Good Works Grapevine

I was fortunate enough to meet Katya Andresen at NTC 2008. She presented a great session on the zen of social media. She is very wise in her ways and Network for Good is a resource that all nonprofits should be using. I just received my copy of Fundraising Success magazine yesterday and Katya has written a wonderful article on making it as a nonprofit during a bad economy.

To the Point: 6 Ways to Survive the Economic Meltdown

By the way, a subscription to Fundraising Success magazine is free to nonprofits and its a great resource for ideas, instruction and insight on nonprofit fundraising. I encourage everyone to subscribe.

With the economy in a complete mess and donors tightening the purse strings, I think that its more important than ever to say thanks. I am a habitual thanker and I really mean it every time. At restaurants, I thank the waiter for every single thing he does for me. I can’t help it - it’s the way I was brought up. So, in my world, its incredibly important to thank your donors for everthing.

Always thank donors for making monetary donations no matter how small. We try to send a hand written note for every donation we receive. Yes, we are a small organization so its a little easier for us to take the extra time, but I feel that its that important. At the very least shoot them a thank you email or even an online card.

Thank your volunteers every chance you get. They are donors of their time, which is becoming more and more valuable. Check out this post for ideas on how to say thanks.

Thank your business partners with an e-card or a personal phone call. Let them know that you really appreciate their support. This not only reinforces that you are a quality organization but may open up a dialogue for future opportunities.

Recently, the NonProfit Times ran a wonderful article representing the trends in how nonprofits are saying thanks.

There have been several articles that have run lately on the plight of nonprofit fundraising during the recent recession. While GoodDogz.org is a smaller nonprofit, we have felt a slight drop in donations this year. Larger organizations are facing a far worse decline in public funding.

We have done a few things to help our situation. We replaced our high priced gala with a low price benefit concert. We made more $$ than we would have with the gala and our donors were appreciative that we weren’t hitting them with a high price event. We are working with the community and its businesses to create partnerships to help promote each other.

Here are some great articles on the health of the fundraising economy with helpful tips.

• Fundraising in a Troubled Economy
• Survival Kit for Fundraising in a Bad Economy (there are tons of great links in this post)
• Economy’s Downturn Prompts New Challenges for Charities
• It’s a Hard Time to be a Charity

Some good news…

The Nonprofit Times just released their survey results on holiday giving…and it looks promising!

• Survey: Donors Plan To Give This Holiday Season

Care2 just launched a wonderful contest which invites folks to vote for their favorite animal shelter. In the wake of Katrina, Ike, the flooding in Des Moines, etc. animal shelters need our help more than ever. I really like this contest as it offers several ways to win - a grand prize of $10,000 - a daily prize of $1000 and $50 gift certificates to the top recruiters. Please remember to give to your local animal shelter as a way to give back to your community and have fun participating in this fun contest!

Philanthropy.com ran a great article today called New Study Sheds Light on What Wealthy Donors Care About; Many Say They Will Support Operating Costs. This is something that I often ask myself, because, let’s face it - we’re all looking for big dollar donors. This is good stuff. Here are a few others to wet your whistle!

• How to Work with Young High Net Worth Donors
• $ense and $ensitivity: Keys to Attracting Diverse Donors
• 4 Ways to Attract Online Donors
• What ‘Wealthy, Wired Donors’ Want from Nonprofits (Part 1)
• What ‘Wealthy, Wired Donors’ Want from Nonprofits (Part 2)

We now officially have an account with QGiv. I had a great training session with Brendan at QGiv yesterday which got me totally excited about this new tool. They had already skinned our forms with our new website design and everything was up and running. After the training, I immediately logged in and easily set-up an event registration form for our October Spooky Pooch costume contest. Here’s why I’m so excited.

QGiv will:

• Aggregate all of our registration information and save it in one place (no more emails floating around to 3 different people)
• Allow our donors to pay by all credit cards as well as e-check
• Auto-generate receipts
• Make it soooo easy to set-up online registration forms (before we did them in HTML and linked to a crappy processing company)
• Save donor information in one place so we can export and upload into Salesforce.com
• Activate and inactivate forms for year-to-year usage
• Too many more reasons to name!

All-in-all, I’m very happy with the service and ease-of-use of QGiv. If your organization is looking for a better solution for donation management, I would highly recommend giving QGiv a look.

Today I participated in a great discussion on NTEN.org with Sue Cline about non-profit communications and whether its better to look like you need the money or have a more professional image. This is a question that I get asked a lot and is often the topic of much discussion among our board. There are two viewpoints that I see.

1) If you look too professional, potential donors may not want to donate because you don’t look like you need the money or worse - they wonder where the money is going.

