How Google+ Save The World!

Please excuse the sensationalism embedded in the title of this post. However, it is done so with good intention. Since Google+ became the latest and greatest (and shiniest!) new toy in social media, various blog postings and articles are eager to tout what's great about the platform, what's wrong with it and - of course - who is most important and popular on the network. Here's a sampling (though I encourage you to only skim these with an eye toward realizing how over-the-top and knee-jerk these posts may be):

• Already trying to measure who is the coolest (surely Klout will add this soon and the misinformed world of measuring online influence will get more confused and murky): Circle Count


• A knee-jerk reaction to how Google+ appeared initially, though changes will surely follow: The Google Plus 50


• How G+ means Facebook is in trouble and Twitter is dead!


• Why Google+ will change the world!!!

So what does this mean for your nonprofit? And why is the title of this post just as sensational? Well... the title was to get your attention. Hopefully I still have it. I don't want to mislead you, but rather I want to get your attention and - hopefully - keep you from making the mistake many will make with every new platform: Diving in way too fast.

What this all means for your nonprofit is... Take a deep breath. Learn about the platform. Listen to those using it. Play around as an individual and learn what works and what doesn't. Don't - don't! - make super quick decisions on how to use it.

G+ just may be Google's successful foray into social media (finally... remember Wave? Buzz?). But focus your resources on learning before you dive into the deep end. If you need further motivation to slow down on Google+, Google has announced they'll gradually be deleting non-human accounts (nonprofits, businesses, etc.) until they roll out business profiles at a later date. So if you do too much, it may be for nothing.

To recap - What are the most important things to do in the meantime?

1) Listen & Learn

2) Continue to do well on the other platforms (For example, you should really take a second and like my firm on Facebook) :)

Planning Ahead - April & May Holidays Your #Nonprofit Can Use

As many of you know, there is a page on this blog dedicated to holidays nonprofit organizations may be able to use for creative awareness or fundraising campaigns or internal management - such as getting your volunteers and team behind National Volunteer Week (April 10-16). Or you could get your staff to take part in National Card and Letter Writing Month, writing to donors. And I'd love to see an organization embrace National Inspirational News Week as a way to kickoff a program that regularly illustrates the positive impact the organization has.

In May, highlights include Donate-A-Day's-Wages Day, International Museum Day, National New Friends, Old Friends Week (Good for using on Facebook?) and Teacher Appreciation Week. If you have any doubts about that last one, make sure you watch this video recently shared with me by Heidi Ketrosey Massey:

So here are some April & May holidays you can use. If you're interested in planning further ahead or reviewing some of the guidelines on making these holiday campaigns successful for your organization, make sure to visit the original page.

Here's a quick snapshot of some of April's holidays you may be able to use:

Adult Autism Day
April Fools or All Fools Day
Arbor Day
Autism Awareness Month
Cancer Control Month
Child Abuse Prevention Month
Earth Day
Every Day is Earth Day
Global Child Nutrition Month
Golden Rule Week
Jazz Appreciation Month
National & Global Youth Service Days
National Card and Letter Writing Month
National Child Abuse Prevention Month
National Environmental Week
National Garden Month
National Go Birding Day
National Inspirational News Week
National Love Our Children Day
National Networking Week
National Park Week
National Parkinson's Awareness Month
National Public Health Week
National Sexual Assault Awareness Month
National Volunteer Week
National Week of the Ocean
Physical Wellness Month
Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month
School Library Media Month
Testicular Cancer Awareness Week
World Autism Day
World Habitat Awareness Month
World Health Day
World Hemophilia Day
World Parkinson's Disease Day

And here's a look at some of May's holidays you may be able to use:

ALS Awareness Month
American Wetlands Month
Arthritis Awareness Month
Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Be Kind To Animals Week
Birthmother's Day (Saturday before Mother's Day)
Brain Tumor Awareness Month
Childhood Depression Awareness Day
Children's Book Week
Children's Mental Health Awareness Day
Children's Mental Health Week
Clean Air Month
Donate A Day's Wages To Charity
Drinking Water Week
EcoDriving Month
Fibromyalgia Education and Awareness Month
Go Fetch! Food Drive for Homeless Animals Month
Heal the Children Month
International Day of Families
International Jazz Day
International Migratory Bird Day
International Museum Day
Letter Carrier's Food Drive Day
Loyalty Day
Lupus Awareness Month
Memorial Day
Mother Ocean Day
Mother's Day
National Allergy/Asthma Awareness Month
National Anxiety & Depression Awareness Week
National Bike to Work Day
National Bike to Work Week
National Dance Day
National Endangered Species Day
National Family Week
National Hepatitis Awareness Month
National Hug Holiday Week
National Mental Health Month
National New Friends, Old Friends Week
National Pet Week
National Photo Month
National Physical Fitness & Sports Month
National Preservation Month
National Smile Month
National Stroke Awareness Month
National Teacher Day
National Wildflower Week
National Women's Health Week
Neighbor Day
Personal History Month
Reading is Fun Week
Teacher Appreciation Week
Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month
Women's Health Care Month
World Asthma Day
World Fair Trade Day
World Hypertension Day
World Turtle Day
Young Achievers of Tomorrow Month

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• I've joined an incredible team at Marts & Lundy as a consultant.
• The work and opportunities have come quickly and are keeping me quite busy.
• Did I mention how great the team is at M&L? Incredible collection of experience, but also genuinely good people. I'm loving it.

