Leveraging Social Media To Raise Funds for Nonprofit Organizations

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Web Wise: Leveraging Social Media To Raise Funds

Daniel Gonzalez, Web Manager Sage Nonprofit Solutions

[email protected]

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Such much info, so little time….

Sage Nonprofit Solutions social media survey results

Understanding social media and application

Practical tips on getting started

Strategies for listening, monitoring & measuring

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Is Social Media a Fad?

Welcome to the Revolution - Socialnomics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

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Sage Nonprofit Solutions Social Media Study 2009

• August 2009, email sent to 7,500 Chronicle of Philanthropy subscribers

• Invited to online survey to discover how nonprofits are using social media for their fundraise and outreach programs

• Sent to development titles from orgs with AOBs of >$500K

• 17% response rate

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Topics Covered in Survey

• Types of social media nonprofits are participating

• Length of time participating

• Specific tools used when participating

• Types of activities during participation

• Goals for participation

• Success with participation to date

• Reasons for not participating

• Acceptance of online donations

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Social Media At Work

Since distributed in late October, this survey picked up by:• The NonProfit Times• The AFP blog • The Daily Tell blog. • Philadelphia Business Journal

– Also blogged by Peter Key on the Biz Journal’s Portfolio blog

• Nonprofit Technology News • eJewish Philanthropy blog• Charity Village cover story• Nonprofit consultancy GG+A• ChildFund International

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Sage Nonprofit Solutions Social Media Study 2009*

Participation Rate

Don't participate, 12%

Participate, 88%

*Released October 2009, Sage Nonprofit Solutions, The Chronicle of Philanthropy

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22%34% 35%

5% 4%0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Less than 6 months 6-12 months 1-3 years More than 3 years Don't know

Experience With Social Media


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18%

47%

11% 9%15%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Less than 1 hour 1-5 hours 6-10 hours More than 10hours

Don't know

Time Spent Per Week on Social Media


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6%

5%

7%

8%

12%

25%

37%

45%

79%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Other

Forums / Product-focused site

Wikis

Social bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit)

Niche / Industry-specific communities

Job sites (e.g. Monster, Career Builder)

Professional social networking (e.g. LinkedIn, Plaxo,Ryze)

Blogs / Microblogs (e.g. Wordpress, Blogspot, Twitter)

General social networking (e.g. Facebook, MySpace)

Types of Participation on Social Media


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10%18%

21%21%

43%43%

48%52%

57%86%

Less than 10% each

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Other

Monster

My Space

RSS

Flickr

Linked In

Google Alerts

Blogs

YouTube

Twitter

Facebook

Specific Tools Used When Participating


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5%

29%

30%

40%

45%

60%

65%

72%

73%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Other

Responding to donor questions/concerns

Recruiting employees

Blogging

Reference / Education

Networking

Messaging / Commenting / Tweeting

Creating / maintaining your organization profile

Advertising / Promotion for your organization

Types of Activities Performed


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Goals for Social Media Participation

8%23%

41%53%

57%58%

66%77%

82%82%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Other

Recruiting employees

Advocacy

Improving our image among donors

Recruiting donors

Raising funds

Engaging / retaining donors

Generating buzz / PR

Community building / Social networking

Sharing our story


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Importance of Social Media Success

3%

8%

19%

50%

20%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Very unimportant

Somewhat unimportant

Neither important norunimportant

Somewhat important

Very important

Satisfaction with Social Media Success

6%

17%

26%

42%

9%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Very dissatisfied

Somewhat dissatisfied

Neither satisfied nordissatisfied

Somewhat satisfied

Very satisfied

Success with Social Media Participation


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5%

7%

9%

9%

11%

16%

19%

33%

45%

46%

Less than 5% each

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Other

Concern about negative comments

Concern it will add to information overload

Concern about level of security on social media sites

Seen as waste of time and resources

Unsure of how to measure success

Lack of control over message on social media forums

Unsure of how to use it / or which tools to use

Lack of understanding / expertise

Unsure of advantages / relevance to our organization'sneeds

Lack of time / resources

Reasons for Not Participating in Social Media



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When Will Begin Participating

1%

23% 15%6% 4%

51%

0%20%40%60%80%

100%

Immediately Less than 6months

6-12 months More than 12months from

now

Never Don't know /Not sure



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Accepting Online Donations

No, 9%

Yes, 91%



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Online Donation Solution

8%

8%

9%

15%

Less than 5% each

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Other

Blackbaud NetCommunity

Convio

Network for Good

PayPal



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Summary• 88% use some form of social media; more than half using for less

than a year.

