook app they created called Boundless Fundraising. This app allows people to extend the fundraising activity they are doing for a nonprofit into their social media profile pages.  Charity Dynamics just announced this week that the application has seen some pretty impressive financial results just in its first 6 months.  36 organizations currently use the app to increase support and giving for more than 2000 events, and they’ve raised $2.5 million so far this year.

That’s a pretty impressive number, so I asked Donna Wilkins, President of Charity Dynamics, how much of this is new revenue for these nonprofits, and she replied:

The great thing is we’re finding that about 75% of the donations are from new constituents vs a range of 40-60% for other donations for these events. Traditionally when someone fundraises for one of these events through Convio or Blackbaud, they send an email to friends and family requesting support.  The biggest hurdle for participants is sending the email and deciding who to send it to.  Boundless Fundraising application sends a newsfeed that all your Facebook friends see with just a couple of clicks. For most participants this means more friends are hearing about their participation and fundraising.  We had one great story where a participant told us she got a gift from someone and she doesn’t even know the person’s email address.  This is a great example of a friend of a friend who supports the cause. We’re also seeing that participants are now becoming multi-channel marketers and they’re asking for support both in email and on Facebook.  In some analysis you can see where a donor made a gift both in response to an email and through Boundless Fundraising.

So 15-35% (or $375-875K) of the money raised is new money. And that’s just in 6 months.  That seems pretty impressive to me.

The point is that social media is a new tool available to fundraisers.  It’s not a magic bullet, but it if you view it as a new, effective way to find and further connect with donors, you could be on your way to raising more money over time.

Tags: Allison Fine, Austin, Beth Kanter, Boundless Fundraising, Charity Dynamics, Facebook Causes, Fundraising, social media, Washington Post

The Fundraising Payback of Social Media

There’s much talk lately about social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, etc.).  In fact it can at times feel like the beginning of a cult.  And there is increasing pressure on nonprofits, in the midst of an increasingly difficult fundraising climate, to jump on the social media bandwagon.  Blogs and journals are riddled with articles about how to dip your nonprofit foot into the social media space.  And there are some good tips.  But the bottom line of all of them is just to try something, jump on Twitter, set up a Facebook page, start a blog.  You don’t need to do it all, just pick something.

But in the middle of everything else a nonprofit staff is working on, with tapped out resources, an increase in demand for their services, and doubled efforts in fundraising it can seem that social media is just something for which there is no time or resources.  And what is the payoff anyway?

Well, Roger Craver, a fundraising consultant with The Agitator, has done some pretty interesting calculations on what the fundraising payoff to experimenting with social media could be.  For an organization with 100,000 donors, a social media fundraising campaign, asking donors to reach out to their networks and fundraise for you, could raise over $500,000.  The nonprofit provides a social media tool, for example a Facebook, Twitter or other tool that their donors can use to encourage their friends and family to contribute.

Craver has some interesting math, but basically the idea is that 2.5% of a donor base could raise $210 each.  So, for an organization with 100,000 donors that translates to $525,000 per campaign.  He doesn’t extrapolate this to smaller organizations and really all of this is projection anyway, but what if?  Take an organization with a donor base of 10,000 people.  2.5% of those people raising $210 each would be $52,500.  This is for one campaign that probably cost the organization nothing, beyond minimal staff time.  That’s pretty impressive.  That could replace the revenue from a time-intensive and expensive gala.

But how does an organization get started?  There are two simple solutions that have been generated here in Austin.  First, Charity Dynamics created a Facebook application that allows nonprofits to do this very thing.  And Kimbia helps you create a very easy online fundraising widget that people can send out to their networks.  There are also some Twitter applications, like Twitpay that allows people to donate to organizations via a PayPal-like extension of Twitter.  Donors simply Tweet their donation amount to their intended recipient, in any amount under $50.  And new applications are being developed every day.

So don’t be afraid.  Just get out there and try it.  Despite the many social media “experts” out there, this space is new for all of us.  All of it is an experiment.  There’s no such thing as failure.

Tags: Charity Dynamics, Facebook, Kimbia, MySpace, social media, Twitpay, Twitter

Social Innovation Jobs, Part 2

As promised, another of my clients is hiring.  ACTIVE Life (formerly Youth InterACTIVE) works to fight the national obesity epidemic by driving demand for healthy, ACTIVE lifestyles and making these lifestyles more accessible.

