Charity Chatter

Convergence - Beyond Technology

On January 6th I asked if your charity was ready to get mobile.  Shortly afterwards... Haiti. Now the statistics are coming in and we're learning. 

According to this report (from www.theagitator.net) , GenX and GenY are quite enthusiastic about donating via "text to give".  Now we have more information from Nielsen shared via Mitch Joel at Six Pixels of Separation.   The people who are using mobile and connecting to social networking through their mobile technology... are 35 - 55 and 55% of them are women.

There's More to Mobile

Text to give campaigns are wonderful, but they won't provide Haiti-like results for everyone.  Don't assume that mobile starts and ends with "text to give".  It doesn't!  Mobilizing your supporters goes well beyond texting.

Develop an iPhone, Android and Blackberry app that offers some valuable content. Make sure you're including content that is mobile friendly on your Facebook page, have some fun with Foursquare, and work with corporate friends to build partnerships.

All of these areas intertwine, interact and intersect. Communications tools and platforms are converging at an amazing pace. If you haven't already, it's time for your organization to do the same.

Communications Convergence

Charities must change their internal structures to become more responsive and strategic. The future is now.  Like it or not, communication and technology are inextricably linked and that's one thing that isn't likely to change.  

Too many charities treat "communications" like a separate entity.  Successful fundraising goes hand in hand with well planned, well executed, and integrated communications.  Your social networking person must be capable of being your:

• communications person
• fundraising person
• PR person 
• crisis management person
• community builder
• public awareness person
• advocacy person
• marketing expert
• data analysis expert
• strategic advisor
• content & programmatic advisor

GenX isn't getting any younger. GenY may not even know you exist, if you don't engage them online and via mobile technologies.  They are smart, savvy and you're competing with Iran, Michael Jackson and Haiti, for their attention. You better be good and your organizational infrastructure should make it seamless for these people to deal with you.  

A sturdy infrastructure can provide stability - or it can collapse when the world around it begins to change.  The world is changing fast... will your infrastructure provide stability or will it crash around you?

What is "Awareness" For?

A Goal or a Vehicle?

In the nonprofit world, public awareness is considered to be an important function of the charity.  I think it is important - but not in and of itself.  I don't view "awareness" as a goal.  I view awareness as a vehicle to help achieve a goal.

I am aware of many things, but that awareness makes no difference in my life or anyone else's.  I am aware of the horrific wars in the Congo that have resulted in more than 6 million deaths.  But I haven't done anything about it.  I am aware that the Burrowing Owl is endangered.  But I don't do anything about that either. 

Many, many organizations have done an outstanding job of making me aware.  But precious few have inspired me to do anything about the things they made me aware of. What is the point of being aware, if it results in nothing more than awareness?

Clearly, public awareness serves many important purposes, but only if it results in some sort of action (or prevents an action).  Here are some examples that come to mind:

• Prevention, protection, safety, services: Helping people prevent an illness or an accident, dietary information to make you healthy, exercise promotion etc. There are lots of great things people can do, or avoid doing to make their lives or someone else's life better.
• Advocacy, Social change: Pretty self explanatory... organizations often benefit from public awareness that causes governments to make changes or causes people to change the way they think about an issue or a cause and therefore make someone's life better. (i.e. discrimination, abuse etc.)
• Raising funds & attracting volunteers: People can't give or help if they don't know about you, and care about you (a lot!).  A higher profile can also help to attract corporate support, if the awareness campaign can offer significant quantifiable measurements to prove to the sponsor that it has value.

These are all useful and important functions of "awareness".  However, I often hear people touting the importance of awareness as if the goal begins and ends at making people aware. 

But, but... We still raised awareness! 

So if we remove the outcomes I've itemized above - what is the point of awareness?  If people don't "do" (or stop doing) something with their new-found awareness, why does it matter that they are aware?  Why do people often say things like "Yes, but it also spread awareness", as if that awareness has value when the act they were hoping to inspire didn't occur and nobody can point to something that resulted from that awareness?

Is there some kind of intrinsic value to the fact that I know about the Congo and the Burrowing Owl and do nothing about it?  If so, I'd love to know what that value is, because I am at a loss to identify it.

