M4ID » fundraising

Text message donations – lessons learnt

m4id — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:57:20 +0000

The impressive text message donation response to the deadly Haiti earthquake disaster has resulted in fundraisers throughout the non-profit world analysing relief groups’ experience with mobiles.

To hear a good summary of lessons learnt, listen to the podcast released by The Chronicle of Philanthropy where Wendy Harman, social media manager at the American Red Cross, and Geoff Livingston, chief marketing officer at Zoetica Media, discuss the opportunities and drawbacks associated with this emerging fundraising tool.

8/10 think social media can help not-for-profits

m4id — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:09:42 +0000

According to a new US survey carried out by Cone, nearly eight in 10 people who use social media think the technology can help not-for-profit organizations raise awareness and funds for their causes. The down side is that few still make actual donations using these tools: many respondents felt social media raised their awareness about issues but not their motivation to give money. In fact, 39% said they didn’t trust that their efforts would actually help the cause.

“Americans are actively engaged with causes on new media, but they’re lacking a degree of trust that takes them to the next level of engagement,” says Alison DaSilva, from Cone. “Organizations can overcome this barrier by showing tangible and compelling results, offering multiple user touch points, and making the bridge to offline activities wherever possible.”

New Twitter Fundraising Tool Launched

m4id — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:53:26 +0000

Last week saw the launch of TwitCause, a new fundraising tool on Twitter. TwitCause will support a new cause every Thursday, followers can then show their support by retweeting the cause/non-for-profit, tweets will contain a link to a site through which people can donate using PayPal. Followers will themsleves nominate and vote on non-for-profits they want to see supported. This is an excellent opportunity for organizations to call on their followers to nominate them and their campaigns, increasing both visibility as well as funding!

M4ID to present at first IFC webinar

m4id — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:15:44 +0000

Resource Alliance is taking their successful International Fundraising Conference (IFC) online: IFC Online will be the world’s first global, virtual fundraising conference. Taking place completely over the internet, the event will deliver three days of live, interactive, workshops and plenaries to a world-wide audience of fundraisers. The webinar taking place May 12-14, features prominent speakers such as Scott Goodstein, who ran Obama’s very successful social media campaign as well as Ramya Raghavan, YouTube’s Non-for-Profit Manager. M4ID’s Mari Tikkanen will also be among speakers, hosting two workshops on how to use social media to re-energize relations and increase support from government donors. Learn more and register here.

Reaching Government Donors through Social Media

m4id — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:44:34 +0000

Social media provides effective new channels and opportunities for donor government outreach and advocacy. We’re currently pulling together a brief for agencies to better understand the potential and help them strengthen their external relations through social media. The social media strategy should be four-pronged: 1) making current donor communication more effective and engaging 2) harnessing social media to gain public/mass support, with which to lobby and advocate governments 3) reaching the e-fluentials that in turn influence top decision-makers 4) and, through viral marketing and innovative online efforts, reaching them as individual social media users.

We hope, through our material, to spur agencies to re-think their donor outreach: to use social media to re-energize relations as well as opening up a productive dialogue on development and health.

What are you doing now?

m4id — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:34:04 +0000

Twitter, the micro-blogging site, asks the simple question: “What are you doing now?” This can be answered in real time (in less than 140 characters) using SMS, instant message or via a webpage, so users can keep in touch whenever, wherever. The concept is very simple and at first glance, Twitter can seem almost trivial. Yet, it is a powerful, increasingly popular communication and relationship building tool.

Non-for-profits can use Twitter to listen to what’s being said about them and their cause, connect with supporters and make new friends, spread important messages/news to a wide audience, increased online activism, to mention a few .. Twitter can also be an effective fundraising tool, as proven by the recently held Twestival, which raised 250,000 dollars in one evening for the UK-based chairy:water, (supported by Jennifer O’Connolly, video below) helping more than 17,000 people in Uganda, India and Ethiopia access clean water.

Setting up an account is free, simple and fast. We urge you to join the tweeting community!