Social Media

In a webinar last month, Jeff Patrick and Sarah Desilets discussed the fundraising capabilities of Facebook Causes and tips on how to use the application for your organization.

WPP, the world’s largest communications services group, announces that it has agreed to acquire all the assets of privately held Blue State Digital, LLC (BSD) in the United States and the United Kingdom through WPP Digital, the digital investment and operating arm of WPP. Blue State Digital is a full-service digital agency specializing in advocacy, membership and fundraising campaigns for nonprofits, educational and cultural institutions, political campaigns and corporate brands.

Reach Out and Read CEO Earl Martin Phalen discusses his organization and its fundraising techniques.

When black college students began the sit-in protests that led to the integration of the Jim Crow South, news spread quickly by word of mouth. Soon, students in several states were engaged in similar nonviolent sit-ins, spurring on the civil rights movement.

Here are six rules for implementing a successful social-media strategy in your organization and for-profit examples nonprofits can model themselves after.

AFP CEO Paulette Maehara shares her thoughts on Convio's positive 2010 Holiday Giving Survey findings.

There's been an explosion of online intermediaries promising to help nonprofits raise money and awareness. Crowdrise, Jumo, Causecast, Causes on Facebook and others try to use social networking and crowdsourcing to build interest in charities and causes, and help them attract donations.

But for many nonprofits, the value remains to be seen. For one thing, they hand partial control over charity brand names and trademarks to users who are often unknown to the nonprofits they support. And virtually all of them ask users to pay to donate.

The NSPCC has received donations totalling £100,000 from a Facebook campaign that it did not initiate, it has revealed.

The campaign asks people to change their profile picture on the social networking website to their favourite cartoon character as a way of showing their support for an end to violence against children.

The children's charity said last week that it had nothing to do with the campaign, but it had resulted in the number of people supporting it on Facebook jumping from 65,000 to 115,000.

The RSPCA is to tweet animal emergencies all day, with followers getting the chance to view the wide range of calls the charity receives.

The RSPCA's cruelty line received more than 1.25m phone calls last year and, on average, the charity responds to about 1,000 incidents a day.

RSPCA inspector Tony Woodley set up the Twitter account feed as he wanted to publicise the work of the RSPCA's 288 inspectors, 119 animal welfare officers and 74 animal collection officers.

Here are six more online fundraising communications takeaways gleaned from the 2010 elections.