• 45% of non-adopters are unsure of relevance / advantages.

• Most popular type of SM used is social networking (Facebook), followed by blogging / microblogging (Wordpress, Twitter).

• 91% of respondents raise funds online; only 58% of those using social media, cited fundraising as a goal.

• 70% recognize social media as very or somewhat important to their organization; while only 9% are very satisfied.

• Lack of time & resources, unsure of relevance, no expertise cited as main reasons for non participation

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Understanding Social Media

• It’s a Conversation• It’s Relationship Building• It’s about Sharing• It’s a Collaboration of…

– Ideas– Thoughts– Goals– Dreams

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Social Media Defined

• Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction.

• Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform monologues (one to one) into dialogues (one to many).

• Social media transforms people from content consumers into content producers.

• View this now-classic video “Social Media in Plain English” by Common Craft http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE

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Ladder of Engagement

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Tools of Social Engagement• Blogs: Blogger, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad,

WordPress, Vox, ExpressionEngine, Xanga

• Micro-blogging / Presence applications: fmylife, Jaiku, Plurk, Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous, Yammer

• Social networking: Bebo, BigTent, Elgg, Facebook, Geni.com, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Orkut, Skyrock

• Social network aggregation: NutshellMail, FriendFeed

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Collaboration Tools

• Wikis: Wikipedia, PBwiki, wetpaint

• Social bookmarking (social tagging): Delicious, StumbleUpon, Google Reader, CiteULike

• Social news: Digg, Mixx, Reddit, NowPublic

• Opinion sites: epinions, Yelp

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Multimedia Tools

• Photo sharing: Flickr, Zooomr, Photobucket, SmugMug, Picasa

• Video sharing: YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, sevenload

• Livecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Stickam, Skype

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We have evolved from this…

SITE OWNER

CREATE WEBSITE

STATIC WEBSITE

SITE VISITOR

VISIT WEBSITE

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…to this.

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Our world has evolved…

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• MySpace• Second Life• Facebook• YouTube• Twitter

Applied Social Media for Nonprofits

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• MySpace ‘Impact’ raising money for chosen causes through MySpace user's personal profiles.

• Charities can set up and customize their own profile page with

news, videos, fundraising tools and more.

• A community where users can share photos, journals and interests with a growing network of mutual friends!

• Over 25,000 nonprofits have MySpace pages

– Save Darfur - Taking small steps that can make a big difference.

– The Burrito Project – Provide people with the means to become

active members in their community.

MySpace Fundraising

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Second Life Fundraising• Second Life is a multiplayer 3D community on the

Internet. – Users create their own characters - called avatars– Build a virtual world, bustling with commerce, social interactions,

and civic activities.

• American Cancer Society Relay For Life event in the Second Life world. – Walk-a-thon in cyberspace, where SL residents gather, camp

out, dance, donate money and of course walk…virtually.

• Raised more than $200,000 in 2008

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Facebook Causes• Over 300 million Facebook users

• Causes has over 30 million active monthly

• Raised $12M + for nonprofits in US & Canada in 2008

• $7.6 million+ raised in 2009 to date

• 235,000 Causes benefiting 45,000+ nonprofits

– Support the Campaign for Cancer Research - 4.6 million members, $86,974 donated

– Animal Rights - 2.8 million members, $46,561 donated

– Love Without Boundaries Foundation -12,624 members, $151,929 donated

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YouTube FundraisingWellstone Action – Antiviolence Charityhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

• Since posting on YouTube, it has become viral. • Nearly 20M downloads and comments from all over the

world.