Cheap & Easy Cause Marketing

I  love this corporate partnership initiative between the United Way and Rogers.   It's so smart and so simple, that I'm a bit surprised I don't see more companies doing this.  Am I missing something?

Sometime before the holidays, Rogers sent me an email offering some sort of customer reward gift.  I don't remember what the gift was.  In fact, I only vaguely remember getting the email.  I was only reminded of this, because I just received a little thank you email with a link to a website with nice music.  When I clicked on the link that said "click here for your special message", a new window popped open with music and a personalized, thank you message appeared. I took a screen shot to share here:

If I recall, I received a customer appreciation email that asked me to play an online game, where I picked a gift box on the screen, to determine which customer gift I would receive.  After I played, it gave me the option of receiving the gift or donating the value of the gift to the United Way.  The item was pretty insignificant (or I just didn't like it), so I opted to donate it.  Either way, it's a win for Rogers.  If you want the gift, you keep it and you're a happy customer.  If you don't want it, you donate and you feel all warm and fuzzy about yourself, the company and the charity who is benefiting from your donation.  

Every single charity in the country should be able to find a company willing to do this with them, and here's why:

• Basically, this is a "no cost" effort.  Find a company that already offers some sort of customer appreciation give-away and ask if they'll include an option to donate the item to your charity.
• The company looks great! They're no longer "a company".  They're people. They care about you and the things you care about. 
• Both the company and the charity get measurable results from this.  They will know how many people took advantage of the donation option.  If enough people choose to donate, it creates an excellent opportunity for future partnership opportunities and data that you can use when approaching other companies (assuming your corporate partner will allow it).
• You don't need a large company to make this work.  As a sales rep, I used to send gift baskets to accounts over a certain size.  I bet, that if I had polled them, many of them would've requested a donation to a cause, instead of the basket. (In fact, one client held a draw for the basket I sent them and donated the money to a charity!)
• It's a win, win, win, win! The company looks good. The cause benefits. They can measure results and the customers are the ones who are donating.  The company is just redirecting money it already planned to spend - and looking like a hero in the process.

Now - if I were Rogers, I would've offered a choice of charities, but hey, nobody's perfect!

So... get out there and start asking your corporate friends if they have any customer appreciation programs and see if they'll include a donation option in the future.  Show them how amazing they'll look and how they will be able to measure its impact... and go raise some money.

And don't forget to keep the partnership alive with a nice thank you letter at the end... it's a nice touch and once again, people will feel warm and fuzzy about themselves, the company and your charity!

(Although, I do wonder if they should've sent the thank you earlier?  Is February too late to thank me for something that happened in November or December? Given that I'd forgotten, I think not. But maybe you think otherwise?)

Women Can't Compete

OK - so the title is intentionally provocative, but I couldn't resist. What it should really say, is that women don't compete well.  So take a deep breath and read on...

Kimberley MacKenzie wrote a blog recently entitled "Why dont' women have a greater profile?" She makes some interesting points.  As I sat ready at my laptop to post a roaring comment of approval and agreement, I began to look at her points and realized... I don't agree with her.

I don't think that women lack ambition, avoid looking ambitious or that they dislike women who are ambitious.  I don't think women neglect "bring other women along" as they succeed.  I don't think "ego" is always a bad thing and I don't think the women I know think that either.  I don't know anyone who doesn't think that knowledge is good or who doesn't work hard to further their personal or professional knowledge.  I surround myself with assertive (and even aggressive) women. 

So why is my actual experience, so different from my emotional response to Kimberley's post?

All of my professional success has occurred because women some very assertive, brilliant, driven women helped me to succeed.  Their help and support sometimes came in the form of bitter medicine.  I reluctantly (and sometimes resentfully) drank that bitter medicine and today I'm better for it. 

Many of these women were professors.  One was Nancy Mandel, my boss and mentor at the Centre for Feminist Research.  She didn't give me "huggles and snuggles" when I screwed up. She held me accountable and sometimes that was very unpleasant.  She also supported me and taught me that screw ups don't define you; how you handle them does. My manager at Prentice Hall, Sherry Zweig, pushed me, challenged me, and demanded I do the same with her. These women didn't get upset or offended when I challenged them.  Instead, they led by example and taught me how to take it well. 

