Disqus - Latest Comments for ehren

Re: Where the Worlds of Fundraising and Sales Collide

ehren — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 08:01:52 -0000

One big difference: companies are usually selling one type of thing to one type of person or business. Might be a $8 sandwich to Jane Doe or a $170M airplane to Cathay Pacific Airlines. Nonprofits have to figure out which Jane (who just ordered a sandwich) will be in the market for the airplane in 20-30 years, and execute well at every step of that journey. I think when businesses say "nonprofits should run more like businesses", the subtext is "and also do well at a dozen different types of selling."

Training for annual fund phone workers...hit the nail on the head. I know the first 6 digits of my alma mater's phone exchange by heart. When I'm ready for an awkward conversation with an under-prepared freshman, I pick up.

Re: 6 Steps to Implementing Data Science at Any Organization

ehren — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 07:46:58 -0000

I think 1, 3, and 5 are really about small data. If the 'small data' is wrong, big data will lead you astray.

Re: 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Report

ehren — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:43:52 -0000

Thanks Rich! I think the main challenges - no small feat - are convincing each organization to share their data and getting consistently measured data over time. It's a ton of legwork. Blackbaud releases some excellent reports derived from their data as well, in case you haven't seen those.

Re: How a new type of social graph could change philanthropy

ehren — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:28:20 -0000

Sure, I can try - it seems like data related to a person's social connections, interests, professional activity, and internet behavior are already available. Many organizations have grown in the past decade to supply, improve, or analyze this kind of data. For example, Facebook Exchange (retargeting) promises to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time: http://blog.hubspot.com/blo... - seems like a great tool for ad-savvy nonprofits to explore to reach their supporters.

Likewise nonprofit data is available from the IRS, Guidestar, Sunlight Foundation, and other sources, and vendors like Volunteer Match, Change.org, Care2 are able to supply data when it helps people volunteer or sign petitions, etc.

So the data part of the graph already exists, right? What other components are necessary to create this graph, do you think? New web standards & specifications? Adoption by large players on the web? Adoption by nonprofits and their supporters? None of those are a walk in the park, and you might need all of them to come together in harmony - no small feat.

I'm not sold on the idea that crawling it all and creating rich interconnections will actually move the needle, because of the low adoption of current tools by nonprofits, and the struggles of similar previous ventures (Social Actions, All for Good...) to grow and sustain themselves.

It sounds like a wonderful idea / dream, I'm just curious how the practicalities will develop...

Re: How a new type of social graph could change philanthropy

ehren — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:54:01 -0000

LinkedIn seems to be moving towards this, with a section for volunteer activity. http://developer.linkedin.c...

Let's assume you create some derived Giving Graph from currently available data, like the above. Can you demonstrate that it will actually lead to an uptick in giving and volunteering in those targeted? The great revenue engines of the internet are already dedicated to this problem in general, and those tools are already available for nonprofits to use (sometimes more cheaply, e.g. Google Grants). So doesn't the Giving Graph already exist? Is the barrier that nonprofits lack the resources to use the existing for profit tooling, or does the existing tooling not work for this case?

Re: Which Way is Social Fundraising Going?

ehren — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:28:56 -0000

As someone who spent a lot of time trying to crack this nut, I agree with most of the above but want to add a few points. Yes, backing up social media outreach with asks in other channels is good practice. Yes, growing community before asking for money is also important.

Successful social media fundraising can happen, but the organization needs to blend traditional fundraising skills (stewardship, measurement, persistence) with social media best practices. In far too many organizations, one of those two is missing. In far too many of the remaining organizations, the fundraising and communications groups don't collaborate well enough for long enough to see results, so they quit trying. http://info.helpattack.com/... (last ~1/3)

The networks themselves do have features in constant flux, but nothing that would prevent an organization from having good social CRM cross channel (email and beyond) practices. That said, the ROI of advertising or even regular posting with donation asks is very low. The only campaigns to raise serious cash, as far as I am aware, had viral elements from lucky (or awesome) messaging and/or serious visibility boosts from partners or celebrity ambassadors. Few have figured out how to get the funnel right (stewardship, segmentation, measurement, persistence...), so most successful case studies are derived from amping up the funnel's input.

<cranky-data-rant> I've also been a curmudgeon about the infographic above. Their data was derived from self-selected survey respondents from self-selected email lists - I think that invites big risks of numerical bias. We took a random sampling of 1,000 501c3s instead and came up with far different numbers. http://info.helpattack.com/... </cranky-data-rant>

Just my two cents! Good luck to those continuing to work on this.

Re: Tools to Improve Your Online Fundraising

ehren — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:41:00 -0000

That's a great point Iain. I think the operative word there is *can* result in a boost. If you use the above as a guideline at least you can see if your tradeoff is roughly on target, and then dig in deeper to see what the limiting factors of your form are. There are many more variables to consider as well: whether time is better spent growing the size of the community, improving SEO, etc - where a 2x boost in traffic will outweigh a 25% increase in form performance.