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy picked up story plus several entertainment news venues including “The Today Show”.

• At last count the video had over 21,500,000 hits, and has raised over $15,000 for the Sheila Wellstone Institute.

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YouTube FundraisingExample: Pink Gloves Dance – National Breast Cancer

Foundationhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw&feature=related

• Video features over 200 doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators and staff from Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Ore.

• A portion of sales from the pink gloves, made by Medline Industries in Illinois, will provide mammograms for uninsured women.

• Has been viewed by more than 3.7 million people, with more than 4,000 leaving comments.

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Twitter Fundraising

• Twestival 2009 - Raised over $250K for charity: water – On a single day, people in 202 cities around the world raise

money for a single cause. – Twestival Fundraising Total for 2009 is $750k+

• Tweetsgiving 2009 – Raised $30K total for Epic Change project in Tanzania.– $10K raised in first 48 hours of 72 hour event.– Beth Kanter reportedly raised $3K in 90 mins.

• Livestrong Foundation - $25K for cancer research– $25K pledge if CEO reached 25K followers in 3 days.

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Twitter Corporate Success

• Dell Rings Up $6.5 Million in Sales

– From promotions on Twitter over past 2 years

– Sign ups to get Dell’s tweets risen 23 percent in past three months to total 1.5 million users

– Only fraction of Dell’s $61.1 billion annual revenue

– 100+ employees send out tweets -- over 35 different channels

– Total reach of 3.5 million people across the Web through social networks, community sites, Direct2Dell.com and IdeaStorm.

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Summary

• Skepticism social media can’t match $ raised with traditional fundraising

• Survey results confirm charities are late adopters to social media in general.

• No evidence to show that social media will replace conventional fundraising tactics

• Social media is not a replacement, it’s diversification

• It’s only one tool in the ever growing FR tool kit

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Tips For Getting Started

• Research. Meet your constituents where they are.

• Build strategy. Select the tools based on your constituents, and what you can manage with available resources.

• Share. Use videos and pictures to share stories.

• Empower. Pick the right staff, empower them and let them be themselves.

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Tips For Getting Started

• Be flexible. Communities will change and so will the tools.

• Integrate. Don’t forget your website & integration. Bring all your online communications together and repurpose content.

• Define success. Change how you define it. It’s about content rather than numbers; relationship-building rather than “marketing”.

• Pause and re-evaluate. Keep listening, and give yourself time to build community, trust, and conversation.

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Getting Started w/ Facebook Causes

• Link Causes application to your org’s profile

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Facebook Causes

• View your personal impact, activity of friends

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Facebook Causes

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Facebook Causes

• Collect donations

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• Name: successful causes have names with action words that convey urgency

• Mission: explain your issue in one compelling sentence

• Position: maximum of three – can be core beliefs, key facts/statistics, or actions/goals

• Picture: use an image that is clear, simple and evocative – consider using an action picture instead of your logo

Facebook Causes Tips

Gordon, Susan. 2009 April 28. Facebook for Nonprofits. [NTEC session]. <https://www.ntenonline.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=SesDetails&ses_key=e47cc396-6210-4d8b-8946-d8197c5770e8&hide=1>. Accessed 2009 May 28.

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Listen To Who’s Talking• Find out where your constituents are and get involved in the

conversation– For Twitter use: http://search.twitter.com

– Search using keywords and terms that are related to your cause

• Do same with Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and find out where donors are and what they’re saying.

• Get set up with search tools, such as:– Technorati– SocialMention– Google Alerts– Google SideWiki

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The Discussion Is Going On Without You

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Social Media Monitoring

• Discovery - How are you discovering conversations? – Paid monitoring services like Radian6, Nielsen, Cymfony, – Use keyword watch lists and alerts; doing persistent searches:

Technorati, Feedster, Google Alerts, etc.

• Aggregation - Need to gather up all your data sources; all your inputs.– Can use commercial feed reader, like Google Reader, Netvibes,

My Yahoo! Or proprietary dashboard, like TruCast – For most organizations their email inbox continues to be the

preferred repository for this information

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Social Media Monitoring• Escalation

– This is where a program transitions from passive watching tactics, to analysis, response planning and ultimately, to participation.