Competition 101

These women taught me an essential quality.  They taught me to compete... They taught me how to get out there and fight hard for an issue, opinion, and/or myself.  They also taught me that when the competition gets rough and you get hurt, you don't blame your competitor or some other external influence - you blame yourself.  You pull up your socks.  You learn from the experience, and you don't confuse competition, challenge or differing opinions with friendship and camaraderie.  You don't take offense when a competitor bests you or challenges your views.  You take it and use it to better yourself, or your position, the next time you are met with a challenge. 

Less Whine - More Win!

When I first read Kimberley's post, my gut reaction was to look outside of myself and to agree.  However, upon further reflection, I realized that perhaps this was an inward issue, not an external one.

Look amongst your circle of friends - who do you include in your network of associates and friends, that have a healthy ego, are assertive, driven, constantly upgrading their knowledge and personal pursuits,  who will disagree and challenge you?  Then ask yourself: 

• How have I "brought these remarkable women along" and promoted them to others? 
• How much time do I spend every day, week, year - working to identify,  connect with and help women with these qualities? 
• How many of the women in your network are women that you compete with? 
• How do you respond when these strong, assertive women, challenge you and push you and make you uncomfortable - or when you find yourself in a competition with them?

Ambition,  in the absence of generosity - is just selfishness. (regardless of your gender)

Suck it up ladies

I'm OK with being in your face (as evidenced by this blog) and I have no shortage of strong willed, assertive, driven, successful, women friends and colleagues.  I was taught early in my educational and career life that it starts with you: Give before you receive.  Work hard, lead by example, compete with passion and be generous.  I'm far from perfect, but I have tried to live that way. 

I am surrounded by amazing, strong, capable, generous women, willing to support and help me, but who will also slap me upside the head when I need it.  I really can't complain about women.  My experience with women has been mostly excellent.  I'm not everyone's cuppa.  Some women like me, some women love me - and others... well they don't.  When I have found that I've not being helped, promoted, or supported by the women and people around me, it's been my own damn fault.  At the end of the day, I have to suck it up and own that fact. 

Hopefully the next time I start to whinge (and that day will come) - one of you will point me back to this blog.  I promise to thank you for it!

You're Fired!

The following headline recently caught my eye: Canada's Filthiest Hotels.

I clicked on it and discovered that Trip Advisor compiles a "dirtiest hotels" list each year.  As I reached the end of the article, I saw this quote:

But Anthony Pollard, president of the Hotel Association of Canada, says the company's method of producing a dirtiest hotels list "is not particularly scientific."

"I take it with a grain of salt," Pollard says. "At the end of the day anybody with a keyboard and access to the Internet can write anything. That goes for the good and the bad."

Mr. Pollard - you're fired (or you should be).  The public doesn't care what some anonymous rating system says.  The public is far more likely to believe a personal review, than an anonymous association rating system.  

You're quite right to state that anyone can write a review and I think it's safe to say that people who are upset are more likely to write a review than those who had a pleasant experience.  However, it's up to your members to be so fabulous that they inspire customers to write positive reviews.  They don't have to be deluxe hotels to inspire people.  Great service, a friendly clerk, an extra towel and other small things will  often result in very happy customers who write positive reviews.  

I do consider the classification of a hotel, but I also consider the experiences of actual people who stayed there.  A personal review gives me a peek at a hotels worst and best.  If the hotel monitors their reviews, I can see whether or not they care how their customers feel.  A hotel that acknowledges a poor review and attempts to resolve the issue, is one that I am going to give high marks... and probably my dollars too.

More and more of us are checking sites like Trip Advisor when planning our travel.  We don't know you.  We don't care about you.  And like it or not - because you're paid to feed us "the corporate line", we don't believe you. On the other hand, we DO believe the person who paid good money to stay at the hotel and write about it.

Word of mouth isn't about Sally talking to Jane.  One person can now impact the perceptions of the world and you seem oblivious to this.

Welcome to the 21st century Mr. Pollard.  The unemployment line is over there.

Of Fanbois and Fanatics

Sports teams have long had "fanatics" - as have celebrities and other well known characters.  In my gaming days we referred to them as "fanbois". These days, as I watch human behaviours on social networks, I see no shortage of those same characteristics for companies, bloggers, popular Twitter personalities and more.