They are looking for a Vice President of Business Development to grow revenue from corporate, individual, foundation and earned revenue sources. This is the first time ACTIVE Life has had a position like this.  It is an exciting opportunity to help this social media organization build their social enterprise and philanthropic revenue.

You can see the full job description here.

Tags: ACTIVE Life, social media

Social Media for Nonprofits: How and Why

If you are a nonprofit manager struggling with social media (what it is, how to use it, whether its a good idea for your organization or not) read this great post by Amy Southerland, a communications consultant for nonprofits. Social media is Internet and mobile applications for sharing information and ideas.  It includes blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, etc.  I’ve written about social media and fundraising before.  But Amy gives a great, easily understood overview of what social media is, why nonprofits need to jump in and how they can get started.  She also includes a couple of examples of nonprofits that have really used social media effectively.

Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, social media, Twitter

Social Media and the Future of Fundraising

There is an interesting post on Peter Deitz’s blog about how social media is changing the future of fundraising.  Peter is the founder of Social Actions a US/Canadian nonprofit clearinghouse of social causes.  They use social media to spread the word and engage people in various social issue organizations.

Peter argues that the growth of social media (everything from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, etc.) is dramatically changing the way nonprofits will successfully raise money in the next 4 years.  He argues that the presidential campaign tactics, fundraising and measures of success shifted fundamentally from 2004 to 2008, largely because of the growth and use of social media.  Obama won the presidency because of his team’s efficacy with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, online fundraising, etc.

Peter argues that by 2012 nonprofits that are still raising money in traditional, i.e. non-social media, ways will find it significantly more difficult to reach their goals:

Current best practices will serve nonprofits just fine in 2009. Between email solicitation, direct mail, major donors, and grant-writing, the vast majority of nonprofits will weather the economic hard times. But a shifting communications environment and changing donor demographics could render those best practices ineffective at best, and obsolete at worst, as early as 2012.

He definitely has a point.  Nonprofits need to be actively engaged in the social media world.  And I agree that donor engagement and investment will increasingly move into that space.  But I don’t agree that traditional practices, especially major donor cultivation, solicitation and stewardship, will become obsolete.  Rather, I would argue that nonprofits, as always, should diversify their fundraising activities, in order to strengthen their fundraising function.  Whenever someone argues that traditional models are gone, I am reminded of the dot com evangelists who spoke of the death of the traditional business model, i.e. where valuation is based on actual profit.  Yeah, that traditional model is still around somehow.

That being said, however, I do think Peter, and Beth Kanter, a social media consultant to nonprofits, who commented on his post, do have some good advice for nonprofits in the social media space.  Nonprofits absolutely need to be actively engaged in social media and working to add social media strategies into their fundraising mix.

Peter has 5 tips for nonprofits in order to move them further into the social media world:

1. Use social media to communicate with all donor groups, not just the young.  People across the spectrum are using Facebook, MySpace, etc., so make sure your communications in those arenas have that in mind.  Don’t assume your audiences there are just young people.
2. Create and participate in online contests in order to understand who is following your organization online.
3. Make hiring decisions based on social media knowledge.  He argues that “you are better off hiring people who are at home online than trying to make them that way after they’ve been hired.” I disagree with this.  Since social media is so new, we are all learning what it is and how to use it.  There are no social media experts.  It is far better to hire someone who understands and has experience in fundraising overall and can learn about social media as another tool.
4. Use your interns for ideas about engaging in the social media landscape.  A great idea.
5. Get an iPhone, or other mobile device.  If you truly want to be part of the “always on” social media world, you have to go mobile.

In her response to Peter’s post, Beth Kanter discusses a new Twitter application, Twitpay, that allows people to donate to organizations and causes via a PayPal-like extension of Twitter.  You simply Tweet your donation amount to your intended recipient, in any amount under $50.  Now that’s a great and interesting use of social media in the fundraising world.

Social media is a very exciting space for nonprofit fundraisers.  And they absolutely should embrace it and add it to the mix as a further way to engage and invest donors more deeply in their organizations.  But I really don’t see social media ever completely replacing one-on-one fundraising.  Fundamental to fundraising is the individual relationships that develop between a donor, the organization, and the person making the ask.  Social media can certainly expand the reach of an organization and deepen relationships, but I doubt it will ever completely replace traditional models.

Tags: Fundraising, social media