3 Lessons from Marissa Mayer about Online Fundraising

Marissa Mayer is ranked #32 in Forbes list of 100 most powerful women in the world. She’s the current CEO and President of Yahoo that was brought in last year to revitalize the slouching online giant.

Here are three things you can learn from her game-changing moves at Yahoo and how it applies to your online fundraising.

1. Culture inspires creativity in online fundraising

In Mayer’s plan to revive Yahoo, her first strategy was to put a ban on working from home. Even though there was a lot of criticism about the policy, guess what, it’s working!

The same goes for launching an online fundraising campaign for your nonprofit or social good project.

Don’t try to do it solo or in an isolated environment. Turbocharge creativity by selecting a team to brainstorm together. If you are trying to create new ideas or develop a campaign, bring in other team members.  Some of your best ideas will come from working with your team in the same place.

2. Responsive design for online fundraising

Yahoo has primarily been a web portal you access via the personal computer or laptop, but times have changed! Mayer believes an all-in-one mobile app could be the linchpin to save Yahoo.

We all know the evolution. Radio to TV, desktop computer to laptop computer, and now, – the multi-purposed smartphone is where our attention is focused on.

Although your organization may not have use for a dedicated mobile app (heck, or maybe it does!), consulting with tech experts about how to format your website for mobile devices would be a great place to start.

Often, websites appear jumbled with small print creating more work for supporters. Case in point: an iPhone screen is not made to read four columns of information like a 17” screen.

Read more about responsive design and how it can help you get donations via mobile phone.

3. Practices makes perfect in online fundraising

Mayer says Yahoo has all the right ingredients (products) for the perfect recipe to succeed so she wants to focus on what they’re already good at and add fuel to those Yahoo products.

One hat is enough.

Here’s the thought. You can be successful by doing less. Eliminate extra frills by taking a two-step strengths-based approach:

1. Define roles

Have clear goals and responsibilities while letting people flourish at what they are gifted at doing. This will cultivate creativity, and over time, your staff will become experts in their roles.

2. Be picky

Be super focused on what your fundraising campaign is going to do with the funds and what the impact is that you want to create. If you meet every need that arises in the community, you will never be great at any one thing, and your donors will get confused.

So there you have it – straight from Marissa Mayer’s strategy for Yahoo – principles to become better at what you do! If your online fundraising campaign is on the rocks, these principles may be hard to pass up as a good starting point to bring it back to life. Try it out today!