Re: 24 tools for fundraising with social media

ehren — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:29:38 -0000

I don't think so, but most of these platforms will make it easy to add links and widgets a page on your site. I'd look for those and then set a calendar reminder every 6 months to review the page.

Re: How and Why Causes Gain Momentum Online

ehren — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:36:24 -0000

The point about one organization pushing the movement, versus grassroots individuals, is a good one. It struck me a few weeks ago that unanticipated big upswells of interest are usually not being used by relevant organizations. Perhaps the response isn't fast enough, perhaps it's risk aversion, and perhaps some orgs are working behind the scenes but not in a way that would get them in the news. I'd like to see more responses like Planned Parenthood's: Planned, professional, and fast.
http://info.helpattack.com/...

Re: How HelpAttack Can Raise Money for Your Nonprofit with Facebook Updates and Tweets

ehren — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:17:23 -0000

Hi Khouoneill,

Yes, you can embed any public facing page on HelpAttack! on your own page, and we'll be releasing two Facebook tab applications soon. You'll see instructions for doing this after you sign up your cause and log in.

We think it's important that a cause can bring part of their audience to a HelpAttack! campaign, and then bring them back to their website, mailing list, and Facebook page without us getting in the way.

Ehren

Re: How HelpAttack Can Raise Money for Your Nonprofit with Facebook Updates and Tweets

ehren — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:12:26 -0000

Hey Rahul - I was about to say we can work anywhere through PayPal (we use FirstGiving for US 501c3s), but it sounds like that might not be possible - though we are open to trying. Is there perhaps an Indian startup working on efficient payment for Indian organizations? Please let us know!

Re: 188 Billion Emails Sent A Day

ehren — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:36:54 -0000

I totally agree - the emails we send (from HelpAttack!) are just that way. You're halfway, you're almost there, it's time to donate. We're also going to start sending a notice when the first person joins you, shares your campaign, and things like that. What we suggest that people do in each email - and we only suggest one action - depends what they've already done and what the best next step should be.

If people read more than the subject line, you're lucky. If the goal is to get them to do a followup action, keep it simple and concise, and make the link hard to miss.

Re: Social media as a fundraising tool - some hard facts

ehren — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:49:21 -0000

I strongly agree that the multi-channel benefits of fundraising on social media are more pronounced than with other, more separate channels (don't have data to back it up, more of a hunch).

I think another aspect, other than the 'right to ask,' is the benefit to the donor as being seen as a giving and involved person. There are more options to give or support publicly, be thanked by the cause, or mentioned. Being seen as doing the right thing is particularly important when a scandal, or disaster hits, and everybody's talking about a particular issue. Causes that are poised to take advantage of the huge, but brief, sentiment swings, will do well.

Re: Facebook Timeline Apps: New Way to Engage?

ehren — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:41:19 -0000

Thought of one other thing - whether or not, and how, Timeline activity will be exposed through the News Feed and Profile Feed (http://developers.facebook..... For HelpAttack!, would people be able to give whenever they Read, Listen, Eat, or whatever else? Will that data be exposed to another app that also has permissions with that user?

I don't have any Timeline apps installed, but I did see that my engagement to Kim (a Timeline event) does not appear in my feed from the API.

No matter what the documentation says now, or the API sends now, it's probably subject to change. It looks like that data is not yet exposed.

Re: Does Facebook work for fundraising?

ehren — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:31:39 -0000

Gotta call you out John, sorry. Razoo's post does not say that 33% of donations come from email while only 7% come from Facebook. The graph (cleared up by Mike) is a comparison of *conversion rates*. You would, in theory, get more donations from Facebook if Facebook drives 5x as many clicks. The number of clicks, and therefore donations that you receive depends on the relative sizes of your audience, your messaging, and a bunch of other things.

I agree it's a waste of time to conclude Facebook doesn't work, especially if you also measure the impact of additional views, clicks, Likes, and other associated activity from FB and other social networks. Email and Facebook constituencies are completely different, and you should benchmark them differently.

Re: Email Fundraising is Still King

ehren — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:27:06 -0000

Mike, that definitely helps, especially if it was drawn from data representing a wide variety of causes. In my experience, what converts best, and how well, depends a great deal on a cause's specific community.

Re: Facebook Timeline Apps: New Way to Engage?

ehren — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:15:05 -0000

Debra, you beat me to it. I was writing up a blog post on Sunday while playing around with the timeline developer tools.

I agree with most of what you say here, but might be able to extend some of it with my developer hat on.

