Millennial Fundraising Epic FAIL
Jun 1, 2011 Weblog
Typically, this time of year I see fundraising appeals from educational organizations, faith-based groups preparing for summer mission trips, and health-related (education/advocacy/research) groups that sponsor an athletic event (e.g. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team In Training). Over the past four months I’ve received about eight fundraising appeals representing five different organizations. Of these, five have been through social media or in electronic format and stand out in my mind, but not as best practice examples.
Social media and the viral fundraising campaign is highly lauded among large national organizations with high name recognition and stellar reputations. However, a major shortcoming of peer-based appeals is that the responsibility for relationship building is transferred from professional fundraisers to an inexperienced volunteer. A trend I’m seeing among the disappointing appeals is a lack of volunteer fundraising training by these well-respected organizations (or perhaps volunteers are ignoring their training).
The downside of this is that even if a person I know sends me an e-mail or Facebook message asking for my support for their upcoming mission trip or walk-a-thon, I’m unlikely to be receptive to the request if it’s the first time I’ve heard from that person in five years.
As Millennials seek to make a difference, it should be the responsibility of non-profits to engage their volunteers in training to make clear the importance of genuine cultivation and stewardship as a preface to effective asking and engagement. Volunteer training should not focus just on building endurance for the upcoming marathon, but should also spend some time educating on the strengths and weaknesses of permission marketing and their responsibilities as volunteer fundraisers.
Where should these volunteer training programs to start? I recommend the Donor Bill of Rights and the Code of Ethical Principles and Standards.
Tags: best practice, Code of Ethical Principles and Standards, Donor Bill of Rights, e-mail, Facebook, FAIL, fundraising, Millennial, permission marketing, pitfalls, social media, viral fundraising
Yes, Facebook’s Causes Is a Bust
Jun 2, 2008 Weblog
Philanthropy blog Give and Take asks the question, “Is Facebook’s Fund Raising a Bust?” Having tried giving via Causes shortly after it first launched the answer to this question is not difficult.
Even with the 4.75% processing fee, the Causes application would probably have broader support from non-profits if gifts were given directly to the non-profit instead of passing through an intermediary.
Since all gifts processed through the Causes application are actually gifts to “Network for Good” designated to support the selected non-profit, the non-profit never has the opportunity to interact with the donor.
There is no benefit for non-profits to invest any resources into encouraging annual fund donors to give to a donor advised fund.
Tags: Causes, donor advised fund, Facebook, social media
Donor Advised Fund for the Millennial Generation
Nov 5, 2007 Weblog
Here’s my first hand feedback on the Facebook/nonprofit topic. The Facebook plug-ins that allow donors to support their favorite causes through the popular social networking site basically amounts to a donor advised fund for a new generation. Gifts given through the Facebook Causes application go to Justgive.org where they take a 3% cut for credit card charges, 1% for gift processing, and .5% goes to Project Agape.
If I was to give directly to the nonprofit where I worked via credit card, they would have deducted 1.8% for credit card processing and the rest would go to the intended purpose. If I send in a check 100% would go to the intended purpose.
The problem is further compounded by the fact that when Justgive.org finally does sends the 95.5% gift to the intended nonprofit, no donor information is given to the nonprofit… which makes stewardship and accountability impossible.
Tags: donor advised fund, Facebook, social media