Archive for the ‘Non profit strategy’ Category
The best article yet about Barack Obama’s fundraising
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
This article in the Atlantic is another good overview of the formidable Obama campaign machine, describing it correctly as a political campaign run like a high-tech startup. If you haven’t played around with my.barackobama.com yet, do it. It challenges lots of the received wisdom about fundraising, not only for political campaigns, but also for more traditional giving. In February, the Obama campaign reported that 94 percent of their donations came in increments of $200 or less, versus 26 percent for Clinton and 13 percent for McCain.
We’ve tried to bring two principles to this campaign. One is lowering the barriers to entry and making it as easy as possible for folks who come to our Web site. The other is raising the expectation of what it means to be a supporter. It’s not enough to have a bumper sticker. We want you to give five dollars, make some calls, host an event. If you look at the messages we send to people over time, there’s a presumption that they will organize.
Information design for advocacy
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
“An introduction to information design” is a new booklet specifically designed for nonprofits and advocacy groups, but it’s just a really good primer to compelling graphical presentation. It’s got some great examples - classics like John Snow’s London diagrams and the work of Gapminder.
Coming across the booklet reminded me of this chart (below) that I saw on the Worldchanging blog earlier in the week. It shows public outrage for a variety of risks mapped against actual hazard. I couldn’t source or verify the data, but it’s an arresting image.
Asteroid impact! Who knew?
Avaaz crisis fund
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Avaaz are running an online fundraiser for a 2008 crisis fund.
As ever with these guys, it’s a model of email fundraising laying out what they’ve done, what they need, how they’ll spend it and a nice crunchy deadline to create the urgency. Even when what they are asking for is a reserve fund to give them more strategic flexibility.
This an excerpt:
Over the last year, we’ve shown together that global people power can make a decisive difference in moments of global emergency. So when the next crisis hits ”like the recent flare-ups in Pakistan, Kenya, or Gaza” we want the best strategy, not budget constraints, to guide our actions.
That’s why we’re launching the 2008 Crisis Action Fund. Our goal is to raise 50,000 Euros this week to fund rapid-response advocacy as crises break throughout the coming year. The money could pay for rallies in cities across the globe; it could buy vital communications equipment for endangered democracy activists; it could fund emergency media campaigns… whatever will have the greatest impact when our voice is needed the most.
Interestingly, the email sets a target of raising the money in a week, whilst the webpage talks about raising it in a day. But then, they’ve already raised $40,000.
You can donate here and learn more about Avaaz here.
Doggy Snaps: The future of fundraising.
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Yahoo’s “Finds of the Year” have been published - the winners are here.
The winners include Doggy Snaps, a social networking site for dogs run by the Dogs Trust. The great thing about it this is that it won in the “Social” category. (The “Charity” category was won by Freerice.com).
The great thing here is that Doggysnaps isn’t seen as a ‘charity website’. It’s a genuinely good social network that provides a useful service for dog lovers - the obvious constituency for future Dogs Trust supporters.
In this interview with one of the people behind DoggySnaps, they share some of the thinking behind the site. This quote is really telling:
What has the charity learned about engaging with dog lovers in this entertaining way, compared to more traditional forms of supporter communications?The most important thing - I think - is that the charity gets better results when it engages supporters on their terms, instead of trying to ‘interrupt’ them in order to ask for donations.
DoggySnaps is now a part of their lives, not an interruption. I think we’ve only just started to explore ways to translate this into donations.
Have you identified how the user-generated photo library might generate donations to support the work of the Dog’s Trust?
The Dogs Trust developed the website for the primary purpose of raising money and awareness of the charity, its dogs and the message. It can monetise the user-generated content by creating a rights-managed photo-library… selling images to advertisers, brands and publishers. If you think about it, dogs are one of the most popular themes in advertising and marketing.There are lots of other ways, too - e.g. premium ‘treats’ and on-demand printing may turn out to be the most effective, but there are others: an online dog show… pulling in some of the Dogs Trust website… Who knows? There’s so much to try. We’re also experimenting with advertising.
They’ve thought about their supporters and worked backwards, building a service based on insight. Often, charities think about the mechanism (like £2 per month) and look for an audience that it will work for. That sort of thinking would never have come up with Doggy Snaps. But now they have an asset, a community and useful service. They’ve recognised that there are lots of different ways of turning that into a substantial income stream for the charity. Great stuff.
The Humanitarian Response Index
Friday, November 30th, 2007
I was invited to the launch of the Humanitarian Response Index at the RSA yesterday (the speeches are available here, though the Chief Exec hasn’t blogged about it yet).