Cons:

• Being busy with everything else has taken a toll on the production level of this blog. I hope to add more soon... really soon.
• Any specific topics y'all are interested in?

Enjoy the weekend!

Free Webinar 2/22: Common Social Media Mistakes & How To Avoid Them

Quick heads up on a webinar I'm giving on Feb 22 @ 1:00 Eastern:

Common Social Media Mistakes, Misconceptions & Missed Opportunites:

This one-hour (including Q&A session) webinar will examine 5 mistakes, 5 misconceptions & 5 missed opportunities for nonprofits' work with social media AND how to turn these around into positive aspects of your social strategy. Not only would I welcome your attendance, I encourage feedback, questions, etc. - If you have any best practice with your institution you would like included in the highlights or follow-up material, let me know. There's quite a bit in the presentation already, but I'm always happy to add more as appropriate.

For more visit: http://martsandlundy.com/webinar.php

Love For Nonprofits

Just a friendly reminder to show some love to your favorite nonprofits... and to find some new ones to love. Nonprofit organizations make a huge impact on our world and the local communities within. I certainly [heart] nonprofits and hope you do too!

Kenneth Cole Illustrates How Not To Use Social Media

Wow. Using a tragedy or conflict like what we're seeing in Egypt is no way to promote one's company. This is exactly how not to use Twitter or any other social platform. While Kenneth Cole has tweeted an apology, I'm quite surprised that this was posted in the first place. Kenneth Cole has also posted this apology on Facebook (screenshot below). Make note of the consumer feedback.

This clearly doesn't have to do directly with fundraising, but it should be a reminder for nonprofits to be sensitive in all communications - particularly social media where controversy can spread like wildfire.

Shout-out: Thanks to Lisa Byrne (@lisabyrne) for bringing this to my attention.

Save The Children's Groupon Experiment

In December, Save The Children (web / Facebook / Twitter / Flickr / YouTube) took the concept of a challenge match for giving on to a new platform for an appeal - the fast-growing Groupon. In case you have missed the explosion of Groupon, it is a deal-a-day site based on harnessing collective buying power for a lower price. For example, Widgets, Inc. may offer to sell their 2011 Widget for $14, when it is normally $20. However, they will only offer the discount if they get 125 people to sign-up for the deal. In theory, this is a win-win... consumers get a price break on something they desire and businesses know that they will only be offering the lower price if they can make up for it in sales volume.

Back to Save The Children... STC had a group willing to fund a challenge gift and agreed to match up to $225,000 of gifts. Rather than send a typical email or mailing about the challenge or ramp up phone calls, STC partnered with Groupon to offer a "discount" on giving - You "make" a gift of $30 for only $15. In order for the deal to kick-in, 200 people had to sign up for the gift. They easily surpassed that total and secured 1,953 pledges to give.

While in many ways, you can consider this campaign a success for the exposure Save The Children received, I was curious whether or not STC considered this a success. Particularly when you consider fulfillment. If 100% of the pledges were fulfilled, which is obviously unlikely, only $29,295 of the potential $225,000 (13%) would be secured. So with my curiosity piqued, I reached out to STC with a few brief interview questions. I am very grateful to Brian Beirne, STC's senior director for internet marketing and communications for taking the time to respond and discuss the Groupon campaign. Here are my questions to STC with Brian's response below:

1) When & how did the idea for partnering with Groupon come along?
2) How did you market the opportunity?
3) Will you continue to use Groupon going forward for donor challenge gifts?
4) Are there any changes you would make if you could redo the campaign?
5) What are your plans to keep the Groupon donors and increase their giving in the future?

We are constantly exploring new ways to get our message out and reach new donors. Noting the considerable press coverage Groupon received during the late Summer of 2010, we first reached out to them in October of last year about a possible partnership. Fortunately for us and for children around the world, Groupon is a very philanthropic organization, founded in fact originally to fund charitable projects as a site called The Point.

In order to offer the discount to Groupon customers, we secured a matching offer from a small group of anonymous donors who agreed to match every dollar raised through the Groupon deal with another dollar. This enabled us to offer a $30 donation for only $15. We communicated the Groupon deal primarily through our social channels, posting it on our Facebook page and Tweeting updates throughout the course of the promotion.

Groupon customers who participated in this promotion have until March 31, 2011 to register their Groupon with Save the Children and opt in to receive future communications from us. Upon registration, a personalized thank you email is sent to the donor. To date, around 30% of participants have registered, and 90% of those are new donors. The deal was only made available to Groupon’s subscribers based in the US. A full analysis will be performed once the registration period ends, but we are very pleased with the early indicators.

There are several options we are considering for future promotions to try and build on this success, including a choice of price points and funding for specific projects and programs – we want to be able to offer the donor as much choice and flexibility as possible. Groupon has a very active and engaged user base, which skews younger than our average donor profile. To be able to engage this group in a fun, innovative way, and to give them the opportunity to help create positive change for children in need in the US and around the world, is a win-win for all involved.

