Recent tidbits

"The Wired Wealthy" - Great Report!

jon — 2008-05-16T18:17:43Z

In March 2008, Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research released a report titled, "The Wired Wealthy: Using the Internet to Connect with Your Middle and Major Donors." We think it's one of the most interesting, actionable pieces of online fundraising research we've ever read. If you're part of our world, you need to read this report.

Here's a quick snippet from the intro:

The wired wealthy are by definition engaged online and are generous givers. A closer look at demographics and practices adds some useful details.

First, they are very generous givers. Wired wealthy say they give an average of $10,896 each year to various causes, with a median gift of $4,500. And they are notably wealthy. More than twenty-five percent (25%) have household incomes above $200,000 per year. More than half have annual household incomes above $100,000.

Of the 13 participating charities and nonprofits that provided additional data, on average, high dollar donors make up about one percent (1%) of their records (high dollar defined as giving a cumulative total of $1,000 or more to the partner organization in an 18-month period). While small in numbers of people, that one percent (1%) is responsible for an average of thirty-two percent (32%) of the organization’s total dollars raised. Partner organizations reported having, on average, email addresses for twenty-five (25%) of their $1,000+ donors.

Demographically, wired wealthy are predominantly baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), with the center of gravity falling right in the middle of the baby boom cohort. And, they are extremely wired. They have been using the Internet for an average of 12 years. They are online an average of 18 hours per week. They know their way around the Web. They do their banking and bill paying online. They read the news online. They make purchases online. And, of course, most make charitable contributions online.

The wired wealthy have dabbled in various social networks and so-called "Web 2.0" venues, but do not appear to be among the heaviest adopters. One exception may be YouTube – more than half of wired wealthy respondents have watched at least one video. A quarter of this group at least occasionally read blogs. Perhaps predictably, Facebook and MySpace do not represent fertile hunting grounds to find or engage the wired wealthy.

Seth Godin: Respect Earns Attention

jon — 2008-02-05T15:09:13Z

Michael Gilbert picks up on a great blog post by permission marketing consultant Seth Godin, in which he riffs on how patience, clarity and respect for permission are what earn you attention for your audience.

Real permission is different from presumed or legalistic permission. Just because you somehow get my email address doesn't mean you have permission. Just because I don't complain doesn't mean you have permission. Just because it's in the fine print of your privacy policy doesn't mean it's permission either.

...

In order to get permission, you make a promise. You say, "I will do x, y and z, I hope you will give me permission by listening." And then, this is the hard part, that's all you do. You don't assume you can do more. You don't sell the list or rent the list or demand more attention. You can promise a newsletter and talk to me for years, you can promise a daily RSS feed and talk to me every three minutes, you can promise a sales pitch every day (the way Woot does). But the promise is the promise until both sides agree to change it. You don't assume that just because you're running for President or coming to the end of the quarter or launching a new product that you have the right to break the deal. You don't.

...

If it sounds like you need humility and patience to do permission marketing, you're right. That's why so few companies do it properly. The best shortcut, in this case, is no shortcut at all.

Surveying The Digital Future

jon — 2007-10-31T22:57:36Z

The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School has released the results of the sixth year of its "Surveying the Digital Future" project. Six years of longitudinal research on use of broadband at home, the wireless Internet, on-line media, user-generated content and social networking.

Interesting findings include:

43 percent of Internet users who are members of online communities say that they feel as strongly about their virtual community as they do about their real-world communities.
More than one-fifth of online community members (20.3 percent) take actions off-line at least once a year that are related to their online community.
Almost two-thirds of online community members who participate in social causes through the Internet (64.9 percent) say they are involved in causes that were new to them when they began participating on the Internet. And more than 40 percent (43.7 percent) of online community members participate more in social activism since they started participating in online communities.
In spite of the recent growth of online communication by political parties and candidates, the number of users who say the Internet can be used as a tool to gain political power declined.

Read the report here.

Creating the Relationship-Centric Organization

jon — 2007-09-25T17:38:22Z

Our friend, colleague and fellow database consultant Paul Hagen has written an excellent piece for Idealware entitled "Creating the Relationship-Centric Organization." In it, Paul does a great job of explaining the conceptual leap from "donor databases" to "constituent relationship management" (CRM) -- thinking about ALL of the relationships your organization needs to track, manage and grow:

Every nonprofit manages relationships with constituents, whether through a sophisticated tool or through scraps of paper, Excel spreadsheets, and miscellaneous databases. However, managing through these informal and decentralized methods is inefficient if not downright chaotic.... Isolated silos of contact data means that supporters may only hear about one aspect of the organization – for instance, they may hear about fundraising needs but miss communications that would tell them about accomplishments or volunteer needs.