Kofi Annan launched the report and gave a short speech calling for better links between humanitarian relief and environmental awareness. All the speakers said that humanitarian relief would definitely be a larger part of aid in the future, mainly because of the impact of climate change. There was also discussion about how to bring in the “new kids on the block”, those rich countries outside the OECD (for example, those with large Sovereign Wealth Funds) that currently aren’t signed up to aid and good governance.
The HRI analysis focuses on OECD countries, against criteria that the donors themselves have pledged to stand by. It reminded me of the School Reports compiled by GCE, which ranked the same group of countries on their funding of education.
In a piece of Friday afternoon nerdery, I have plotted the scores of the HRI against the most recent GCE School Report. They aren’t directly comparable indices (GCE includes volume as well as quality), but they do paint a picture of how rich countries act in this field. Scandinavia, the Low Countries, UK and Ireland are the top tier, with the rest of the G7 languishing some distance behind.
Comparing the Humanitarian Response Index 2007 with the Global Campaign for Education’s School Report 2007
Click the graph for a larger version.
(Notes: The GCE index is on the y-axis and is a score out of 100. The HRI is on the x-axis and is a score out of 7. The European Commission appears in the HRI but not the GCE analysis, so is excluded. Interestingly, Canada and New Zealand got exactly the same score in both rankings, but as a result they appear as one dot.)
UHNWIs - Who are they and what do they want?
Friday, September 28th, 2007
UHNWI? It stands for “Ultra High Net Worth Individual” - in English, a really really really rich person. New Philanthropy Capital have just finished some research on them, their behaviour and their motivation. Apparently, it’s not all massive yachts and underground lairs in hollowed out volcanoes. It’s philanthropy.
Key findings are here and the report can be downloaded here (registration required). One interesting thing was the profile of the major UK donors:
UK-based families take a more international view in selecting causes than their continental
peers. Themes of global climate change, global poverty, global terrorism and cross-cultural
social reconciliation all feature strongly in philanthropic mandates. This international flavour is
not surprising due to the international background and business interests of the UK sample
group and also London’s role as a centre for international commerce in shaping the
perspective of UK-based clients. UK-centric interests include education, deprivation and the
arts.
Adopt the Sky
Friday, September 21st, 2007
Adopt the Sky is a nice execution of an online petition site. It’s campaigning for clean air legislation across the US. There are lots of sites like this about, but this is case study material.
As the blog “It grows on trees” says:
You’ve got your new interactive media. You’ve got your bringing of the people together in a new community. You’ve got your empowering of your user. You’ve got your explorability of notes from other people who have adopted a patch of the wild blue yonder and your searchability of friends and their patches of sky. You’ve got your completely new paradigm, child. It’s social media, and it works!
Rostock blogging
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Oxfam have got the full range of tools out for the G8 conference. There’s a:
- Flickr account
- Wordpress blog
- Youtube account
- and, of course, the obligatory Myspace page
The Flickr account includes this slightly odd picture of Tony Blair and Angela Merkel. Are they going to give those big signs to Bush and Sarkozy?
Causes on Facebook
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
I wrote about Project Agape a few weeks back and they have just launched their first service - Causes on Facebook. According to the founder:
“The application allows users to start a cause, grow their cause through viral invitations, and raise money from their network to support any registered non-profit in the US,â€
The launch of ’causes’ coincided with the launch of a whole raft of new widgets and applications that work on Facebook. This article goes so far as to suggest that new companies will choose to launch within Facebook, rather than ‘wild’ in the internet. It seems unlikely, but shows how much attention the site is commanding at the moment.
(By the way - I’m pretty pleased with my prediction for Project Agape. I guessed it would be “somewhere between facebook, moveon.org and meetup, with a dash of justgiving”. Given that they were in stealth mode with no announced partnerships, I don’t think that was a bad description!)
A greener apple and everyday activism
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
This is a big win for the Greenpeace “Greener Apple” campaign (which won a webby award recently).
Today, Apple finally responded to their campaign with a letter from Steve Jobs outlining what they are going to do about toxic components, waste and recycling. Greenpeace seem to be delighted.
We’ve noted before that NGOs focusing on corporate targets is a major trend. In part this is due to the declining influence of traditional political targets (such as MPs), the difficulty of reaching senior decision makers in government and the increasing concern companies have about social responsibility.
Perhaps more importantly, it illustrates the fact that activism is becoming embedded in everyday life.
Issues such as climate change, fairtrade, congestion charging, slow food and farmer’s markets all trade on the concept that consumer choices have political and ethical consequences. The more people respond to these ideas, the more willing they are to engage with campaigns like this.
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