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Back in the ’90s, when I was editor of [FundRaising Success sister publication] Target Marketing, this strange thing called the Internet turned up on my radar screen. I did not understand it. In fact, nobody understood it. For one thing, with the dial-up modem, downloading was s-l-o-w. Investors fell in love with it and pumped billions of dollars into startup companies that promised to capture millions of “eyeballs,” and a large percentage of those eyeballs would turn into paying customers or cause advertisers to spend money. “The only bank that takes eyeballs,” Bill Bonner, brilliant founder and proprietor of the sprawling Agora Publishing empire,

The assignment seemed simple enough. Find out about “open sources” and write about them for our July issue. I knew they had something to do with technology, but that’s about it. I was concerned because when it comes to me and technology, let’s just say I have issues. And, when it comes to nonprofit technology issues, many of you might be in the same boat, so I suppose I seemed the perfect choice to write this story. I use the Internet to shop, e-mail, do research, read the latest news and feed my insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip. That’s it. No MySpace

In May, FundRaising Success conducted the webinar “If You Optimize It, They Will Come: SEO Best Practices for Fundraisers,” featuring Todd Whitley, vice president of e-marketing at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; Farra Trompeter, vice president of client relationships and strategy at Big Duck; and Rob Yoegel, vice president and online publisher, for the Target Marketing Group. Our panel was able answer many of the audience’s questions, but not all. Here, our experts address those questions that we couldn’t get to. To view this webinar, go to www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com/story/story.bsp?sid=96827&var=story. For a look at all of the archived FundRaising Success webinars, go to www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com/docs/webinars.bsp.

[Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared in the June 12 issue of eM+C Weekly, an e-letter produced by FundRaising Success sister publication eM+C. It’s written for for-profit e-marketers, but the information is equally applicable to nonprofits. To subscribe to eM+C Weekly, go to www.emarketingandcommerce.com] Social networking is still in its infancy, but already we have seen rapid evolution in the way that consumers and marketers alike are using the new channel. One of the things I can’t help but notice is the similarity between the way social networking is evolving and how e-mail evolved. While there are some things that are different and/or better

Held in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, the 2008 Kintera User Conference provided organizations with a plethora of useful information, including a formula for effective grassroots engagement. In the session “Grassroots Engagement: More Donors, More Messages, More Success,” attendees were given this formula to help create high impact campaigns: Engagement = (microtargeting + mobilization) x viral. High-impact campaigns require compelling content that targets and mobilizes new and existing constituents, and gives them the means to increase the reach and depth of the campaign. Providing viral-marketing tools for the audience will increase overall engagement metrics. Successful and ongoing engagement requires pushing into the supporter’s “Priority

“Our findings show that there is a wide gulf between donors’ intended and actual giving. The largest segment of respondents (47 percent) said that their primary reason for giving to charities was to assist the needy. Yet in 2006, these donors dedicated only 6 percent of their giving to organizations that aim to meet people’s basic needs in the United States, and sent just 2 percent of their donations to organizations that aid people in other countries. At the same time, they gave the bulk of their charitable contributions (60 percent) to religious causes. Respondents whose main philanthropic goals were to make their community

Unlike print, online communications can instantly communicate to the world at a relatively low cost. In the past 10 years, organizations with fairly specific audiences (for example, those serving a particular neighborhood, faith or point of view) have been able to welcome the world to their (virtual) doorsteps.

From the Nonprofit Technology Conference Session “A New Tool for Online Campaigns: How to Show, Tell and Activate With a Video-centric Microsite.” 10. Make a good video — short and engaging with a call to action. 9. Video early and often — repurpose material into new pieces. 8. Create a nonprofit channel on YouTube. 7. Organize a video contest to incite enthusiasm among your supporters. 6. Comments on YouTube videos greatly enhance the video’s ranking in Google search results on related keywords. 5. Widget it! Keep control over your videos while adding features. Create your own video widgets using tools such as Sprout Builder,

There was no shortage of cyber chatter surrounding last month’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans. Here’s a sampling of some observations from bloggers around the country. For a more comprehensive list of blog entries about the conference, click here. “Observations on the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference,” posted March 26 by Kurt Voelker and Andrew Cohen, chief technology officer and project director, respectively, at Forum One Communications’ INfluence blog: Kurt Voelker and I (Andrew Cohen), traveled to New Orleans to participate in the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference. This was my fourth conference and the most useful and fulfilling. In addition our volunteering and presenting,

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about declining results for direct mail and flagging e-mail open rates. Our outreach apparently is not sparking the passionate responses we want. Don’t our donors and prospects love us anymore? Why don’t they take our calls? If this is starting to sound like an “advice for the lovelorn” column, then that’s appropriate. As fundraisers, we’ve got a lot of the same problems as the people writing Dear Abby. And I think our response-rate heartache is based in the root causes that the advice columnists so often cite. Really. The relationship we have with our donors and prospects is