Poor management of constituent data translates to greater costs, lost revenue, and decreased impact.

Is your organization Relationship-Centric?
How well is your organization doing with its CRM strategy? Our sector divides into four categories on this critical measure:

Constituent Chaos. Some organizations have constituent data scattered everywhere. They have irregular, one-size-fits-all communications with supporters, and miss many opportunities to gain more value from constituents or grow relationships. These organizations can be described as being in a state of Constituent Chaos. They are underserving their organizations’ mission by failing to engage supporters more robustly.

Self-Centric. Self-Centric nonprofits have constituent data consolidated into one or only a few places (they are likely to be newer organizations with up-to-date systems), but focus their attention primarily inward rather than on interactions with the outside world. Like organizations in a state of constituent chaos, they do little to differentiate between their supporters and miss many opportunities to cross-promote different aspects of the organization.

Enlightened Stone-age. Enlightened Stone-age nonprofits appreciate and actively seek to engage their constituents with high quality interactions, but a multiplicity of data collection mechanisms requires staff to jump through hoops to coordinate outreach.

Relationship-Centric. The organizations that have contact data consolidated in only a few places, have regular targeted interactions with constituents in which they cross-promote different aspects of the organization and create opportunities to grow the value of their constituents are Relationship-Centric nonprofits. They maximize their relationships with supporters: they regularly increase the average donation size and effectively engage an increasingly wide swath of constituents to take actions to meet the organization’s goals.

If your organization is thinking about how to improve your database situation, Paul's article is a great background piece. The concepts he describes are at the heart of ONE/Northwest database consulting practice.

Read the whole article at:

http://www.idealware.org/articles/
relationship_centric_org_CRM.php

CAN-SPAM For Nonprofits

jon — 2007-05-23T17:51:09Z

In late 2004, the U.S. government put out its final regulations for the CAN-SPAM act, which is intended to cut down on unsolicited email ("spam").

Nonprofits are not exempt from CAN-SPAM!

Our friends at Guidestar have some brief, helpful advice about how to send email that complies with the CAN-SPAM act. Their tips:

Send all e-mails from a legitimate, active e-mail address.
If the recipient hits "Reply" and responds to the message, the answer should go to an in-box that is monitored, not just disappear into cyberspace.
Provide accurate header information and a postal address for the sender.
The "From" section of the e-mail should identify either the sender or the organization, or both. The body of the message should contain a snail-mail address.
Give the message an accurate subject line.
It is unlawful to use subject lines that mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
When in doubt, err on the side of caution.
If it's likely a recipient would view the message as an advertisement or promotion, put the word Advertisement in the subject line or body of the e-mail, even if the message is related to your mission.
Provide recipients a way to opt out of future mailings.
Either include a link to a page where recipients can remove their addresses or provide an e-mail address where they can write to have their addresses removed.
If someone opts out of future mailings, respect their wishes.
You have 10 days to remove them from your mailing list(s).

Cultivating Engagement From New List Members

jon — 2007-03-06T18:05:51Z

MRSS' Eve Fox has written a clear, concise guide to what kinds of messages you should send to get new email list members engaged with your organization. Eve writes:

If your goal is to cultivate good activists and/or donors, it seems you might be better served by skipping the "welcome" message(s) altogether. Data from tests we recently conducted for several of our nonprofit clients has shown that "welcome" messages are not the most effective first communication for new subscribers.
So What Does Work?
It might seem way too easy, but it appears that a typical action alert or fundraising appeal on your most current, most compelling issue/campaign is far more effective at engaging new list members – and retaining them – than a well-crafted welcome message!

Bottom line: skip the small talk, and get right to an ask!

Scheduling Meetings: Two Tools That Help

jon — 2007-03-06T18:05:51Z

We hate scheduling meetings via email. Fortunately, there are two great, free services that take a lot of the pain out of meeting scheduling. We think both are worth checking out the next time you need to "herd the cats" and schedule a meeting amongst far-flung colleagues. They're infinitely preferable to shooting around dozens of emails and trying to keep track of everyone's free and busy times.

