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Fundraising, Social Media & Social Capital?

November 30, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

When Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone came out in 2000, ‘social capital’ became a social sector buzz word. We realized that social capital was what allowed nonprofits to ask volunteers for their time, donors for their dollars and legislators for their support. The more you had, the more you could do.

With its potential for such goodness, we wondered: how does an organization generate social capital? We learned this equation:

Trust + Reciprocity = Social Capital

Generally speaking, honest, effective nonprofits garner high levels of trust. The stumbling block has been reciprocity. This is where social media comes in.

When social capital came on the scene, social media wasn’t yet on our radar. Our ability to reciprocate was limited and, often, expensive, which hampered our ability to generate significant amounts of social capital. But with social media, we can now give updates, newsflashes, and tantalizing tidbits of information to people who care about our cause and ask nothing in return. We can reciprocate with abandon!

For instance, if your organization is using the Beyond Cash Fundraising Dashboard created by Peter Drury of Splash, this gives you an easy, low-cost, low-resource way to dramatically increase your Non-Ask Ratio (i.e. the number of times you interact with a donor without asking for financial support). If you’re an organization that relies heavily on volunteers–e.g. EarthCorps or Habitat for Humanity–think of all the wonderful ways you now have to show how important they are to your organization.

There is much talk about how to use social media for fundraising. Here’s how: focus on its ability to generate social capital. Rather than thinking of Facebook as a vehicle for asking for donations, think of it as a way to shine a bright, joyful spotlight on the impact you’re having in the community so donors can see on a regular basis how–by working together with you–they are making the world a better place. Then when you do make an ask, they will be excited at the opportunity to give.

We may still be bowling alone. But social media offers the social sector a golden opportunity to usher in an era of e-bowling together.

Marketing-Fundraising: A Happy Continuum

October 26, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

We chose to focus on the Marketing-Fundraising Tango this month because so many of our nonprofit friends and colleagues voiced confusion, frustration or consternation at how this works (or more accurately doesn’t work) at their organizations. The amount of brow-furrowing over this is interesting to me since marketing and fundraising are simply different means to the very important end of engaging people with your cause.

Here’s perhaps a different (and hopefully helpful) way of thinking about this. Rather than thinking of these two functions separately, think of them as points along a relationship continuum. On one end, you have marketing and the other fundraising. On the marketing end of the continuum, you focus on attracting new supporters to the organization by reaching out to groups of individuals (otherwise known as target audiences). These are largely one-to-many activities such as advertising, community events, and PR.

As you slide further toward the fundraising end of the continuum, the activities become more tailored to an individual, rather than a collection of individuals. They are personalized activities meant to deepen a supporter’s relationship with your organization.

When you think of marketing and fundraising as a continuum, then you simply adjust your position to support your current goals and objectives. If you have had above-average attrition and need to attract new donors, you might settle on a spot closer to the marketing end of the continuum. If you have a solid donor base and want to increase the number of major donors you have, you’d likely slide over to the fundraising end.

Fun with Network Mapping

October 20, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

Fundraising and marketing teams often trip over each other’s feet when dancing the Marketing-Fundraising Tango. This can be especially true when it comes to managing relationships with individuals who engage in multiple ways, e.g. someone who volunteers, hosts a table at the annual auction and is a major donor.

An exercise called Network Mapping is a handy way to avoid those awkward missteps and deepen relationships with key supporters.

We learned about Network Mapping in Beth Kantor and Allison Fine’s excellent book, The Networked Nonprofit. The authors of the book, along with Danielle Bridiga and Marc Sirkin, gave a Care 2 Webinar on the Networked Nonprofit. (Here’s a link to a summary and the recording over at the Care 2 Frogloop blog…great fodder for a rejuvenating lunch.)

In a recent blog post Beth Kantor summed up the questions you ask when doing Network Mapping, “When you map your network, it tells you a story. Who is connected to whom? How are they interacting? Where are the clusters? Who are the influencers? Who are the bridge builders between clusters? Who is in the edges? Who isn’t connected? Who should I spend my time responding to and cultivating? The analysis looks at frequency of interaction, relationship structure (two-way, one-way), and helps reveal structural similarities.”

See how handy it could be for fundraising and marketing teams to have a shared understanding of the answers to these questions?!

