In the wake of the huge number of donations given to Haiti earthquake relief via text mesage, MobileActive has published Texting for Charitable Dollars: The Definitive Guide. 
It describes the process of raising funds via SMS from the donors’ and the nonprofits’ perspectives, including costs and tips for getting started. The guide is available for free [...]

Tags: Fundraising, Mobile Communications, Online Fundraising

San Francisco’s Fundraising Day will be happening June 16 at the downtown Marriott.  Once again I have the honor of co-chairing the Technology Track with Michael Stein. We’ve programmed sessions on online fundraising with Madeline Stanionis, social media with Jeff Patrick, database selection with Eric Leland, and an open discussion session with me and [...]

Tags: Donor Databases, Email Marketing, Fundraising, Online Fundraising, Social Media, Web 2.0

My friends at Idealware have created a new fund to support their research.  Many of Idealware’s reports have been funded by foundations and some have had corporate sponsorship. As you probably know, neither foundation nor corporate support is a reliable funding source these days. In addition, since Idealware must maintain its independence in order to [...]

Tags: Donor Databases, Fundraising, IT Management, Nonprofit Management, Nonprofit Technology, Online Fundraising, Social Media, Web 2.0

I spent the last 3 days at the CASE District VII conference, for schools in AZ, CA, Guam, HI, NV, and UT.  Social Media was a big topic this year, with workshop titles like "Maximizing Social Networks and Online Resources in Alumni Relations", "Now That Facebook and Twitter Aren’t Enough: Integrating Social Media into [...]

Tags: Fundraising, Online Fundraising, Social Media

The latest round of the America’s Giving Challenge is on. This is a national competition to encourage people to use their personal and social networks to help win cash for their favorite nonprofit. The Giving Challenge is not focused on how much money you can raise, but on how successful you are at getting people to [...]

Tags: Online Fundraising, Social Media, Web 2.0

What: Another in The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s series of online discussions: How to Use Facebook Causes to Promote Your Nonprofit Group
When: Tuesday, October 13, at 12 noon, Eastern time
Where: http://philanthropy.com/live/2009/10/facebook/
How Much: Free
Description:
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Tags: Online Fundraising, Social Media, Web 2.0

CARE2 is holding a webinar on strategies for successfully welcoming, cultivating, and converting new leads into donors. Holly Ross of NTEN will moderate a panel with Heidi Hess of Children’s Defense Fund and Greg Zelder of the California State Parks Foundation. They will review data about nonprofits’ speed and type of responses to newly acquired [...]

Tags: Email Marketing, Fundraising, Online Fundraising

Steve MacLaughlin at Blackbaud has written an analysis of the CASE Online Fundraising Survey.  No surprise — he focuses on the high number of responses that said they "don’t know" or "don’t measure"  and cites the maxim "If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it."  His analysis is at http://forums.blackbaud.com/blogs/connections/archive/2009/09/17/online-giving-trends-in-higher-education.aspx
 

Tags: Fundraising, Online Fundraising

Those of you who fundraise for educational institutions or are interested in how they’re raising money online should check out the results of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education’s 2009 survey on online giving (PDF).
Some highlights:
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Tags: Fundraising, Online Fundraising

As we’ve noted previously, The Chronicle of Philanthropy has been running a series of online discussions on how nonprofits can use social media tools. In addition to these open discussions, the Chronicle has been conducting a series of recorded interviews.
In the latest, Allison Fine interviews Joe Green, one of the creators of Facebook Causes, and [...]

Tags: Online Fundraising, Social Media, Web 2.0