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UPDATE: One thing I forgot to mention - Kudos to STC for trying such a unique approach to fundraising!

Myths of Social Media Fundraising

In one of my recent Google alerts, I was directed to an article from Greenleaf Project Management titled Using Social Media For Fundraising. As a social media learn-aholic and fundraising professional, I was drawn to the posting. That was the end of the positive experience... Unfortunately, the post illustrated what many social media fundraising 'newbies' and more than a few nonprofit executives think about the channel. Consider this post a bit of a rebuttal.

Per the post:

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"Most businesses and organizations aren’t ready to commit to quite (the extent Ben & Jerry's did by only advertising via social media), but make no mistake, you should not be without a presence on these powerful (social media) sites. Why?

#1: It’s free. Free advertising and promotion! Never, ever turn down free advertising.

#2: The reach is huge: Facebook alone has more than 500 million users, 50% of whom are “active users” who log on every day. Twitter signs up about 300,000 new users every day, according to an article in the Huffington Post.

#3: The number of people who may see your marketing is limitless (“viral marketing”).

#4: Allows your organization to benefit from person-to-person fundraising.

#5: It’s fast and requires little monitoring."

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Let's break these down, one-by-one.

#1: It's free.

No. It's not. If you are going to do social media management and fundraising properly and have any success, it's going to take time & money. This commitment of resources also represents the opportunity cost of not dedicating the resources to other priorities, like face-to-case fundraising, events, etc.

Bonus #1a: "Never turn down free advertising." - Basic marketing should tell you that this is not always the case. Free advertising may not be in a location/channel that aligns with your organization's values. Free advertising must align with the audience you are targeting, your messaging strategy, etc.

#2: The reach is huge.

I find this quite misleading. The potential reach is huge... the reach is only as good as your messaging and your network.

#3: The number of people who may see your marketing is limitless (“viral marketing”).

Ugh. Anyone who tells you that you can plan viral marketing has never tried to do so. A microscopic percentage of postings go viral and those that do generally aren't things you would want to associate with your nonprofit. Here are two of the most popular viral videos of all time... not exactly nonprofit material:

Numa Numa:

Leave Britney Alone!

#4: Allows your organization to benefit from person-to-person fundraising.

Sure... to an extent. But there's a lot of legwork required to make this happen - a support network in your organization, a successful communication strategy that makes the case for support, people willing to champion your cause and ask for gifts, software/data integration to manage the volunteer gift program, etc.


#5: It’s fast and requires little monitoring.



Social media fundraising is far from "set it and forget it," like the good ol' Showtime Compact Rotisserie & BBQ Oven.

If you want to raise money with social media, it is going to require a time commitment and monitoring, so as to develop the conversation and listen to your constituents.

I certainly do not like punching holes in another's blog post, but this one demanded it - there are simply too many myths being perpetuated.

USPS Rate Increase News

FYI to fundraisers that use direct mail... quick info on postage rate increase from USPS, courtesy of friends at Diamond Marketing Solutions:

The USPS announced (January 13) that they plan to increase rates on April 17, not in May as previously expected.

The increase will average 1.7%, but we expect significant variations by rate category. You will need to check the changes for the specific categories you use to determine the impact on your budget. We hope to have comparisons by rate category shortly and will publish them as soon as they are available.

Postmaster General Pat Donahoe told a group of mailing industry executives this morning that the Postal Service is filing their rate increase request with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) this afternoon. The PRC must approve the rates, but their approval is limited to determining that the proposed rates do not exceed the CPI rate cap (currently 1.7%) mandated by law.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user katmere.

Planning Ahead - February Holidays Your Nonprofit Can Use

As many of you know, there is a page on this blog dedicated to holidays nonprofit organizations may be able to use for creative awareness or fundraising campaigns or internal management - such as getting your volunteers and team behind Random Acts of Kindness Week (February 14-18) - By the way, if you're a manager, take advantage of this excuse to surprise your employees with some kindness.

So, about three weeks in advance, to give you a little time to plan ahead, I give you some February holidays you can use. If you're interested in planning further ahead or reviewing some of the guidelines on making these holiday campaigns successful for your organization, make sure to visit the original page.

Here's a quick snapshot of some of February's holidays you may be able to use:

Adopt A Rescued Rabbit Month
Alzheimers and Dementia Awareness Week
American Heart Month
Celebration of Love Week
Children's Authors & Illustrators Week
Give Kids A Smile Day
International Friendship Week
Just Say No to Powerpoints Week
Library Lovers Month
Love Your Pet Day
National African American History Month
National Bird Feeding Month
National Black History Month
National Donor Day - IMPORTANT - this is meant as organ donors.
National Entrepreneurship Week
National Have A Heart Day
National Women's Heart Day
Plant the Seeds of Greatness Month
Random Acts of Kindness Week
Rare Disease Day
Valentines Day
Women's Heart Week
World Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day
World Day for Social Justice
World Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Week
Youth Leadership Month