100 Words: Living Life w/Passion

I didn't come up with it... and it does score high on the "Cheesiness Indicator Score" detector... but it is good, nevertheless. Thanks to @SamDavidson for sharing it and @holstee for creating it (at least, I think they did!).

Another "How Not To Use Twitter..."

It's not fun to point out substandard work, but from time-to-time such examples can provide valuable learning for others. That being said, this is a screenshot from an "annual giving & social media expert" who provides consulting services and... just in case you can't figure it out... also does webinars.

It is critical to remember some basic pointers on using Twitter and other social media:

1. It's not just about you.

2. You will gain more credibility and more information from the conversation if you realize it is a conversation. Promote others and engage in conversations.

3. If you just promote yourself, you will quickly drive followers away.

4. If you're going to offer social media consulting (like 428,940,311 other people), make sure you know how best to use it before promoting yourself.

Just my two cents...

Follow: @WeCanEndPoverty

So I was reviewing who I follow on Twitter to see if there were any bogus accounts, etc. I inadvertently followed. Well, I found one account that had one of my favorite Twitter backgrounds ever: @WeCanEndPoverty Therefore, it is the latest #FollowOfTheWeek:

Twitter: @WeCanEndPoverty
Name: The UN's 2015 Millennium Development Goals
Web: www.un.org/millenniumgoals
Bio: End poverty by 2015. This is the historic promise 189 world leaders made at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 when they signed onto the Millennium Declaration and agreed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are an eight-point road map with measurable targets and clear deadlines for improving the lives of the world's poorest people. World leaders have agreed to achieve the MDGs by 2015.
Followers: 6,550 + you!
Why Follow? Clearly this is a worthy cause. But it is also worth following because they do a good job of using social media to promote a cause.
Celebrities on board? (Not a reason to follow... just interesting) Antonio Banderas, Angelique Kidjo, Zinedine Zidane, Maria Sharapova and Annie Lennox
Additional tid-bit: The UN's summit on these topics is later this month. Visit this site to learn more.

@WeCanEndPoverty is also on: Web / Facebook / YouTube / Flickr

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Some screenshots and examples follow - enjoy!

Twitter Page - background is simple, distinct and makes its point. It also generates interest in what the images on the left represent.

YouTube Page - well branded, great background, good information and kept up-to-date. All critical components to an engaging account.

Website - Note the immediate presence of Facebook & Twitter logos, as well as the continued theme of the goals.

Two great aspects of the Facebook page - First, a page dedicated to the goals:

And a wonderful landing page (that may need to be rescaled due to recent Facebook changes in column widths):

And another one of the websites:

And a great example of the use of video in nonprofit work:

How Not To Promote Your Social Media Presence...

So I was with some of my family today and we wandered into a favorite bakery/restaurant in town to get a sandwich (I had a yummy hummus, roasted red pepper, avocado, cucumber & sprout treat on a salt bagel, in case you were wondering). While sitting and eating I noticed this sign:

Not the best, but certainly not the worst sign ever. It does still use the old Facebook language of "become a fan," instead of "Please like us!" But I don't really mind, because I still like fan better. Yes, some cynics may say "Oh, you're so far behind the times! It's like not fan!" but oh well. The sign also gives the Twitter handle (hidden so that my next sandwich doesn't include undesirable ingredients not listed above) and even pokes a bit of fun at any and everything being on Facebook & Twitter: "We couldn't resist..."

That being said, what caught my eye was the sign's location:

Unless the clientèle of this eatery are much more likely than average customers to drop creamers and sweetener packets on the ground, I do not think this is the best target-marketing of the year.

Just a reminder that social media is not an "If you build it, they will come," endeavor. Be smart and promote your efforts. ...Preferably where people can see the promotions!

10 Elevator Pitch Tips for Non-Profits

When speaking to nonprofit leaders, one of the first things I ask them to share with me is their elevator pitch - the quick description of your cause that will motivate a listener to ask for more information, invest in your efforts and/or encourage others to engage with your organization. This provides me with:

a) How: How focused leadership is on the organization's mission?
b) What: What is the organization focused on and trying to do?
c) Why: Why should someone support this organization (the case for support.)

Granted, if there is a lack of clarity on a), it is likely b) & c) are murky. The same can be said for c) if b) is unclear. More importantly, if your leadership can't speak about why to invest in your organization, why would anyone on the team be able to do so? ...And why should a donor invest in you?

Along these lines, Paul Hudnut recently blogged about Chip & Dan Heath's newsletter article on six great tips for elevator pitches. Hudnut also provided four additional tips to equal ten tips for elevator pitches.

Given how important this can be for non-profits, I provide you with the Heath & Hudnut list, Through Non-Profit Eyes. I believe it is important for everyone in your non-profit to have a sense for the elevator pitch, even if they are "backroom" staff who many rarely or never engage with constituents. There is a sense of focus and importance that comes with an employee fine-tuning the elevator pitch.