Today Apple launched its iPad.  I see a larger, iTouch with very minor improvements. I certainly don't see anything impressive, innovative or magical.  I don't see my life being made any more convenient than it is today.  I will still need my laptop and a blackberry or iPhone.  It's a cool toy - that will undoubtedly be useful to people who don't need all the functionality of a laptop.

The iPad is all the rage for some fanbois and fanatics.  I keep hearing things like "this is the future of mobile".  From my perspective, it's nothing I can't get in an iPhone... and an iPhone is also a phone!  Lets face it, this is something most people don't need.  However, the beauty of having fanatics and fanbois is that you can do anything and they will love it... and they will give you their money.  Fans are also fabulous because they passionately support you.  In difficult times, they will stick with you and talk about your good work.  They are your champions.  On the other hand, if you're the unfortunate person who happens to upset the fans... you'd better pull out your virtual armor.  You could be seriously, (albeit virtually) subjected to some very unpleasant comments.

Apple is just one example.  A few others that I've witnessed in recent days involve a Vanity Fair article which referred to some female twitter personalities using unflattering language, the issues surrounding Wyclef Jean's charity, Yele Haiti and another incident where a fundraiser made some well reasoned critcisms of a popular blogger whose fundraising efforts had been lackluster.  In at least two of these cases, there were some very difficult days for the parties involved. 

In the worst situations, this can reach unthinkable proportions on the internet.  Blog comments will fly by at a frenzied pace, Twitter hash-tags will light up, facebook wall comments will scroll by the hundreds (or thousands) and if you're on the receiving end of the fan fury, you may find yourself up against what feels like an unstoppable force.  Do not think that this won't reach the traditional media or your donors. It can and your phone lines and email inbox will be next.  I don't say this to discourage people from communicating online, but rather to understand the potential pitfalls and to be prepared should they occur.

As with all things internet, be cautious of what you say.  Always have a communications plan to deal with a potential Twitter-storm or other potential social media unrest.  Don't disregard those early signs of discontent online.  It's far better to acknowledge it and address it, than it is to ignore it.

Apple has done a remarkable job of cultivating an impressive following of fanatics. Steve Jobs is not trying to be all things to all people.  He's built a remarkable community and he makes products for that community.  As a result, that community sticks with him and each time he creates something, that dedicated group of fans will buy it - whatever it is.  Go Steve!

What has your charity done to build a fan-base of dedicated, loyal supporters who will donate every time you ask, and who will stick with you through difficult days and challenging times?  There is value to be found in those people - when cultivated well and managed appropriately. 

The Donor Pyrmaid: A Big Lie & An Unfulfilled Promise

I won't repeat the content here - the authors did a great job on their own.  I recommend you check them out.  Mark Rovner at Sea Change Strategies says "the donor pyramid is a lie".  And I think he's right.  Steve McLaughlin at Blackbaud takes a different approach and calls it "an unfulfilled promise".

I think they're both right.  The reality is - a good many major gifts come from friends "nudging" friends and not from within the mass market donor pool.  These people definitely care about the charities they support, but they are also extracting personal benefits from supporting the influential friend who asked them to contribute.  It's a very real, very successful formula for major gift fundraising.  However, it also presents sustainability challenges.

Charities have managed to succeed for decades by mailing heartfelt letters and blasting them out hoping for a return.  It's the equivalent of an impersonal cold call.  Guess what?  Cold calling is dead in the corporate world.  Professional salespeople today rarely use cold calls to connect. The ROI is horrendous and it's an horrible waste of an organization's resources. Generating and following up warm leads is where time and effort is better spent. Warm leads can come from a variety of sources.  They can come to you from referrals (usually happy customers - i.e. your board members & donors), people who have come to your website, attend an event, subscribe to your newsletter, participate in advocacy, or any other opportunity you create that allows people to express their interest in your organization (or product). 

Warm leads come to you from all parts of your organization and to identify them, your organization needs to have an integrated infrastructure and strong communications across departments... and it needs to make their idenfication a priority.

When you have a warm lead, you meet with the person, you identify their interests, needs, concerns... some might say you identify their pain.  You may give them samples of your product (or service) and have them use it for months (a "pilot"), you invite them to conferences you put on, you take them to lunch; you demonstrate your ability to solve the problem that causes their pain and make them happy.  In some industries you may spend 1 - 2 years (depending on the size and scope fo the sale) before you ask for their business. 

