Charity Chatter

Artez Interaction 2011: Sessions to get excited about.

The Artez Interaction conference is almost upon us.  Last year I attended as a guest panellist and found it to be a very informative and fun day.

This year, there are a few sessions that fall into the "must see" category for me. Here are my top picks for the conference:

The Evolution of Canadian Charitable Giving, Steve Levy, President Ipsos Reid - East.

Why are Canadians Giving? How are they giving? Are they donating online? Using smartphones? Steve is compiling data from research conducted this summer and sharing it with fundraisers at the conference.  If you're trying to determine how to invest and plan in your future fundraising, this is the session that will help you do that based on current donor data.  More importantly, as you work with your executive and/or volunteer leadership, this session will give you the data you need to inspire your leadership to support your initiatives and the budget you require to pursue and/or grow those efforts.

 Young People Want to Give -- Attracting Younger Donors to Your Cause, Ted Kaiser, VP I.T., Kids Help Phone & Nicky Mezo, Head of Marketing, PayPal Canada. 

I've long been a fan of shopping and buying online. PayPal was the service I used the first time I conducted an online transaction.  I've been preaching the benefits of providing a PayPal option to charities for some time now.  It will be interesting to hear these two people share their knowledge.  You'll enjoy more current giving statistics, combined with the fundraising expertise of one of Canada's most highly regarded children's charity's.  

Everything you Wanted to Know About Ad Words & Metrics but Were Afraid to Google, Tony Singh & Matt Walton - Google Canada. 

Like the other 2 topics I'm highlighting today, this is ideal for any size charity. With Google's Ad Words grant program and a little strategic thinking, large and small charities will benefit from this session.  Investing just a little time understanding how to use Ad Words and measure those outcomes can reap real rewards for your charity.  

There are many other interesting sessions worth noting, but I wanted to highlight the ones I felt had the broadest areas of interest.  Head over to the Artez Interaction website to see the full list of sessions here: http://info.artez.com/artez-interaction/

So - if you can free up your day on September 29th, take a moment to register for the Artez conference.  Compared to other fundraising conferences, the $169.50 conference fee is one of the best professional development values you will find out there.  To register visit their website and be sure to find me and say hello if you happen to attend.  http://info.artez.com/artez-interaction/

Function Before Fashion: Design should work!

Whether it's online blog posts or working with designers and creative agencies, I see far too many people advocating design that looks pretty, but isn't based on the available data surrounding donor behaviour.

If you're looking for someone to help you design an on-line advertisement, a newsletter, a website, donation page, or any of your direct response work, make sure their suggestions are based on data and best practices that demonstrate results with some form of statistical proof of impact.

Just because a donation page looks pretty and works to process your donation, doesn't mean it's effective at increasing donations for your organization.  Just because a website looks wonderful and does cool stuff, doesn't mean it is helping people get information, or get involved with your organization.  

Free can be expensive!

If you're considering hiring a firm or independent consultant to help you with design, be sure to ask them for data to support their design decisions. If you want to ensure your donation page is converting more donations (or higher amounts), work with professionals who understand fundraising.  If someone is offering to do work in this area for you for free (or at minimal cost), consider how much you stand to lose if their design costs you thousands or hundreds of thousands in donations.   

With online and mobile giving growing at an enormous pace, you can't afford to be creating websites or other communications properties with people who can't tell you how donors behave and what they motivate them to respond.  

Always keep in mind what your trying to achieve.  Pretty and "cool" isn't good enough.  Results are your number one priority, make sure the people you work with deliver on them.