…

Read the rest »

Telling your story matters much more than you think. It especially does when you’re running an online fundraising campaign.

From a population set of campaigns (outliers removed), we picked the top 15 highest grossing campaigns that CauseVox has powered.

In total, this sample set raised $1,203,072 in donations with an average raise of $80,205.

After examining what type of media was embedded on their fundraising sites, we found that over 90% of these campaigns used video. The campaign that raised the least did not use a video; they used a static photo instead. There is a strong positive correlation between …

Read the rest »

Every day, I get to see how hundreds of nonprofits run their online fundraising campaigns. Some of the most memorable, shared, and successful are the ones that make fundraising fun.

For example, One Girl raised $40k by asking their supporters to do things in a dress. The United Way raised 50% more than their goal by asking 40 men not to shave.

What makes it fun? There are four characteristics of fun fundraising.

1. It is personal – it lets people know that you are human.
2. It has personality – this type of fundraising makes people understand your brand and organization.

…

Read the rest »

We are thrilled to announce that our e-book The Starter Guide to Non-profit Video Storytelling (which we co-wrote with ListenIn Pictures) is now available for download!

In the book, we describe how your non-profit can create a video strategy that will set you up for success. We explore how to create video which push people to action, what kinds of stories hold the greatest emotional power and how to ensure that your video will not only be seen, but shared.

Get your copy now at www.startstorytelling.com

And don’t forget, every Thursday for the next four weeks one tweeter will …

Read the rest »

This is a guest post by our friend Howard Freeman. Howard Freeman is Founder and Principal of Zoey Creative Development, a charitable giving consultancy in NYC serving both organizations and also individual philanthropists.  He can be reached at howard@zoeycreativedevelopment.com.

The Upper West Side of Manhattan is not the best neighborhood to shop for cheap groceries if you only have $7.50 to cover five days. But then again, why would you try?

In May 2011, I joined thousands of others in the “Live Below the Line” Campaign organized by the Global Poverty Project (GPP).  The “line” is $1.50, below which 1.4 …

Read the rest »

Year end fundraising is the biggest time of the year for nonprofits. 40% of donations come in at year end. Allyson Kapin from Frogloop gathered these facts on her blog post.

• In 2010 an estimated $291 billion was raised. – Charity Navigator
• This is an increase of 3.8% from 2009 when giving was $280.3 billion. – Charity Navigator
• 73% came from individuals. – Charity Navigator
• While a large majority of donations are still made by check (79 percent), online fundraising is the fastest growing donation channel. – AFP
• Online fundraising grew 34% and raised over $20 billion dollars in

…

Read the rest »

For fundraising campaigns, there are three types of communication — updates, appreciation, and encouragement. These three types of communication should occur regularly and as personal level if possible. When you do, it will help you engage your audience and donors more effectively.

Updates
When you’re running your fundraising site, you should give regular weekly progress updates on the fundraising status or when when something newsworthy happens.

Appreciation
You should communicate to show appreciation to donors and fundraisers. This reinforces good behavior and actions. Send personal messages to high performing fundraisers is effective as well as publicly recognize them too.

Encourage
This type …

Read the rest »

Ready. Set. Stop.

I’ve seen this happen with nonprofits. They prepare themselves for a big fundraising campaign, set up a fundraising site, and launch it.

They do all the right things. They launch big, get their support base involved, and send out messages on all their channels.

After a few donations, things putter to a stop. Their support base doesn’t respond.

Here are five steps get your donors to take action:

1. Create structure
Assign one person in your organization a designated contact person per donor. Then carry out a donor engagement plan that involves setting goals and plans for …

Read the rest »

For successful short term fundraising campaigns, the typical rate of donations chart looks like this.

There is a higher rate in the beginning and end, with a slight leveling out in the middle. In other words, most short-term campaigns slow down in the middle of the campaign.

This is typical across many of nonprofits. We call the plateau the mid-campaign lull. It is scary because your rate of donations is decreasing. For the first-timers, you might think your campaign is failing.

Many times, the lull is caused by fundraisers and donors saving their efforts for the end of the camapign. …

Read the rest »

Donors are important, and it is your job to let them know it. We polled non-profit experts on creative and effective ways of thanking donors, and came up with the following top 10 ways to thank your donors

1. Personalize, personalize, personalize.
Would you rather get a note from a telemarketer or an old friend? If it’s the latter, then fashion your thank you notes as if you are sending a thank you to an old friend. Put some thought into it. And make sure it is signed by a recognizable figure within the organization. Hand-written is always a nice …

Read the rest »