Meet-O-Matic

http://www.meetomatic.com

Meet-O-Matic is incredibly quick and simple. Type in your name, your email, choose some times, and it gives you two hyperlinks: one to forward to anyone you want to join the meeting, and the other for you to view the responses and calcuate the best time.

The only catch is that you can only specify "AM" and "PM" for a particuar day, not specific times. That can be a drawback. Still, Meet-O-Matic is one of the simplest tools out there, and there are absolutely no strings attached.

MeetingWizard

http://www.meetingwizard.com

MeetingWizard is like Meet-O-Matic's grown up sister. It's got more features, more power... and is a bit more complex. For example, MeetingWizard lets you specific specific times for your meeting (up to 12), download meetings to Microsoft Outlook, upload your address book to send invites, and more.

If you find Meet-O-Matic to be not quite powerful or flexible enough, then MeetingWizard is a great tool to try.

All Marketers Are Liars

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:51Z

Effective online organizing is a form of marketing (in the best sense of the word). Online marketing expert Seth Godin, who draws heavily on the "tipping point" ideas of Malcolm Gladwell, gave an engaging and worthwhile talk at Google, where he covers the basics of this landscape, and talks about the power of telling authentic stories in a low-trust world.

It's worth watching for anyone who needs to communicate about social change issues to the world.

Signing Documents Electronically with EchoSign

jon — 2007-03-06T18:05:56Z

If your organization frequently generates contracts, memoranda of understanding, or other things that require signatures from partners, you've probably experienced the frustration and hassle of shuffling the paper necessary to get these documents signed. It often seems like this is the last possible use of the fax machine!

The continuing march of technological progress has finally started to offer some simple solutions to this problem. Here at ONE/Northwest, we've started to use a web-based service called EchoSign to manage the process of signing database and website development contracts with our partners.

EchoSign allows you to upload your document (signed or unsigned), request a signature and manage the entire signing process. It shows you when things have been signed, converts final copies to PDF and sends them to all parties. It also archives copies of your contracts online.

Digital signatures are legal. According to the EchoSign FAQ:

The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (“E-Signature Act”) became effective in the US on October 1, 2000 deeming online electronic signatures on commercial transactions and most other agreements have a legal status equivalent to a written signature.

Learn more about Electronic Signatures in the US and abroad.

EchoSign is free for up to 10 documents per month, and $19.95 per user per month for unlimited signatures. For power users who want to seamlessly integrate document signing with their database, EchoSign also offers integration with Salesforce.com.

More information at:

http://www.echosign.com

Want Better Website Stats? Get Google Analytics!

jon — 2007-05-10T19:29:31Z

We've long been frustrated by the dearth of high-quality, low-cost website statistics tool that make it easy to get information that you can actually use to improve your site. So, you can imagine how excited we were when Google purchased Urchin, one of the most powerful commercial webstats tools out there, changed its name to Google Analytics, and started giving it out for free. That's right, free.

If you are a small to mid-sized organization with a website, you should have a Google Analytics account. It's just that simple.

It's easy. Just go to http://www.google.com/analytics and sign up. Google will give you a little chunk of code to place on each page of your website (or, better, in your website template) and in about a day, you'll be able to login and few your stats.

And while you're at it, check out Google's "Conversion University" -- great tips on content optimization and website marketing.

Update

In May 2007, Google delivered a major upgrade to Google Analytics that makes an already-good tool really quite fantastic! For a great rundown, see this article by Avinash Kaushik.

A Great Model Privacy Policy

jon — 2008-04-01T00:14:03Z

Our friends at Sightline Institute have written a privacy policy for their beautiful new website that is a model of thoroughness, thoughtfulness and plain English usage. If you're looking for an example privacy policy for grassroot advocacy groups, you could do far worse than to start with theirs.

Check it out at http://www.sightline.org/site/privacy_policy

Some other sample privacy policies include:

ONE/Northwest Privacy Policy

http://www.onenw.org/about/privacy

1Sky Washington

http://www.1skywashington.org/about/privacy

Washington Environmental Council

http://www.wecprotects.org/home/privacy_policy.cfm

Idaho Conservation League

http://www.wildidaho.org/privacy.php

WhatCounts

http://www.whatcounts.com/bin/display?d=/company/privacy.html&t=/main/company.

EAGLE

http://www.eaglelaw.org/about/privacy

Microsoft Updates Update Process: You Should Update

jon — 2007-03-06T18:05:51Z

Most ONEList readers (except you lucky Mac users) are likely familiar with Windows Update, Windows' built-in automatic updates function. (Don't get all smug: Apple has an equivalent feature, called Software Update.)

