Bede Music Box

1 Strom, Stephanie, “Charities Vie for Prizes in Online Giving Experiment”, The New York Times, January 31, 2008; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/ Can there be any doubt deep breath and reconsider what social technologies can best be used for and what non-prot executives can reasonably expect from them. Any casual surfer on Causes or in the non-prot blogosphere will Participation: Resources (Personnel): 65.5% report allocating ¼ to ½ of FTE Resources (Funds): 59.3% report “None”; 32.2% report “$1 to $10,000” Purpose: In all, about 1200 mid-size non-prots were invited to participate, and 256 responded to the survey. We asked Attract New Attract New Volunteers Publicity or 1000 or above T F T TT RK HAVE 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% $0-$100 $100-$500 $500 - $1,000 $10,000 - $50,000 $50,000 or more $1,000 - $10,000 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 100% to 75% 75% to 50% 50% to 25% 10% to 0% 25% to 10% Despite such ambiguous results, 59 percent of those surveyed reported that the “effectiveness” of social It’s only “free” to join; actually using the tools takes a lot of time and resources: $11K+/annum for a “good” “Everyone is doing it” Yes, but the more people use social technologies the harder and more expensive it is to rise above the are truly going away. So you have to keep using all the Yes, but the benets of reaching the next generation “You can build relationships with donors and volunteers” Only if they can nd you amidst the noise and you generate high enough quality to keep them enable non-prots to do things they could never before have considered—reach out to a national audience, make 8 Robertson, Mark, “Average Number of YouTube Views in First Month” ReelSEO, February 8, 2008; http://www.reelseo.com/average-number-youtube- 9 Green, Joe “Causes Raises $10,000,000!”,Causes Press Release, July 10, 2009; http://exchange.causes.com/2009/07/causes-raises-10000000 outstanding question for many. On the pro side, young people often have more disposable time to volunteer and advocate, which makes up for what they lack in disposable funds. Many believe as well that reaching these young people now can build their awareness of a cause or non-prot and solidify their loyalties, so that when they develop disposable incomes they will be willing to donate some of those funds to the non-prots they have known and loved for years. The young certainly make great advocates, but the idea that engaging the young today cultivates future donors should leave you with which they have a personal association or experience. It makes no difference, in short, if a person was a “friend” of an environmental cause the how of reaching the next generation, but the It should be noted as well that Americans are becoming substantially less brand loyal—recent estimates suggest that no more than three percent of consumers are truly brand loyal. suggest that they prefer a portfolio approach—they tend to give to several charities doing largely the same thing (fundraising professionals have known this for years, which is why they buy and sell donor lists). Finally, consider the well-documented phenomenon of steadily growing distrust of the non-prot sector among Americans. Then think about the 24-year-old who is casually connected to your organization via Facebook or an RSS feed from your blog. That 24-year-old becomes somewhat more aware of your cause over the next fteen years as he is exposed to countless fundraising appeals. It’s just as plausible that such exposure would generate fatigue on the part of the once-24-year old, leading him away from you, as turn him into a loyal donor to you. To boil it down, is there any other outreach channel that you would invest in if the experts told you it had a 15-year payback horizon? You Can Build Relationships with Donors and Volunteers 12 Ott, Adrian, “Is Customer Loyalty A Thing of the Past?” Exponential Revenue, 2009 http://newroadstorevenue.com/2009/06/19/is-customer-loyalty-a- able to draw 27,000 members to a transparently fake cause (in the comments of the Cause page it was explained it is still early and we are still experimenting) with social technologies will pay a high cost for being judicious. It’s worth noting that in any of these technology-driven change cycles there are some big wins, but those wins are usually driven by novelty. Thus the much-publicized success of Save Darfur and charity:water in social technologies is real. But the rush to attempt to replicate their success destroys the novelty of the approach and makes it hard even for the organizations that were initially successful to replicate that success. Another factor that seems to be at play is that brand-new or very small organizations seem to account for a disproportionate number of the success stories in social technologies. For instance a majority of the winners of America’s Giving Challenge in both 2008 and 2009 were very young, very small organizations. While it remains to be explained why this is the case, perhaps a factor is these organizations are perceived to be more “authentic” (a buzzword of this space) in To Be Social or Not to be Social None of this means that social technologies are worthless. It only shows that there is nothing inherent in social technologies that make them “effective”—it’s all in what you expect them to accomplish and how well you use them. When thinking about social technologies and their usefulness to your organization some decidedly old-school thinking may be the best guide. In 1965 Bruce Tuckman created a model of how effective groups are created. Tuckman had four stages to his model: 18 “2009 Consumer New Media Study”, Cone, Inc.; http://www.coneinc.com/news/request.php?id=2602 include everything from staking their reputation to yours by making a personal appeal to their friends, to making a donation, to showing up for an event, to making—and showing up—for a volunteer commitment. In short, make sure your use of social technologies is built upon regular invitations or opportunities for your social connections to make a sacrice and take meaningful action. About Philanthropy Action Philanthropy Action is an online journal for donors. We believe that the philanthropy sector needs more information and intelligent discussion from the donor perspective. It is no easier now than it was two decades Very Important Not Important Attract New Donors Attract New Volunteers Very Important Not Important Attract New Donors Attract New Volunteers