National Wildlife Federation

Is your organization considering setting up a profile on a social-networking site? Are you wondering what tasks are involved, how much time it will take, and how you might streamline your efforts? Maybe your organization has established a presence on MySpace and is now contemplating adding one to Facebook. Perhaps you’re wondering how you can juggle multiple profiles and still have time left to do other work. As more and more organizations jump on the social-networking bandwagon, people are seeking ways to make the time spent on these tools as efficient and fruitful as possible. I recently surveyed several nonprofit professionals and social-networking mavens

The second time I received multiple affinity credit card offers on the same day, I started paying attention. At first glance, with the exception of the nonprofit logos on the corner card of each outer envelope, they seem identical. All shout the 0 percent fixed introductory APR until 2009 — but smaller, thinner type qualifies what month the offer ends and that it’s only for cash advance checks and balance transfers. All but one have a personalized teaser letting me specifically know that this particular card is “The most rewarding card of all®.”

As philanthropic giving languished for many sectors in the nonprofit world, environmental organizations experienced a modest growth in donations of 3 percent in 2003, to $6.95 billion, according to “Giving USA 2004,” the annual report on the state of philanthropy released by the Giving USA Foundation.

Newsletters, especially of the online variety, allow fundraisers to build and maintain relationships with stakeholders long before they even think about anteing up the greenbacks. Donors and prospects alike can now get engaged more often, and with more personal relevance — making it easier and more cost effective for nonprofits to forge links with individuals primed for giving.