2) If you look too “mom & pop”, donors may not take your organization seriously or worse - they wonder where the money is going (or in this case - how is it being managed).

I went to a Best Friends conference several years ago where this topic was discussed as it pertained to animal welfare organizations. Best Friends has a full-color, VERY slick magazine, a professional website, multiple print fundraising drives - you get the picture. As an organization, they made the decision to spend the money to give their org a professional, clean image. Ironically, there was very little fallout and they are one of the most well-funded animal welfare organizations in the country.

GoodDogz.org has been a grassroots organization for five years, yet we’ve always been able to convey a professional image while not spending loads of money. Here are a few tips that may help your organization make the most of your resources:

• Recruit volunteers that have the skills you need. If you need a new website, find a web designer that is interested in your cause. If you need print materials, find a graphic designer that can help you create a template for your print collateral.
• Work with the business community. Seek out members of the local community that can donate or cut you a deal on printing, legal services, accounting, PR help, etc. If they like your message, its likely they will help. It never hurts to ask and I’ve been told NO many times. But that should never stop you from asking.
• Look for cheap online resources. We paid an arm and a leg for our first business cards by using a local business that didn’t want to help us out. By searching online, we’ve been able to find great deals on printing, promotional materials, etc. Also check out Craigslist for high ticket items like trade show booths, computers, etc.
• Find sponsors. If you need a new website or printed materials, look for a sponsor that will pay for the service in return for promotional considerations. I built GoodDogz.org on sponsorships. Not only do you get what you need, but you also make valuable relationships with business owners.
• Most important - execution is key. It doesn’t matter how nice your newsletter looks - if your organization doesn’t present itself in a professional manner, you will not be taken seriously. It seems so simple, but I see so many non-profits fall apart on execution. Return phone calls and emails promptly. Take the time to ensure that your message is clear and is part of everything you distribute. If you host events, be sure that volunteers, participants, sponsors and exhibitors are well taken care of. Go that extra mile. In the long run, people (and potential donors) remember how they were treated by your organization before they recall the color of your website.

A friend asked me my opinion on raising money by hosting an online raffle. According to the law - raffle = gambling and is governed by all sorts of regulations. GoodDogz.org did a free raffle as part of a paid event, which was probably pushing the envelope, and we’ve never done it since. It made me nervous.

Gambling laws are different from state-to-state and although the raffle may be taking place online, typically, you are still governed by the laws of your state. According to this article, it is now legal for non-profits to hold raffles in OK.

I found these tips on Squidoo:

The one problem that many organizations have is, “How do I get started?” I will give you the steps to take to setup your raffle:

Step 1: Contact your State Attorney General’s office.

Step 2: Ask the registration details for conducting a raffle.

Step 3: Organize your raffle with your volunteers and other people associated with your organization.

Step 4: Get your raffle prizes donated to your organization.

Step 5: Market your raffle locally or on the internet.

Since every state and county have their own set of rules and regulations it is just a matter of contacting your State Attorney General’s office to get more information about registering your raffle.

I guess the short answer is - you don’t want to break the law. Take a few minutes to contact your state’s AG to find out how the laws apply to what you are trying to do. You wouldn’t want to earn a bad name for your organization by engaging is what amounts to illegal gambling. That would be bad. Do a little homework and make an informed decision for your organization.

We have a Facebook Cause. We set this cause up about 6 or 8 months ago and so far have 34 members and have raised $115. We are getting ready to roll out a comprehensive social media campaign over the summer and are taking a hard look at our Facebook Cause. While large campaigns like Stop Global Warning and Save Darfur have hundreds of thousands of members, their donations seem out of line with the membership. So, what I’m seeing is that even though your cause may have a gazillion members, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are donating.

Philanthropy.com posted Is Facebook’s Fund Raising a Bust? on their blog on June 2. Clearly, there is some skepticism regarding the effectiveness of Causes for fundraising.

Frogloop from Care2 is a fantastic blog as a whole. If you are working through the ins and outs of marketing your non-profit, get a feed. Among the huge repository of information is this little nugget - a total assessment of Facebook Causes written a couple of months after it was launched. It’s very informative and includes some great tips.

We plan to continue to promote our FB Cause to see what we can get from it, but I’d like to know what experiences others are having. Please share.

We are considering moving all of our fundraising management to a company called QGiv. I met these guys at NTC this year and liked their product. Basically, they help non-profits aggregate their fundraising efforts into one neat package. They are PCI compliant and are audited regularly by a third party provider. Currently we use Just Give, FirstGiving.com, Paypal, a credit card processing company…you see the problem. So, as we re-launch the GoodDogz.org website, we are going to give QGiv a try. If you have any experience with this service, please let me know what you think!