Microsoft has launched a new update service, called Microsoft Update, that includes both Windows and Office security updates in a single, streamlined process. It's a pretty nice system, and we recommend that you switch over to it.

The catch? You have to choose to use Microsoft Update instead of Windows Update.

Fortunately, switching to Microsoft Update is really easy. Just go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com. On the right side you'll see a link to 'Microsoft Update'. Follow those prompts to install the new updating system.

Free Online Marketing Wisdom from Marketing Sherpa

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:50Z

The folks at Marketing Sherpa, who consistently produce some of the best research and advice on online marketing out there, have released their 2006 Wisdom Report, which contains real-world lessons from over a hundred for-profit and nonprofit online marketing practitioners.

There are lots of good nuggets in here for email, website and direct mail outreach, and how these tools can play together in an integrated communications strategy.

How To Keep Website Visitors Coming Back?

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:50Z

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen a big question in a recent Alertbox column. Well worth pondering for folks thinking about the intersection of online and offline organizing.

The question is: How can websites devote more of their budgets to keeping customers, rather than simply advertising for new visitors? Here are some ideas, ranging from the proven (newsletters) to the speculative (mobile services):
Email newsletters. Getting people to sign up for regular newsletters remains the ultimate way to maintain a relationship. As usability studies show, a newsletter has much more of an emotional impact on people than a brief visit to a website.
Request marketing. Have users tell you what they want, and then alert them when you have it.
Discussion groups and other community features. Find ways to recognize particularly active members and thus further connect them to your site. Such recognition might be as simple as placing gold stars on their profiles or might include more substantial loyal-user benefits.
Affiliate programs. These are alliances with other sites that promote your services to their users in return for a referral fee if their users do business with you. The program works best if the referring site can honestly recommend the destination site to its own target audience. So, even though you have to pay them a cut, the cost isn't boundless the way it is on search engines because you're not competing with all other sites in the world for the right to be listed. If you're the best match for the referring site's audience, they'll want you -- rather than simply whoever offers the highest fee -- because your conversion rate will be better. (In an earlier column, I offer an example in which sales differed drastically depending on which affiliate partner a site chose to link to.)
Newsfeeds. RSS might work, but I don't know yet as we're not starting our user research into RSS until next week. (We'll present findings about RSS usability at our upcoming conference.)
Stick your URL onto any physical product you sell in the hope that customers will see it when they need supplies or a replacement.
A hardware component that's hardwired to connect to your site's service. Without the iPod, the iTunes music store wouldn't be nearly as successful. Mobile features. Search engines' back-and-forth interaction style is clumsier on mobile devices. Conversely, mobile provides added value for services that know their users and understand sufficient context to give them exactly what they need, when they need it -- perhaps without their having to ask. Thus, users are more likely to actually subscribe to mobile services than to seek them out every time they feel the need. Being an icon on somebody's BlackBerry gives you top-of-mind presence and significantly increases the likelihood that that they'll visit your website when they want to do business. (You might even get paid for the mobile service -- but even without payment, it's worth it in search-liberation points.)

In the dot-com bubble days, it was fashionable to discuss website stickiness. Now, stickiness must be reconceptualized for the real world rather than the bubble. It's not a goal to make users spend hours on your site. Let them go about their business.

The real goal is to make users come back, and to have them come directly to your site instead of clicking on expensive ads. The ideas above are just a few ways to encourage repeat business. Further in-depth studies of user behaviors and customer needs should reveal many new ways of keeping users loyal.

YouSendIt.com: a simple, free solution for sending files that are too big to email

jons — 2007-03-06T18:05:50Z

If ever you need to email someone a really big file -- something with lots of hi-res pictures, etc.- generally, anything that's bigger than 1MB -- you may have difficulties getting it through. Many email servers will not accept messages that large. But wait! All is not lost. Check out:

http://www.yousendit.com

It's a simple, free service that lets you upload files and then emails the person (or people) that you want to receive the file. They get a link in the email that lets them download. It's free, no FTP hassling, no email limits. The files are only avaiable for a week, so it's not a long-term file distribution solution, but it is a quick and handy tool.

While process is reasonably secure, we don't recommend distributing your secrets this way, but then again, you shouldn't be emailing highly confidential information anyway, right?