Major Gifts Online - Yes It is Possible!

In a session about online fundraising at the recent GetActive Software user conference, someone from Planned Parenthood mentioned that they received an online donation of $80,000 from someone who had never given to them before.  Mary Liz Keevers from WWOZ and I looked at each other and at just about the same time said, “Did I hear that right?”  Well that donor probably got some serious airline miles for that credit card contribution. 

Yes major gifts do happen online.  Here are a few ideas that may help boost your chances of getting a major gift online:

1.)  Do a good job of telling your organization’s story on your website so potential donors can easily find out how you might use a large gift if they sent one your way.  Spark some emotion in your website visitors.  Share your vision and your dreams.

2.)  Make sure that your online form is secure and that donors know it’s secure so they’ll feel comfortable giving online.

3.)  Make sure you have financial info on your website - perhaps a downloadable annual report or a pie chart that shows your revenue and expenses.  Major donors are making an investment and they want to know it will be a wise one. 

All of these things will also help you get more major gifts offline.  Research shows that many donors go to an organization’s website to do a little research before making a major gift online or offline. 

On a related topic, are you using the Internet as well as you could to conduct major gifts prospect research?

You can set up a Google Alert on your top 20 prospects and get an automatic e-mail anytime one of those people is in the news.

You can use zillow.com to look up property values for your donors (although not all parts of the country are in there) 

There are many other online resources for prospect research.  Visit the major giving section of the DEI website for more info about prospect research and moves management.  You’ll also find some very helpful info about prospect research at http://www.majorgivingnow.org, the site set up for the Public Television Major Giving Initiative.  And, I hope that the DEI Major Giving experts will chime in on the blog on this topic. 

What’s working for you?  What are your favorite online prospecting tools?  What’s the largest gift you’ve ever received online? 

posted by Betsy Harman, Harman Interactive LLC and DEI Online Membership Advisor

You can’t build on something if you don’t have something. The beauty of 1.0

Raise you hand if you are a perfectionist. 

 

Yeah, I am too.  And occasionally it really gets in my way when trying to start a new venture.

 

This afternoon I was going through blogs, procrastinating about getting started on a new project, and I came across a short podcast called, First-time Sex & the Beauty of 1.0 from Merlin Mann, author of 43folders.com a blog on personal productivity.

 

It was just the thing I needed to hear today; that spending a lot of time trying to make a product or project perfect the first time, usually leads to nothing of consequence, except a lot of time spent in meetings with no end result.  Instead Mann contends, if you focus on creating that initial version, 1.0, concentrating on just getting through it the first time, at least you have something.  And you can worry about adding on to it and making it better later on. Whether a plan of action, a product, or whatever.

 

You can’t build on something if you don’t have something.  It’s a victory to just have it go OK the first time.

 

Within the virtual walls of DEI, and at the IMA,  a small group of membership pro’s are starting to talk next week about the “Future of Membership” with the goal of creating an end product to share with the wider public radio system to help manage the oncoming waves of data and new expectations of membership as broadcasting continues towards multi-platform delivery, all the while keeping in mind public service.

 

We have to get started somewhere.  We need to originate a 1.0.  It won’t be perfect, but at least the conversation is happening and I’m looking forward to sharing the outcome and getting your feedback.  In the meantime, take a listen to the podcast, and think about your next 1.0.  Is it e-renewals, or online-sponsorships, or making a plan to better utilize member data?  Don’t try to get it perfect, just get it started.

 

Ok now I am really getting to work.

 

-Melanie Coulson,  DEI & Independent Advisor for Membership & Online Fundraising

E-Mail Open Rates Decline

M & R Strategic Services, a consulting firm that works with environmental, human rights, women’s groups and other clients on strategies for e-communication, online fundraising, and e-mail advocacy recently released a report about declining open rates in e-mail messages.

In case you aren’t familiar with open rates that’s the percent of people who receive an HTML e-mail from your organization and open it.  Most e-mail software vendors offer reporting on open rates.

M & R looked at data from 15 national nonprofit groups and found that the average open rate fell by 6% on average from 32% in 2003-2004 to 26% in 2004-2005.

Initially they thought list fatigue was a big factor.  Your messages are now competing with more and more e-mail messages plus people who are new to your list tend to open the messages at a higher rate than do people who have been on your list for a long time. 

They then discovered that image blocking plays a significant role.  Images are now blocked by default in some e-mail programs such as G-Mail and Outlook 2003 which means your recipients can read the text of the message without looking at the images.  If they want to they can click a link to view the images. 

When M & R dug deeper into the data they saw that as many as 20% of the people who had clicked on a link in the e-mail were not counted as having opened the message since open rates are tracked using a small image embedded in the e-mail. 

I’d encourage you to take a look at M & R’s full report:
http://www.mrss.com/news/Why_Open_Rates_Are_Dropping_M-R_Strategic_Services.pdf

I’d also encourage you to do the following:

1.  Continue to pay attention to open rates but pay more attention to click through and conversion rates.  Conversion rate is actually the most important record because that is what indicates how many people took the action you wanted them to take. 

2.  When looking at open rates look at them in a comparative way.  How do open rates compare from one e-newsletter to the next or in a test looking at one subject line versus another or from one group to the next? 

I recently saw a presentation from the Humane Society of the U.S. where they showed how they tracked open rates, click through rates, and conversion rates for a single e-mail message among various groups of stakeholders such as Katrina donors vs. non-donors, people who signed up for e-mail on their website vs. people who were added to the list by signing up at an event etc…

3.  Dig into your data to find out who your super loyal openers are and who is on your list who has never opened an e-mail.  Many organizations develop programs to get their least active people active again by sending special offers either by phone or e-mail. 

Please contact me, Melanie Coulson, or Deb Ashmore if you’d like to chat about your e-mail metrics or if you need some assistance with your strategy.  You’ll be most successful when you carefully plan, analyze your data, and carefully strategize for the various segments on your list.

Posted by Betsy Harman, Harman Interactive LLC and DEI Online Membership Advisor
 

Affordable Technical Training for Non-profits

If your looking for computer or technology training that is affordable, and designed specifically for non-profits, check out NPower to see if they have a regional office in your area.

NPower is a non-profit organization with a  mission is to help non-profits use technology to better serve their communites.  They offer training in everything from Excel to Dreamweaver and classes about how to use technology to convey your mission.

If there isn’t a Npower office in your area they have online tools and resources also.

www.npower.org

Best and Worst Email Subject Lines

I recently found Mailchimp, an e-mail marketing and ASP provider.  There is some really great info that they share on their site, including a free getting started in email marketing handbook that is worth perusing.

Mailchimp analyzed 40 million emails subject lines sent through their service to find the highest and lowest open rates.  I was glad to know my hunch has been right, simple strait to the point is best. (i.e. this will save me lots of time that I spend staring at the subject line field in my ASP attempting to create the wittiest subject line ever).  Check out Mailchimps findings yourself below.

 http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/subject-line-comparison.phtml

-Melanie Coulson, DEI Advisor for Membership & Online Fundraising