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Category Archives: Fund Raising
November 2, 2012, 12:24 pm
Facebook Tests New Tool for Online Giving
Facebook users can now do more than simply click “like” to support charities on the popular social-networking site.
As part of its new Facebook Gifts feature, Facebook users can donate directly to an organization or let their “friends make the choice” about which organization they should support.
To start, the social network is accepting donations for 11 organizations: the American Red Cross, Blue Star Families, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, DonorsChoose.org, Girls Inc., Kiva, Livestrong, Oxfam America, Rainn, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Water.org.
The effort is separate from Causes, a Web site that allows users to donate to charity through Facebook and other social-networking sites. It has 185-million users, according Matt Mahan, the organization’s president and chief executive.
Facebook Gifts is not yet available to all Facebook users, but it is expanding, a…
September 20, 2012, 3:49 pm
Are Online Philanthropy Contests Worth the Effort?
After this year’s Chase Community Giving contest closed after a troubled start, some nonprofit leaders debated the costs and benefits of participating in these type of vote-driven corporate philanthropy contests in The Chronicle’s LinkedIn group.
Some nonprofit leaders say they have had success with the contests, while others are skeptical of whether the campaigns benefit nonprofits or the corporate donor.
Here are some highlights from the debate:
“My nonprofit won a $25,000 grant via the spring 2011 Chase Community Giving contest… We are interested in a contest if there are good odds and no daily voting requirements, among other things. We did three contests spread through 2011, winning three grants, but we’ve done none this year.” —Anne Bowhay, director of foundation relations at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
“As development professionals, we need to remember…
July 24, 2012, 5:35 pm
Y of N.Y. Uses Social Media to Collect Stories—and Donors
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A story from the YMCA of Greater New York’s timeline project
To celebrate its 160th anniversary, the YMCA of Greater New York is offering free T-shirts to people willing to share their stories of how the Y has made a difference in their lives.
Within 48 hours of issuing the appeal by e-mail and social media, the organization received nearly 300 stories recounting childhood swimming lessons, triathlon training, exercise programs started after injuries, and long-ago summer camps.
The YMCA has organized the stories—some submitted with photographs—by decade and posted them on a digital timeline. All of the stories that are collected will also be buried in a time capsule beneath the organization’s new Coney Island branch, which is under construction and scheduled to open next spring.
From…
June 14, 2012, 7:08 pm
After Legal Threat, Cartoonist Raises $140,000 Online for Charity
When the cartoonist Matthew Inman was threatened with a lawsuit for accusing a humor site of stealing his work, he decided that he’d use the threat as a way to raise money for good causes.
He posted a copy of the lawyer’s letter on his Web site and asked his fans to donate more than $20,000 to charity.
He chose the $20,000 figure because the lawyer said in the letter that he would not file the lawsuit if Mr. Inman paid the humor site $20,000.
It took him a little more than an hour to raise that amount. In less than 24 hours, almost 10,000 donors had contributed more than $140,000, which will be channeled to the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation.
The campaign, called “BearLove Good. Cancer Bad,” is the latest chapter in a running feud between Mr. Inman, whose site is called the Oatmeal, and the humor site Funnyjunk.
Mr. Inman says that…
May 10, 2012, 4:26 pm
A Facebook Promotion Connects a Charity With a Loyal Donor
David Levis poses with Dixon, a Ugandan youngster he and his wife supported through ChildFund International. They hold the first photo Mr. Levis received of Dixon. (ChildFund/Jake Lyell)
It was a television commercial that first inspired David Levis and his wife, Stacie, to donate money to ChildFund International in 1999 and become “sponsors” of a needy child–and it was a Facebook post that helped send Mr. Levis to Uganda to meet five of their sponsored children this April.
Mr. Levis, whose family sponsors 13 children through the charity, was the winner of the organization’s “Experience of a Lifetime” promotion, held on Facebook last year. He was selected from five finalists by public vote to win the trip to meet his sponsored children.
“It was one of those things you’re hopeful about, but you…
April 5, 2012, 2:39 pm
Online Fundraising Increased 19% in 2011, Says New Report
The total that charities raised online jumped 19 percent in 2011 compared with the previous year, and the number of Internet gifts they received climbed 20 percent, according to a new study that analyzes online fundraising and advocacy at 44 national charities.
The 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study was published by M+R Strategic Services, a fundraising consulting company, and the Nonprofit Technology Network.
The share of people who responded to e-mail fundraising appeals and advocacy requests dropped in each of the last five eNonprofit Benchmarks studies. But in 2011, organizations said the percentage who made gifts increased 2 percent and the percentage who responded to advocacy alerts jumped 28 percent.
The increases can be attributed, at least in part, to organizations’ being smarter about their use of e-mail, says Sarah DiJulio, a principal at M+R Strategic Services.
…
April 5, 2012, 9:20 am
The Dangers of an Inactive E-Mail List
Inactive e-mail lists have always posed a challenge to fundraisers, but as spam filters get more sophisticated, the stakes are getting higher, Dan Atherton, a consultant at Chapman Cubine Adams + Hussey, told participants in San Francisco at the Nonprofit Technology Conference.
He said e-mail providers like Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo monitor how people interact with an organization’s e-mail communication, and if not enough supporters open the messages, the providers will stop delivering the messages to subscribers’ inboxes.
“If nobody in the first wave of e-mails I send out opens my e-mail, other people won’t even see that e-mail,” said Mr. Atherton. “It will go into their spam folder.”
The Environmental Defense Fund recently ran into the problem with Gmail, said Matthew Grimm, an analyst at the organization.
“We saw our Gmail open rates plummet recently and didn’t…
January 5, 2012, 5:18 pm
A New York Food Bank Sees Success With a Virtual Food Drive
Food drives are a popular activity for companies and community groups that take part in service projects. But they are often costly and inefficient for food banks, which often have to provide materials, plan pick-ups, and process the donations.
The Food Bank for New York City has found a way around that problem by moving its food drives online, allowing donors to shop in virtual grocery aisles, give cash donations, and even start their own food drives.
“Holding a virtual food drive doesn’t add any cost to the Food Bank for New York City; it only helps provide food,” said Dan Buckley, the food bank’s senior online communications manager.
The concept isn’t new to food banks, or even to the Food Bank for New York City, which has had a similar site for some time. But a redesign of the site last summer added features that made its online food drives more closely resemble the…
November 23, 2011, 11:04 am
Charting a Decade of Online Donations
Only 4 percent of donors had given online in 2001. This year, about 65 percent have given to charity through the Internet.
That’s one of the comparisons made in a new graphic from Network for Good, a fund-raising and volunteerism Web site that celebrates its 10th anniversary this month.
In 2001, the average donation through the site was $226. But this year the average gift is $73, a change that Network for Good interprets as a sign that online giving has “gone mainstream.”
Here’s the full graphic:
November 22, 2011, 9:30 am
Wal-Mart’s ‘12 Days of Giving’ Relies on Facebook
The Wal-Mart Foundation plans to give $19-million to nonprofits during the holidays–and it’s hoping Facebook users can help decide how to give a portion of that money.
The retailer is taking nominations on Facebook until November 30 for organizations that provide people with basic needs like food or shelter. The 200-word submissions, with required photos, will then be reviewed and selected by the foundation. At least 12 winners will be announced daily from December 12 to 23. Those groups will each receive a share of the $1.5-million the foundation has set aside for the Facebook effort.
“We want every dollar to be as impactful as possible and think that local, individual submissions will help us uncover the greatest needs,” said Julie Gehrki, senior director at the Wal-Mart Foundation.
Schools and government agencies, in addition to nonprofits, are all eligible for the…
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