Greenpeace U.S.A.

Nonprofit organizations around the world are raising millions of dollars via mobile fundraising for disaster relief in Haiti. And their experiences might well turn out to be both proving and testing grounds for this still-new medium.

In the session “Mobile, Online, Offline” at the DMA Nonprofit Federation 2010 Washington Nonprofit Conference last week, the “mobile” part of the presentation — moderated by Mark Smith, fundraising director, Greenpeace — took center stage as attendees engaged with speakers in a lively Q&A portion.

Grueling is the word that crossed the lips of the intrepid judges for our 2006 Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence as they made their way out of our offices one hot afternoon in August.

Not that we’re particularly demanding taskmasters, but the competition was, indeed, fierce. Much to our glee, it grew from 33 packages in 2005 to nearly 90 this year (sent in by 21 agencies and four nonprofit organizations). Some of the categories remained the same, but we added a few and tweaked a few others.

Greenpeace is in the mail a lot, advocating for environmental protection and raising funds for its whistle-blowing work. Constant in most, if not all, of its mailings is the interaction — and power — of its images and messaging.

It sounds like something out of a movie. Hot on the trail of pirate fishermen illegally casting nets off the coast of West Africa in April, activists aboard Greenpeace vessel The Esperanza overtook the ship and occupied its mast and cranes for six days before Spanish officials intervened and declared its cargo illegal.

Multi-channel fundraising is simply the idea that an organization uses more than one medium simultaneously (mail and telephone, for example) to conduct fundraising campaigns. Integrated fundraising is merely the process of making sure these campaigns are designed to work synergistically with one another.