Meet the Blog’s Host
Hank Lewis with Development Consultant Associates has over thirty years as a fundraising consultant and is a specialist in Board and Leadership Development, Capital Campaign, Bequest Program and Major Gifts. [Read more ...]Fundraising & Social Media
Mobile Fundraising: Practical Advice
After some $40 million was raised in $10 gifts through cell phones for the Haiti earthquake response in January, 2010, every nonprofit had dreams of cell phones as mobile donation machines. Even for the Red Cross, those dreams seem to have evaporated. However, mobile use among Americans has increased dramatically. It’s probably true that among [...]
Email Quality Matters – and Each Mistake Costs $40 … or more !!
One of the advantages of online fundraising and marketing is that the data entry is outsourced to the donor. It’s also one of the disadvantages! When a donor writes a check and mails it to you, you have to pay someone (at your organization, or at a service bureau) to open the envelope, deposit the [...]
Saying “Thanks… And…” via Email
If you have a donor’s email address, use it several times without asking for money. The best way to use a donor’s email address is to thank them for a recent gift, and tell them how their money is being used. If you have a donor’s email address on file, then send them an email [...]
Google Changed the Search Engine Rules
Online fundraising happens …when people come to your website and make a gift. While you can reach previous donors and prospects with email, the vast majority of online donors are not on your email list – yet. While you can pay for ads to bring traffic to your website, Google and other search engines will [...]
Social Media Enhance Email Success
Want to increase the impact of your fundraising emails? Don’t leave online social media out of the picture. Consider this interesting fact: Americans spend 3 times as much time on social media as they do on email. Improve your email performance by combining your email messaging with your social media presence. With a modest investment [...]
QR Codes and When Not to Use Them
“Cool” isn’t a fundraising strategy A client asked me last week if their organization should start putting QR codes on their direct mail envelopes. “Yes,” I answered, “…when you’re ready for that.” For the vast majority of nonprofits dabbling in online fundraising, there are at least ten other things you should be working on ahead [...]
FaceBooking Your Organization
The Usability of FaceBook “My organization’s website is static and boring, frankly. Our FaceBook page is updated all the time and very popular.” The Executive Director of a local nonprofit told me that. This local humane society has 1,214 friends on FaceBook. That’s 3.3% of the rural population of the county it serves! That’s equivalent [...]
Thanking Your Online Donors
When I was young, there was a rule about thank-you notes. If I got $5 from a distant aunt, I wasn’t allowed to spend it until after I had written and mailed her a thank you note. When you were young, you probably had a rule at your house that was similar. It’s a great [...]
Online Giving: Audit Your Own Website (Part 2)
Hints On How To Make Giving To You A Lot Easier a: Always have a prominent “Where the need is greatest” choice – many people will trust you to allocate their gift as you need to, and unrestricted gifts are the primary goal of every client we’ve ever had. b: Give people the chance to [...]
Online Giving: Audit Your Own Website (Part 1)
While billions of dollars are donated online annually, your nonprofit is probably not getting its fair share. And that’s probably because your own website is getting in the way. We have recently made online gifts “secretly” to over 80 nonprofit organizations with some surprising results, which we’ll be talking about in this and future issues. [...]