I don't know many charities who will do that with the contacts in their database?  Does your organization have someone dedicated to visiting your donors - of all sizes?  The "data driven" people will tell you that they have ways to help you find those folks who are most capable of making larger gifts, and they can certainly help.  However, there are many people out there that won't show up using traditional data mining techniques and it's going to take more time and money than most charities are willing to spend to find and communicate with those donors.

Charities do a great job of identifying problems and helping people feel the pains of the world.  Unfortunately, they are horrible at selling their solutions to those problems.  In many charities, the entire organizational infrastructure works against doing that successfully.  Fundraising is the ugly redheaded stepchild - tossed scraps now and then, but expected to perform. It is underfunded and is often kept in a silo, separate from programs, communications and other key areas of the charity.  Until charities prioritize fundraising on an equal footing with their charitable mission, they will continue to fail at connecting with donors and making them feel like they are an important part of the solutions that the charity offers.  And they will fail at moving people up the donor pyramid. 

The donor pyramid works in theory and in those precious few organizations who implement cultivation well.  Unfortunately, the donor pyramid can't work without proper funding, infrastructure and an organization with a culture that views fundraising and donors as a priority.  Most people who talk about the donor pyramid, neglect to mention that most organizations won't be willing to prioritize their culture and infrastructure in a way that makes the donor pyramid work... and that's where we find the Big Lie.  

Is Your Charity Mobile?

Happy New Year!

I've neglected my blog for awhile. I don't like to write unless I feel really compelled to say something.  Today, I got the feelin'. 

While many charities are sitting around grappling with how to "do social media" and whether development or communications should be managing it; and while you're working on writing "social media strategies" and getting board approval - the world is changing.  We're a collegial bunch and we like to take our time, compromise and make everyone happy.  That's really nice, but sometimes we just need to "go". The world is moving fast and it's going with or without us. Jen Love, at Agents for Good recently wrote a great post about these types of situations. Feel free to check it out here.

By the time these types of charities decide to stop talking and start doing, something else will come along and they'll have to start much of it all over again.  What will that be?  I don't know exactly, but I suspect it will be mobile.  If you're not looking at how to make an app for iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and other new technologies, you're missing the boat.  We're moving around with our technology today and charities can learn to move with people or get left behind.

Kindle editions of books are now outselling print books. The new tablet from Apple is rumoured to be close to a laptop in terms of functionality, but portable enough to compete with ebook readers.  Unlike social media and other surfing type activities, ebook technologies involve an activity where people are spending time focusing and absorbing.  How can charities take advantage of that?  I don't know - but I bet the charities who try to find the answer (and test a few things) will do really well.

Are your staff mobile?  Are they tweeting or posting fun things on facebook as they drive around and meet donors, attend events, or deliver your programs?  Can they work from home if there's a snow storm or their transportation is delayed or cancelled?  Alot of great work is happening outside of your office - people work, socialize, live and engage online while they are on the move.  Is your charity on the move with them... or is it laying back and hoping that people look up and notice it.  Do you really think they'll notice you amidst the millions of charities who are also hanging around waiting to be noticed? 

This isn't about changing the core of who and what charities are. We still have to deliver meaningful well crafted messages and build relationships, as Ken Burnett points out in his most recent blog. However, you can't build a relationship with someone who doesn't know you exist. And people won't know you exist if you're sitting in your office hoping they notice you. Get mobile and join the world where it lives... out there ===>

P.S. In case Ken happens to read this, I apologize in advance for my horrendous grammar and punctuation (and possibly a type-o or two). Sorry Ken!

P.P.S. If you'd like to make an iPhone app and you don't have much money or the tech skills to do it? Beth Kanter just posted a great deal for an easy iPhone app maker here. Go get it!

Social Media Expert = Nonsense

With the increasing popularity of social media, we are now being inundated with people calling themselves "Social Media Experts". 

Give. Me. A. Break!

What makes you a social media expert? I've asked several people to show me how they've raised quantifiable & significant sums of money via social media. Nobody has been able to show me this across multiple organizations in any consistent manner. 