Nonprofits can get the benefits of more data, and more knowledge, about supporters from any kind of Facebook app, not just timeline. Facebook permissions are complicated, but incremental. You can ask them to sign in using Facebook one time, then ask them to share their Likes for a different reason, and then ask them to add Timeline when you have a good reason to do so. It all ties back to the same profile, and the cause (or app developer) would have access to everything shared (per FB's privacy and TOS, of course). It's really not that hard to make a FB app, and I think more causes should have one.

Timeline is still fairly constraining - the main argument for making one is that your content shows up in more places, in different ways, and conforms to the internet's obsession with making nouns into proper nouns (Friend, Follow, Post...). This way, Important Words on your website become Important Words on Facebook, which can be critical for branding. I can see Komen getting in there with Cure, or Livestrong doing something with VerbStrong or NounStrong.

You can only use certain actions names, and certain objects, and you need to be careful how they'll appear in various Facebook phrases, titles, and contexts. Some of the sentences you wrote wouldn't be possible without simplification or grammatical gymnastics. Probably the biggest challenge with designing a timeline app is choosing terms that will suit your organization for years to come.

I think unless your team knew timeline was launching, and already have the perfect idea for it, I'd wait until it solidifies a little. Remember, Facebook features are known to change, and as of Sunday the "submit action" process had a bug.

Re: 80 Email Subject Lines from End of Year Fundraising

ehren — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:43:18 -0000

People in the nonprofit industry get a ton of emails, but how many does the average person get? How many lists are they on?

I hope a few causes sat out the fracas and are preparing to launch a "why not give all year? don't procrasdonate" campaign this week or next.

I'm also curious, for year end giving, how much people actually think about the marginal benefit to their taxes, the marginal benefit of holding onto the money for 51 weeks (earning interest) and then donate at the deadline, and how many people give because it's just what you do this time of year.

Re: HelpAttack! - Always Be Giving

ehren — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:52:10 -0000

Hi Howard - we post case studies as frequently as we can here:
http://info.helpattack.com/... I believe you can subscribe to single blog categories like that one via RSS.

Hope to begin rolling out some custom Facebook tabs and cause pages with embedded HelpAttack! this month!

Re: Email Fundraising is Still King

ehren — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:14:10 -0000

I'm a little confused by the second graph. What makes it add up to 100%? Direct mail? Also, does the graph assume equivalent list size? (same number of people on email, vs. facebook, vs. twitter). Is it a comparison of conversion rates, total response rates, or total response volume? If email really has a 33% conversion rate, that's awesome!

Re: Does Facebook Really Work For Fundraising?

ehren — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:59:20 -0000

Comparing 33% from email appeals and 7% from Facebook is a little silly without context. What if ten times as many people ready our emails and ignored them? Then Facebook, per person, looks a lot more effective.

In our experience at HelpAttack!, sure, the size of your list or FB community matters, but the composition and excitement of that community is far more important.

Re: HelpAttack! - Always Be Giving

ehren — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:01:34 -0000

Thanks for writing this up! Your concern about connecting with the cause is a very valid one. Creating a good campaign that connects well with the cause (telling stories, adding the right video to the landing page, bringing other channels together, etc) is something each cause needs to do on their own, in their own way. That said, we do everything we can to put the cause and their message front and center. Campaign builders can also add HelpAttack! widgets and pages to your cause's website, which is a more natural place to give for most people.

Re: SXSW 2012 - Be a Design Superhero: Vanquish the Wasted Pretty

ehren — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:11:45 -0000

Eve does rock, it's true. Y'all should be sure to see the great stuff she coordinates in the Beaconfire Lounge (SxSW nonprofit hangout) as well.

Re: Charities are doing an awful job at social media

ehren — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:27:28 -0000

I don't think the author chose the charities in the best way. Which 10? Many of the largest nonprofits are hospital systems which do not rely on individual donations or involvement in the same way. Many large nonprofits are funded with grants or large gifts, or their causes don't need to align with a broad base of public support. How about Fenix 281? They are a very new nonprofit, benefiting military families, and they have 1.7M Likes on Facebook, more than all of the nonprofits considered for this article.

Don't get me wrong - the recommendations in the article are sound, and nonprofits (and corporations) can always be doing a better job with social media.

Re: Using Social Media Increases Fundraising by 40% [Study]

ehren — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 12:08:11 -0000

This seems like another strong argument in favor of making sure your channels - YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, email, direct mail, etc - are all pulling in the same direction. I look at it as making sure a donor who sees an ask in a non-favored domain can move to a favored one.

While I love data, I'm not sure how useful or educational the profile or demographic data would be. We've seen at http://helpattack.com that every cause, organization, community, week, phase of the moon, and tide yields sometimes wildly different results. There are so many variables I'm not sure you can just look at say, age and gender, and make the right decisions about future campaigns.