1. Think short - no shorter than 30 seconds and no longer than 3 minutes. Time it. Practice it. Get feedback from your invested donors and board members.

2. If your topic is complex, use the "anchor & twist" format to orient your audience. Anchor on your organization's impact - we help people lift themselves up, we help students graduate from college and make an impact in the community, we prevent childhood obesity, etc. - and twist to the investment that will make the end result happen.

3. Don't wing it, script it. Once you've figured out how to explain something well, there is NO value in novelty. Tell it the same (effective) way every time. (* I must add that while you should script it, it does not mean you can't improve your script over time via input, etc.) Videotape yourself and critique how engaging you are. As the old Head & Shoulders campaign reminded us: you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

4. 'Why' comes before 'What.' People will understand better what you're doing if they first know why you're doing it. Here's an example: "Most people invest some of their savings and give some of it away to charity. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do both at once -- get interest AND impact? That's why we invented the Calvert Community Investment Notes."

5. Mandatory: Include a story. For a nonprofit pitch, talk about the people or cause you help. Put a true face to the aide.

6. Check out other pitches for inspiration. Here's one that the Heath brothers worked on for Peter Singer's great book, The Life You Can Save:

7. Know what you want and include an ask. This does not have to be a request for a financial contribution - it can be an ask for volunteer work, ideas or even just more time to discuss your organization. Invite them to be engaged with your efforts.

8. Tell "who." Illustrate why you and your team are the right people to implement your efforts and why you will be successful. People like winners. Illustrate why you and your co-workers are winners.

9. Use questions as well as statements. This shifts your audience from questioning and challenging your idea to wanting to assist you.

10. Delivery matters. In the restaurant business, it is a common training tip for wait staff to say something like "Your customer should never know if you're having a bad day." The same goes for your elevator pitch - have passion, clarity and focus. Make it clear you are not just an employee of the non-profit, but a believer, ambassador and active participant.

Think through all the non-verbal aspects of your pitch. Videotape yourself. Seriously. You get one chance to make your best impression.

Your goals:

a) Make your audience curious - you want them to leave wondering what they could do for you and what more they could learn about your cause.

b) Get your audience to discuss your pitch with others.

c) Have an opportunity to revisit the audience members to firm up investment of time, talent and money.

Share your thoughts, elevator pitch and other input below in the comments section!

Be Our Guest: Tracey Webb

Tracey Webb, founder of BlackGivesBack.com, is our latest guest in the Be Our Guest series. Tracey has been working in the fields of nonprofit administration, grant making, social services, and philanthropy for nearly 20 years. She has an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of the District of Columbia and a Master’s degree in counseling psychology from Howard University.

Tracey is founder of the Black Benefactors, a philanthropic membership network, also known as a giving circle, that provides grants to nonprofit organizations serving the African American community in the Washington, DC region. As I mentioned above, she is also the founder and editor of BlackGivesBack.com, the premier online destination for African American philanthropy.

Thank you to Tracey for sharing her knowledge and opinions!

BlackGivesBack on: Twitter / Facebook / Blogger /Website

The Black Benefactors on: Twitter / Facebook /Website

What is the biggest challenge your fundraising efforts (or those you consult) currently face?

My biggest current challenge with the Black Benefactors is soliciting donations. I know that the economy is a factor, and there are many other nonprofit organizations that are seeking donations as well. Washington, DC is home to more nonprofit organizations than most major cities.

What are you doing to overcome these challenges?

For people who wish to become a member of the Black Benefactors, we offer an installment plan as an option. The annual donation amount is $250 for individuals/couples and $2,500 for corporate membership. Members can donate their contribution over the course of 6-8 months. We’ll begin to use an e-newsletter highlighting our grantees and our progress that will be sent not just to our members, but to our supporters as well that will begin this fall. This way, people who are thinking about becoming a member or donating will be up to date on our efforts. We’ll host recruitment events so potential members can learn more about what we do and meet current members; and revamp the website. Currently I’m also exploring partnerships with area foundations as another way to address challenges of fundraising.

What is the most successful change/program implementation you have made in your current role (or as a consultant to others)?

Using social media as a marketing tool! Facebook and Twitter have been very helpful in getting the word out about us, our events, and events in the community that we support. We’ve reached many supporters using social media that I don’t think we would have been able to connect with, such as potential grantees and members, community representatives and future donors.

Where do you see social-media’s best application for fundraising?

Facebook causes, other online donation tools that make it easier for people to donate, and spread the word encouraging their friends to donate as well.

What book / blog / twitter feed would you suggest fundraisers pay attention to in order to further develop their skills?