– Needs to be some sort of logical escalation path for getting front line issues to behind-the-line experts – quickly.

– This can be achieved by a simple group email alias inbox.

• Participation– Direct methods, like comments, posts, tweets, emails, etc

– Indirect methods of participation like social bookmarks, tagging, favorites, “likes,” etc

– A combination of both likely works best. Picking which form is right for a given context will take some experience and skill, but mostly patience.

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Social Media Monitoring

• ConversationTracking– Keeping track of all the posts, tweets, comments, links, and

otherwise, where you’re participating in conversations.– Use a commercial CRM or one of the many comment

management systems on the market, like co.comment.– Worst case, rely on email strings to help track important

conversations

• Conversation Archiving – Greatest challenge of any social media monitoring and response

program is recording or archiving actions taken, opportunities lost, and most importantly, outcomes achieved.

– Capturing and recording conversation patterns, identifying gateway topics, keyword mentions and the frequency/sentiment of sources,

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Measuring Social Media Success

• Social Media metrics can be difficult to measure

• There are many strategies to measure success:– Return on Investment (ROI)– Return on Engagement (ROE)– Return on Objectives (ROO)

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Social Media Activity Metrics• Pageviews • Unique visitors • Members • Posts (ideas/threads) • Number of groups (networks/forums) • Comments & Trackbacks • Tags/Ratings/Rankings • Time spent on site • Contributors • Active contributors • Word count • Referrals • Completed profiles • Connections (between members) • Ratios: Member to contributor; Posts to comments; Completed profiles to

posts • Periods: By day, week, month, year • Frequency: of visits, posts, comments

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Social Media Survey Metrics

• Satisfaction • Affinity • Quality and speed of issue resolution • Referral likelihood • Relevance of content, connections

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Measuring Return

Return on Objectives (ROO) Approach to Measuring Social Media Effectiveness

Financial Outcomes

Behavioral Objectives

AttitudinalObjectives

Volume/Transactional

Metrics

• Donations

• Sales

• Profits

• Behavioral metrics

• Qualified leads

• Engagement indicators

• Attitudinal metrics

• Perceptions

• Affinity

• Likelihood to recommend

• Friends

• Followers

• Sentiment

• Posts

• + Ratings

Most marketers work right to left, beginning with easily measurable volumetrics and stretching to link to profits

Then, work left to right from pre-agreed attitudinal or behavioral objectives to ID transactional social media metrics

Sample

Metrics

Instead, identify objectives that key stakeholders have “pre-agreed” correlate to positive financial outcomes

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Metrics-to-Outcomes Chain

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Sample Organization

Financial Outcomes

Behavioral Objectives

AttitudinalObjectives

Volume/Transactional

Metrics

• Donations • Web visit frequency

• Use of web-based diagnostics

• Time on web site

• # of client followers

• # of client click-thrus to Alpha’s website

Hypothesis*: Advocates who follow our Twitter feed show higher engagement with our website

Alpha Org works back from web engagement behaviors to identify Twitter metrics that correlate to those objectives

Alpha Org knows from previous analysis that advocate engagement with content on its site is predictive of donations

1 2Alpha Org doesn’t track attitudinal objectives here—it can look at data to observe web behavior for followers vs. non-followers, and before/after follower status to get a direct link to behavioral objectives

3

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Dell Twitter Case StudyBusiness Goal: Increase sales

Audience: Customers and Prospects

Social Media Strategy: Provide forum for support to customers and opportunity to provide them with discounted products.– Twitter: Dell established their Twitter account two years ago

Business Results:• ROI: Dell made more than $3 million from Twitter followers

who clicked through it’s (Twitter) posts, to its Web sites to make purchases.