There are many ways to do Network Mapping, many of which are laid out in this blog post by Beth Kantor, the Network Mapping It Gal of our time. Our favorite approach for first-time mappers is to use low tech tools like crayons or post-it notes to map out your network. Sounds old-school and it is–it also works really, really well.

Has your organization mapped its networks? Any success stories to share?

Dancing the Marketing-Fundraising Tango

October 4, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression: It takes two to tango. What you might not have realized is that, if you do nonprofit marketing and/or fundraising, you’re part of a tango-ing twosome.

That’s right. As a nonprofiteer you are as passionate about your mission as Argentinian tango masters are about their lifts, twirls and sultry gazes. Unfortunately, the Marketing-Fundraising Tango often involves two dancers swirling around the dance floor on their own, rather than as a dynamic duo.

We all know that when marketing and fundraising coordinate their steps, it’s a sight to behold. Donors get a print newsletter with a hand-written note from their fav development officer. Volunteers are highlighted in a blog post that then gets forwarded to fans and friends. Donor profiles are so compelling they end up in Facebook posts all over the world wide web. And messaging is clear, consistent and compelling regardless of who wrote it, says it, or tweets it.

You might be rolling your eyes and thinking, “We dance more like Elaine from Seinfeld than [Argentinian tango legend] Mariana Mazzola!” Don’t worry–anyone can learn to tango. Really.

To get you started, here are three simple things you can do to dramatically improve your Marketing-Fundraising Tango:

Write short n’ sweet job descriptions for your marketing and fundraising teams. If you write a job description, it becomes clear who is in charge of what. No two organizations are alike. In some organizations, the fundraising team handles the newsletter. In others, that’s up to the marketing team. Same with the website, annual report, blogs, events, etc. The point is to get clarity for your organization so you can dance in concert. The job descriptions shouldn’t be long or take long. Try to keep them to 2-3 sentences. Then share them with both teams and discuss at your next All Team Meeting (see #3 below).
Once you’re clear on which team is in charge of what, have each team set their top 3 goals for the year. Then make sure everyone knows what they are. It sounds so obvious, but it’s shocking how little info-sharing happens between teams. It’s handy if you know where your partner is headed on the dance floor! [Note: Even if you are a team of 1, do #1 and #2. It’ll bring clarity and focus to your work, which is especially important if you’re a super small shop!]
Dancers get good because they practice. They learn to read the other person’s body language and adjust accordingly. So hold weekly All Team Meetings where everyone from marketing and fundraising gets to know what’s going on across both teams. Since most of us need an extra meeting as much as we need two left feet, think about merging existing team meetings or at least shortening them so you’re making the most of the time you’re already investing in meetings. By knowing what your partner is doing and thinking as a marketing-fundraising duo, you will naturally begin to think about how fundraising and marketing efforts can augment each other. For example: if your marketing department posts a great article, the development director could send the link to a donor to make sure they saw it. Or the development department could post a story highlighting a top donor once a month on the blog and the marketing department could then use the profiles in the quarterly newsletter. Over time, you will be able to anticipate each other’s steps and take full advantage of your partner’s fancy footwork.

With job descriptions, goals and weekly meetings, you’ll be doing the Marketing-Fundraising Tango in no time!

The Major Gifts Symposium Gets Sexy

September 29, 2010 by Erica Barnhart

AFP-WA’s Major Gifts Symposium was a downright sexy affair.

It all started when Peter Drury of DZO Strategists explained that many boards were engaged in risky business and weren’t using protection. (Goodness!) Peter’s contention is that if success is gauged solely on whether you achieve this year’s cash goals, you might put your organization at risk long-term. Luckily, he offered protection in the form of the Beyond Cash Fundraising Dashboard.

Then at lunch, Susan Howlett was on fire as she gave a smouldering keynote that involved a life-size picture of Michelangelo’s David. Eventually David got some clothes on, but it took some doing. If you want to learn what the clothes-less David has to do with inspiring leaders to raise money joyfully, check out Susan’s new book, Boards on Fire.

We left the Symposium feeling incredibly proud and honored to be part of Seattle’s sexy–and seriously talented, committed and inspiring–nonprofit community.

Has anyone read Susan’s book or used the Beyond Cash Fundraising Dashboard? What do you think of these home-grown tools?