As the Black Benefactors’ mission is to provide grants for organizations serving the African American community, one target population for donations is, of course, African Americans who live and work in the DC region. A subset of this population is the affluent African American consumer, which has an estimated buying power of over 80 billion. Many companies, marketers and even nonprofit organizations have overlooked this segment as a consumer and donor. In the new book, Black Is the New Green, it provides tips for reaching this segment they term as ‘the Royaltons,’ such as what they like, what makes them brand loyal, their philanthropic activities, and most importantly, how to reach them. The book has provided me with valuable tips for building our individual donor base among this segment.

What question would you find most useful for the readers to answer?

I'd like to know what makes a person donate to a cause?

Report: Top 100 Charities Social Media Engagement & Promotion

Before downloading the report, I would appreciate it if you would enter your email address to receive updates & tips from this blog (not required - if you prefer to skip, report is below):

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A full report on the social media engagement and promotion highlighted in this post is now available, including grades, methodology and conclusions from the research. My hope is that this report serves as a catalyst for improved social media engagement & promotion for various non-profits. If the best practice highlighted in the report inspires you to make any changes or improvements, please let me know.

I have had multiple organizations contact me about whether I can grade their home pages relative to peers - please email me or comment on this post and I will be happy to do so.

Multiple organizations and web designers have asked if there is a badge highlighting good grades from the report. Please email me and I will provide you with the proper code to install such a badge.

You can find the full report here.

Comment Moderation

Hi all,

Unfortunately, this blog has been a target for spam / phishing comments for the last month or two. I prefer to leave comment moderation turned off, but have turned it on effective today. I would feel terrible is someone obtained a computer virus, etc. by clicking on a spam link in the comments here... so I'll error on the side of control. Rest assured, I will post any and all legitimate comments.

Cheers,

DTM

Grading the Top 100 Charity Brands on Social Media Web Promotion

UPDATE 09/08/10:

Full report now available here.

UPDATE 09/03/10:

I have updated this to include actual grades for each of the top 100 charity brands - you will find these grades at the end of the post, as well as some additional examples of the "A+" charities. I hate to give a charity a bad grade, but the reality of the situation is that many are under-utilizing social media.

Original Post:

I was happy to find Cherita Smith's recent post, Adventures in Nonprofit Email Marketing, where Cherita conducted an experiment on how well the Core Nonprofit Power Brand 100 did at responding to email subscriptions, encouraging such subscriptions and harnessing the power of email lists. (@cheritatweets / blog / post)

She uncovered some interesting findings and it piqued my interest regarding the list relative to one of the 8 Common Social Media Mistakes I had posted last month:

2) Making it hard to find your social presence on your websites.
When someone visits one of your primary landing pages (home page, event page, information page, etc.), it should be easy to see the social media links - using icons - without having to dig and find them. I have seen various NPOs who do not have a link to any of their social media accounts anywhere on their website. Use the icons because people's eyes are trained to notice the Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. icons, but may quickly look past the words "Twitter" or "Facebook" if mixed in with other links.

So, as a companion piece to Cherita's, I did some research on the same 100 charities to analyze how well they promoted social media via their respective websites. A few notes:

• I tracked the three "main" platforms: Twitter, Facebook, & YouTube
• I saw examples of LinkedIn, Friendster, Flickr (probably the 4th most common), MySpace & Vimeo, but not a significant enough number to track.
• I also made note of whether or not links to the org's blog(s) were included.
• I refused to dig for the links on secondary pages - If I can't find your link to your blog and social media accounts on your main page, you aren't doing a good job of promoting them.
• For some reason, Core excluded colleges & universities from the study. The only reason I can fathom is that it would have significantly increased the work required to produce the report. Higher education historically has some of the most powerful brand recognition in the country (Harvard, Stanford, Florida, Texas... just to name a few). One argument for not including these institutions could be that the Florida Gators, Texas Longhorns, etc. gain from athletic prowess, but I don't think the Harvard crew team is doing much for Harvard's brand recognition. I digress...

Here are the findings. Of the 100 charities:

- 41% had a Twitter logo on the landing page, visible without scrolling down the page.

- 26% had a Twitter logo on the landing page, visible after scrolling down the page.

- 2% had current tweets visible on the page (without an app)

- 5% had current tweets visible via an app.

- 4% had the word "Twitter" listed as a link, without a logo.

- 30% had no mention of Twitter

- 42% had a Facebook logo on the landing page, visible without scrolling down the page.

- 27% had a Facebook logo on the landing page, visible after scrolling down the page.

- 5% had a Facebook app on the page.

- 4% had the word "Facebook" listed as a link, without a logo.

- 27% had no mention of Facebook

- 31% had a YouTube logo on the landing page, visible without scrolling down the page.

- 19% had a YouTube logo on the landing page, visible after scrolling down the page.