If you're an expert, you should be able to show me that you've applied your knowledge in a way that will allow others to use your skills and knowledge and achieve similar results to your past results. Certainly there are a few people who have enjoyed success in fundraising or in generating campaigns with significant ROI in some areas.  But for the most part, these social media experts can't show any real consistency in the performance across the various campaigns and/or industries. 

It's not the technology - it's how people engage with the technology!

This recent article on "Digital Anthropology" from CNN, touches on the real issue.  So much time is put into the technology part of social media.  We spend all kinds of resources studying how communities interacted yesterday with the technology that is available at that time.  That may be helpful for your social media efforts - but it may also be detrimental.

At it's core social media is all about the people who USE the media.  You can create a community and expect that it will be used in a specific way, but once the people arrive and begin interacting, they are the ones who decide how they want to use it and how it best suits their preferences, needs and enjoyment. What people did yesterday isn't always a great predictor of how they will act today - when the influences impacting their lives change daily. I am NOT suggesting that we shouldn't attempt to learn from the past.  By all accounts, we can and do repeat our behaviours fairly reliably when things remain mostly the same.  However, the online world has the ability to change more frequently and quickly.

Predicting the Unpredictable

We know that when people gather enmasse - anything can happen.  Look at the recent Iran Elections.  Who would've expected the people of Iran to use Twitter as their way of bypassing the media blackout?  Who would've  expected that all the major news organizations would be relying on Twitter to share the news?

In recent talks with colleagues and peers, I've repeatedly stated that the best (and perhaps most important) social media strategy includes having a single individual responsible for the strategy and who is also personally engaged and communicating on your various social media platforms. Why?  Because whatever you plan to happen, may well not happen.  You have no idea what people are going to want and need from your organization until people begin using it. 

You can plan and guide their interaction with you - but you need to be able to change course, if they start telling you they want something else.  You need to respond. You need adapt. You need to recognize that social media is whatever the people using it want it to be.  It's not what you want it to be. 

The organizations who have successful social media programs, will be the ones who thoughtfully respond to the needs and preferences of their audience/s - quickly, respectful and enthusiastically. 

How can anyone be an expert in what hasn't happened yet? 

It certainly helps to be aware of what has worked and failed for others - but don't depend on it too much.  Be aware, but, don't be tied to it and don't expect that because it worked well yesterday, it will work great tomorrow (for you or any other organization).

Nothing will be the same tomorrow.  It will be a new day. Attitudes may be different. The weather can change. The economy could boom (or bust). The people may change! Someone will have a baby. Someone will lose someone they love. The technology could change.

Your Social Media Expert is going to be the person who knows your people best and who can have an honest and open dialogue with all of those people as the world around us all changes day to day. 

It's about relationships folks... 

If your Social Media Expert doesn't have a relationship with your people, what exactly are they an expert in?  And how on earth are they going to help you, if they don't have a relationship with the people who want to speak with you? 

Too Many Charities in Canada

Recently Michael J. Fox announced that his Michael J Fox Foundation now has charitable tax exempt status in Canada.  Now I like Michael Fox.  He seems a nice guy.  But did we really need yet another charity in Canada?  Particularly one that isn't employing Canadians?

Last I checked we have somewhere in excess of 84,000 charities in Canada. So many of them are doing the same things or addressing similar causes. Why can't charities work together more?  Does the city of Toronto need 5+ cat rescue charities? Do we need umpteen dog rescues for each and every breed? Wouldn't we be better off pooling administration, volunteers and growing, cooperating and coordinating between each other?  How many charity water related orgs do we have?

To be fair, there are some important differences in what these charities and how they do it - but why couldn't charities organize themselves to do this unique work under shared parent organizational structures?

Saturation & Population

With 33 million people in Canada and 84K charities, we're exhausting people and (I think) confusing people.  Corporations would've merged and acquired - but I think charities get too caught up in "doing it their way" to recognize the benefits of working together.  Perhaps this is one of the flaws of the existing charitable status process in Canada.  With less 50% of charities earning revenues of 30K or less, I have to wonder if we could be doing a better job by pooling resources, expertise, administration and talent.

I don't have the answer to making this happen and which charities should and should not combine their efforts, but it seems to me that some great causes aren't achieving their full potential because we're not ensuring our best efforts are working together for the good of those causes.