The Industrial Revolution brought about many great technological changes, including steam ships and modernization of the textile industry. But not everyone responded favorably to those developments. A group of textile artisans called the Luddites felt that industrialization threatened their way of life and demonstrated their displeasure by destroying the mechanized looms they thought would take their jobs.
Fundraisers need to reach out to the technology staff and form a real working relationship.
It's important in any economic conditions for nonprofits to effectively promote their missions, programs and fundraising campaigns — in other words, to properly establish and maintain their brands. And it's especially essential for them to get the branding right before jumping into new arenas like social networks.
Part 4 of the NTEN webinar series — Evaluating Your Email Marketing Efforts for Success! — featured Lauren Miller and David Leichtman, senior strategist and director of e-mail programs, and director of analytics and technology, respectively, for Blue State Digital, the firm highly recognized for its work on President Obama's campaign, sharing tips on evaluating e-mail marketing efforts.
In Part 2 of the NTEN webinar series — Tactics for Finding More Online Donors, Members and Advocates: When Organic List Building Tactics Aren’t Enough — presenter Alia McKee, principal, Sea Change Strategies, discussed a few tactics organizations can use to get offline donors online.
Beginning in mid-March, NTEN presented a seminar a week in a four-part series on improving results from e-mail campaigns. Topics included getting to know online stakeholders; finding more online donors, members and advocates; storytelling via e-mail; and evaluating e-mail marketing efforts.
This article focuses on Part 1: Getting to Know Your Online Stakeholders — Who Are They and What Do They Want From You? (See the other features in this edition of Giving 2.0 for more on other parts of the series.)
Storytelling — "social-networking tool 1.0" — is the single most powerful communications tool organizations possess, says Andy Goodman, co-founder and director of The Goodman Center and author of the book "Storytelling as Best Practice.” In an NTEN webinar in April, Goodman shared tips for how organizations can tap into the power of narrative in their storytelling, noting that the whole point of narrative is to pull readers in, get them engaged and set them up to do exactly what you're asking them to do.
Horsham, PA, May 4, 2009 — After an extensive evaluation, both DonorPerfect Installed and DonorPerfect Online (a web-based fundraising solution) received more “Excellent” ratings for their features then any other products. In addition, the report identifies several purchasing categories for nonprofits, and DonorPerfect received 6 recommendations for the online version, and 5 for the installed version.
A recent social-media study conducted by NTEN, Common Knowledge and ThePort found that while most nonprofits are at least beginning to incorporate social media into their marketing mix, very few are actually raising money there. Click here to download the survey.
San Francisco, CA, April 28, 2009 — Three developers, whose web applications and widgets will make it easier for web surfers to find and share ways to make a difference, were named the winners of the Change the Web Challenge today. Social Actions (www.socialactions.com), a web-based nonprofit initiative committed to making it easier for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference, produced the Challenge. The winning applications were announced at NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, CA.