- 14% had a YouTube video embedded on the page.

- 2% had the word "YouTube" listed as a link, without a logo.

- 46% had no mention of YouTube

- 47% had a link to their blog

- 53% did not have a link to their blog

* Note: In the Twitter, Facebook & YouTube categories, totals add to more than 100% because some orgs had logos with and without scrolling, had links and embedded videos or apps, etc.

I have to say that the overall findings are a bit disheartening. Particularly these:

- 30% had no mention of Twitter

- 27% had no mention of Facebook

- 46% had no mention of YouTube

- 53% did not have a link to their blog

Plus this one:

- 17% had no social media listing whatsoever, including 2 of the top 10 and 5 of the top 20.

While there are exceptions to every rule, it is difficult not to view these as missed opportunities for the "top 100 branded charities." What does this say about the Not-Top-100?

As Cherita did, though... I look to end on a positive note. Here are some positive examples from the list:

The International Rescue Commission (which also made the "nice" list for Cherita) has a nice landing page. Links at the top to YouTube, Twitter & Facebook (could be a little larger, in my opinion) and a great embedded YouTube video:

Mercy Corps Great Facebook, Twitter, mobile & email subscription links that pop as soon as you land on the page. Also includes a Twitter app below the fold and a nice social app listing recent donations:

Thoughts? Any other non-profits not on the list that you think have great social media presence on their website?

UPDATE: Agree w/ Cherita below... here's World Wildlife Fund:

Handing out the grades

These grades were attained by scoring each of the characteristics noted above, applying the "C" grade to the average score and distributing grades from that point.

A+
Big Brother Big Sisters of America
Union Rescue Mission

A look at the two A+ charities, both are great... though the URM page may be my favorite because of the "notifications" on the icons - as in the Twitter example below. If you click on the Twitter icon, the four URM accounts are shown:

A
The Salvation Army
Food for the Poor
International Rescue Committee
Natural Resources Defense Council
American Nicaraguan Foundation
Environmental Defense Fund
World Wildlife Fund
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Muscular Dystrophy Association
Mercy Corps

A-
United Way of America
American Red Cross
Goodwill Industries
Girl Scouts of the USA
Volunteers of America
CARE USA
March of Dimes Foundation
Project HOPE
National Audubon Society
Teach for America
Heifer Project International
Cross International Aid
Oxfam America

B+
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

B
The Arc of the United States
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
Boy Scouts of America
Shriners Hospitals for Children
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
Make-A-Wish Foundation of America
Academy for Educational Development
MAP International
Direct Relief International
Special Olympics
Combined Jewish Philanthropies
Covenant House
Local Initiatives Support Corporation

B-
Save the Children Federation
Ducks Unlimited
Arthritis Foundation
American SPCA
Medical Teams International
International Aid Inc.
Easter Seals

C+
Alzheimer's Association
Children's Hunger Fund
International Medical Corps

C
Habitat for Humanity International
Feed the Children
American Diabetes Association
American Kidney Fund
Paralyzed Veterans of America
National Kidney Foundation
JA Worldwide
Camp Fire USA

C-
The Nature Conservancy
The Trust for Public Land
The Humane Society of the United States

D
World Vision
Gifts in Kind International
PATH
Gleaning for the World
YWCA USA
Hope for the City
Operation Smile

F
World Emergency Relief
Project Orbis International
Catholic Charities USA
The Conservation Fund
Mental Health America
Heart to Heart International
Samaritan's Purse
Doctors Without Borders
Feeding America
United States Fund for UNICEF
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Institute of International Education
Conservation International Foundation
Children's Network International
National Wildlife Federation
United Cerebral Palsy Association
YMCA of the USA
American Cancer Society
American Heart Association
Planned Parenthood Federation
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
AmeriCares
City of Hope
Compassion International
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
Wildlife Conservation Society
Marine Toys for Tots Foundation
The Rotary Foundation
National Cancer Coalition
Children International
Adventist Development and Relief Agency
American Lung Association
Girls Inc.

Results: Should gift officers make gift to organization?

I posted the above question last week. The results did not surprise me, but it is good to see the actual numbers:

The "Other" responses included one from a consultant who writes letters for many orgs and does not see the need to support each of them and one without a comment.

That being said, having overseen staff fundraising campaigns previously, I doubt 87% of fundraisers do make a gift to their employers. I also have seen the divide between "frontline fundraisers" and "backroom operations" / "support staff" in terms of giving percentages. This is why I hammer home the need to make everyone on your team embrace the fact that every individual is a fundraiser, even if they don't go out and make the final ask. The research, support, etc. are all critical components of a fundraising campaign and should be recognized as such.

If you have giving percentages for your organization feel free to share below (anonymously) or share your thoughts in the comment section.