• Trend: Dell has “made more than $1 million in the past 6 months” utilizing Twitter

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Dell Twitter Case StudySocial Media Tactics:

• Coupons: Dell distributes valuable discount coupons through Twitter

• Customer Service: Dell answers questions and solves problems by engaging with their audience

•

• Crowdsourcing: like their efforts at Ideastorm, they crowdsource their Twitter network for ideas on products, services, processes, and anything related to making their consumers satisfied

• Network: Dell integrated their Twitter network of followers with their Facebook fans for their Facebook company page.

– They convert Twitter followers to Facebook fans and vice-versa

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Summary• Find out where your constituents are and get involved in the conversation.

• Understand which tools can help monitor your social media efforts

• Determine which metrics will define success for you (# of followers, # of fans, satisfaction, affinitiy,etc.)

• Look at like organizations and even companies that do it well and mimic their efforts

• You don’t have to do everything, but you do need to get involved and stay involved.

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It’s a process…

• The reason social media is so difficult for most organizations:

• “It's a process, not an event.”• Dating is a process. So is losing weight, being a public

company and building a brand.• On the other hand, putting up a trade show booth is an

event. So are going public and having surgery.• Events are easier to manage, pay for and get excited

about. Processes build results for the long haul.– Seth Godin

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Q & A

Dan Gonzalez - Web Manager, Sage Nonprofit Solutions

[email protected]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sage-Nonprofit-Solutions/61758989401

http://twitter.com/sagenonprofit

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Available Resources• Idealware, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, provides candid Consumer-Reports-style

reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprofits.

• TechSoup offers nonprofits a one-stop resource for technology needs by providing free information, resources, and support.

• NTEN is the membership organization of nonprofit professionals who put technology to use for their causes, and is a community of peers who share technology solutions across the sector and support each other’s work.

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Index

• Additional resource slides

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Your constituents are participating

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Social Media Search Volume

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Proposed Social Media PlanTarget • Who is your target audience?

Business Objectives

• What consumer, customer or business problem or opportunity does this initiative address?

• Why is social media the best tool to support this strategy?

• Are there any risks to the org if we do not implement this initiative?

Action Required • What are the things you will do to achieve your objectives?

• How often will you be participating in consumer conversations?

• Under what circumstances would you discontinue your conversation?

Success Measures

• What metrics will you use to determine that your strategies are successful?

Investment Necessary

• What shared resources will you require (headcount, IT, service fees, etc.)?

• Will this initiative be covered in your current P&L or are you planning to seek resource support?

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Website

Online Giving

Contextual Marketing

Social Networking

Online Donor Portal

Virtual Events

Online Advocacy

e-Commerce

Profiling

Mobile Giving

Nonprofits will follow a natural progression of e-Philanthropy adoption, with variations depending on their unique strategy.

e-Philanthropy Adoption

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Business Case Argument: The 70*20*10 Principle

Entirety of Marketing Communications Spend Across the Fiscal Year

70% 20% 10%Emerging Touchpoints Experimental Touchpoints

• Have established metrics

• Customers demonstrably using these touchpoints

• Accepted by non-marketing decisionmakers internally

• Building benchmarks, tying to marketing outcomes

• Customers demonstrably adopting these touchpoints

• Decisionmakers beginning to appreciate the power of these touchpoints

The highest ROI emerging touchpoints eventually become “tried and true”

The best of the experimental become emerging the following year

• No expectation of in-year ROI

• Touchpoints that front-edge customers are beginning to use

• Decisionmakers edgy about these touchpoints

Tried and True Touchpoints

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Perceived Risks to OvercomeCommon Challenges Faced

in Social Media EnvironmentSample Techniques for

Overcoming Those Challenges

1. Exposure of Sensitive or Classified Information

• Establish Employee Social Media Use Guidelines

• Have Legal/Compliance “Pre-Approve” Stock Set of Tweets, Responses, Etc.

2. Loss of Brand Control

3. Spread of Negative, Inflammatory, or False

Information

• Start By Socializing Existing Content (ex: website, whitepapers, commercials)

• Select Social Media Platforms That Let You Moderate and/or Approve Posts

• Partner with Legal to Define Social Media Response Guidelines

• Establish Escalation Protocols for Handling Any Potentially Threatening Situations