Fundraising is the most effective when it’s personal. One way to make it personal is to embed photos onto your personal fundraising pages. Here’s an example: Here’s how you do it: 1. Go to Flickr and upload your photo. Make sure it’s set as public. 2. Click on the photo you want to embed in […]

Running your own fundraising page can be difficult. Yuan-Kwan, a fundraiser for SXSWcares, describes how they leverage social media, email marketing, and their magazine’s support base to raise awareness and support for disaster relief. Check out their website and the interview below. Tell us a little bit about who you are. My name is Yuan-Kwan […]

Understanding your support base is one of the three foundations of a successful digital campaign. We talk about this strategy framework in a previous post. The most effective fundraising is based on relationships. Understanding supporters is building relationships. It gives you insight into why they love your non-profit, what draws them in, and how to […]

How do successful fundraising campaigns communicate? What makes them effective and fundraising or not effective? After examining fundraising campaigns that have been successful, we’ve developed three categories of communication that they use: 1. Updates – This is commonly in the form of mass communication to your support base — usually email newsletters and blog posts. […]

The New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) is the Olympic development organization for cross-country skiing in New England as well as the umbrella for most organized Nordic skiing events in the region. They launched a fundraising campaign not too long ago. One of their fundraisers, Rob Bradlee, has raised $3100 by making the campaign personal. […]

Getting started with online fundraising can be difficult and confusing. We’ve heard from many of you that were waiting to set up your fundraising campaigns to fit within our 30 day trial period. Some organizations were even creating multiple accounts to extend their trial — very clever. You’ll be glad to hear that we’ve replaced […]

I remember growing up and listening to the stories my grandparents would tell me about the China Civil War. They would talk about fighting in the war, taking care of the wounded, and eventually escaping to Taiwan. Their stories would capture my attention completely. Stories are narratives that help us understand events, culture, and morals. […]

Let’s talk about one of the first documented instances of supporter-driven fundraising. Bruce is the founder of BBDO, a global ad agency, and is often referred to as the one of the first to do supporter-driven fundraising. In 1925, there was a college in Kentucky called Berea that educated the local towns. The students were […]

I met Yoko Nakano at SXSW during our panel discussion about SXSWcares. After things settled down at bit in the campaign, I asked Yoko to share her thoughts on fundraising for SXSWcares. Check out some of her scientifically-ground tips on how to get your friends, family, and coworkers to give. Tell us a little about […]

On March 11th 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck the northeastern coast of Japan. The massive earthquake triggered a tsunami with waves as high as 77 feet that pushed as far as 6 miles inland. Tens of thousands of Japanese were reported dead or missing and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. That morning, CauseVox […]