The Wilson Nonprofit Report for Thursday, April 18, 2013

The only thing worse for a marketer than giving fundraisers no leads, is giving them bad ones: According to 1to1 Media, the only thing worse for a marketer than giving fundraisers no leads, is giving them bad ones. Lack of information on prospects such as their organization size, industry sector, job title, or just simple contact information can stop a record dead in its tracks, even though it may be a quality lead. Marketing processes like lead scoring, which prioritize the most important leads, are dependent upon correct information at the contact, demographic, and company level. More …

What do good nonprofit supporter engagement strategies look like? Here is a great visual from the recent NTEN conference. More …

Who are the most generous online U.S. cities? When it comes to charitable giving, some U.S. cities consistently rise to the top in their adoption of digital giving channels. Blackbaud recently released its fifth annual ranking of the Most Generous Online U.S. Cities based on 2012 online giving data from Blackbaud customers. More …

How Nonprofit Leaders Make Time for Social Media: Get Started With Small Steps: As a nonprofit leader, the best way to get started on social media is to make the commitment to make the time – like anything new whether it be a new exercise regimen or a diet and especially for learning a new tool, habit, or skill. Pick something small and an easy win and repeat for 3 weeks. Maybe you want to get started with Twitter – start by summarizing an article you have read and want to share. Don’t say you have #notimetotweet. Just do it. More …

Your desk job makes you fat, sick and dead … Podio co-founder Jon Froda along with panelists Cali Williams Yost, CEO and Founder of Work+Life Fit Inc, Kate Lister from Telework Research & Richard Leyland, Founder of Worksnug explored the potential of ‘workshifting‘ and how working from anywhere has immense possibilities when it comes to productivity & work-life balance. More …

Are there risks to mobile CRM?: There’s no stopping the mobile CRM revolution, but those who rush into it headlong with an eye only to the many benefits may be in for an unpleasant shock. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, mobile CRM is laden with risks, too — from getting on the wrong side of the customer to getting on the wrong side of the federal government. Then there are the myriad security concerns that go along with making sensitive data accessible on a device that may be woefully insecure. More  …

How to build a great nonprofit Board of Directors: Identifying and recruiting board members can be a daunting task, especially if an organization is new or reshaping itself. Either way, existing members of the board and community have a challenge ahead of them when identifying and recruiting qualified candidates. Blue Avocado, a nonprofit magazine for nonprofits, compiled a list of the Ten Biggest Mistakes Boards and Executives Make. Some of the mistakes mentioned can be avoided by trying out a couple strategies. More …

What do good nonprofit supporter engagement strategies look like?

What do good nonprofit supporter engagement strategies look like? Here is a great visual from the recent NTEN conference.

Who is responsible for your nonprofit Digital Community Building?

When it comes to building community and increasing brand awareness, some organizations hire communications, marketing, and engagement staff to handle these activities. And that makes sense -- someone needs to be charged with keeping a close eye on the organization’s community growth.

Jamie Millard and Lori L. Jacobwith also suggest that building awareness for your important work in an increasingly cluttered space can’t be the responsibility of just one person or even a department. When an organization embraces the culture of creating and empowering all staff to become “brand ambassadors,” authentic and exponential growth starts to happen.

More here: Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Rebooting Your Digital Community Building | NTEN.

The Wilson Nonprofit Report for March 28, 2013

Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong: This is a “must see” video. Activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta calls out the double standard that drives our broken relationship to charities. Too many nonprofits, he says, are rewarded for how little they spend — not for what they get done. Instead of equating frugality with morality, he asks us to start rewarding charities for their big goals and big accomplishments (even if that comes with big expenses). In this bold talk, he says: Let’s change the way we think about changing the world.

Everything the donating public has been taught about giving is dysfunctional, says AIDS Ride founder Dan Pallotta. He aims to transform the way society thinks about charity and giving and change. More …

New Study: Online giving is up; Email response is down: M+R Strategic Services & NTEN just released their annual online benchmark study for nonprofits, and they found online fundraising continues to grow - as does the social network reach of nonprofits.  (The study is based on analysis of 55 large nonprofits, including the American Red Cross, Sierra Club, American Lung Association, AARP and Human Rights Campaign.)  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that email response rates are declining. More …

What Does Community, Network and Crowd Really Mean Anyhow? Why is it important to know the difference between your nonprofits community, network, and crowd? These are terms that we seem to throw around frequently but haven’t yet clearly defined. John Haydon recently had the opportunity to hangout with Amy Sample Ward and Allyson Kapin who wrote Social Change Anytime Everywhere to define and discuss community, network, and crowd. In this video they talked about how organizations use the network to engage the crowd. They also talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Facebook and Twitter. More …

RIP Google Reader: Don’t Scream Who Moved My Cheese, Pivot Your Reading: Recently Google announced that it would close Google Reader on July 1st.   This prompted a lot of angst for many who had grown dependent on this free software.   More than 125,000 people signed this online petition at Change.Org and lists of alternatives to Google Reader started popping up like this one from Lifehacker and list.ly.   In online discussions with nonprofit techies, Megan Keane pointed to the loss of an anti-censorship tool in places like Iran, and Nancy Schwartz noted in an online discussion, “this is a kick  to independent content publishing, not just convenience on the readers side.  It’s more corporate content control, but that’s what we get from relying on free (but privately held) tools.”

But is it really a big deal? When I thought about it, while I use RSS feeds daily, I myself had quit using Google Reader a while back. More …

Are You Listening and Paying Attention to Your Constituents? If one of your constituents were standing right in front of you talking would you talk to them? If they were complaining about something you did or a service you provided them not working, would you listen?

What if they wrote you a letter? What if they called you on the phone? What if they sent you a fax? What if they sent you an email? What if they wrote a review online? What if they put something on your Facebook wall? What if they tweeted you the message?

The first few are obvious hopefully. Of course you would, should be the expected answer. What about the last ones? Are you listening to those channels for feedback in your nonprofit? More …