American Red Cross

(Editor’s Note: Mobile maven Katrin Verclas let us know last week that there have been some pretty positive developments on the mobile-giving scene since she last wrote about it for Giving 2.0 sister e-letter the FS Advisor in February. Here’s her latest update, in case you missed it at MobileActive.org.) Mobile donations to nonprofits have been stymied in the United States — hampered by the high fees charged for text message gifts that are then billed to a mobile-phone customer. When a donor gives to a nonprofit via text, more than half of the contribution goes to the telephone carrier, leaving less than 50

The numbers speak for themselves: There currently are 236 million cell phone users in the United States — an astounding 76 percent penetration. In December of last year alone, 18.7 billion text messages were sent — up 92 percent from 9.7 billion in December 2005. Estimates predict 195 billion text messages were sent in 2007 — that is 600 million a day. Fundraisers and nonprofits are salivating at the prospect of reaching all of these people where they are, at the moment they’re moved by a cause and are able to give — with a few simple flicks of their thumbs. Mobile fundraising for

Leave it to ASPCA’s Steve Froehlich to sneak a little banter about one-night stands into a session at the DMA Nonprofit Federation’s 2008 Washington Nonprofit Conference. Hey, the guy knows how to keep an audience on its toes. In the session titled, “Repeat After Me … I Will Give Again: Cementing Relationships that Garner a Second Gift,” which Steve co-presented with American Red Cross’ Margaret Carter and Convio’s Brian Hauf, he started off with this provocative question: “Before I begin, I’d like everyone who has ever had a one-night stand to think about how they felt the morning after.” (Needless to say there was

Who do you picture when you think of a sports fan? A big, shirtless guy beating his painted chest with his fists? Sure, sports fans are a passionate bunch. But if your nonprofit strategizes properly, you might get that guy — and his passion — on your side.

I, like Carnac the Magnificent, can tell you the contents of 95 percent of the nonprofit solicitations that come in my mail each day — without opening the envelopes. Inside, there will be a two-page letter from the head of the organization with a lengthy, highly crafted explanation of what the organization is doing, which makes it abundantly clear that the need is more than urgent. There might be a petition for me to sign and send back for submission to Congress. There definitely will be a plea for money. I further predict that I will not read the letters even though I

In August 2005, New Orleans’ Audubon Nature Institute was on the verge of beginning a $100 million capital campaign. Philadelphia-based development, marketing and management consultants Schultz & Williams had just finished a feasibility study for the organization, and all signs were “go.”

The growth in recent years of online contributions to disaster-relief organizations clearly illustrates that Web fundraising has come of age. Consider the online giving that the American Red Cross has generated following major disasters: $64 million related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks (2001); $140 million in the wake of the Southeast Asia tsunami (2004); and $479 million after Hurricane Katrina (2005). Also telling is that the percentage of individual donor funds raised online (excluding corporate contributions) grew from 29 percent for Sept. 11 to 55 percent for the tsunami, illustrating that donors have become increasingly comfortable giving over the Internet.

Flowerpetal.com, an online storefront that sells floral arrangements and gifts, is offering nonprofit organizations a service through which it will build them online storefronts that allow them to keep a portion of the proceeds from flower sales.

The right mix of technologies can help your organization convert annual and even ermegency donors into committed monthly givers.

When used in concert with each other and with your other fundraising strategies, omnipresent technological companions such as TVs, cell phones and computers can help you net more quality donors and perhaps even nudge them into the fundraising holy ground that is monthly giving.