Yesterday the Advertising Federation of Fort Wayne had our monthly meeting and the topic was Marketing Not-For-Profit Organizations. Thanks to all who came, (nearly 80) and here is the link to our guest speaker, Chris Houchens.
Seth Godin blogged about the subject this week too:
I gave at the office
Mark Rovner has an insightful post about the current state of fundraising and non-profits.
The short version: most big charities are based on direct mail fundraising, and as you're read here before, direct mail is dying. What to do?
I'll start with the bad news: I despair for most of the top 50 non-profits in the US. These are the big guys, and they're stuck. Unlike the Fortune 100, not known for being cutting edge in themselves, the top charities rarely change... if you're big, you're used to being big and you expect to stay big. That means that generation after generation of staff has been hired to keep doing what's working. Big risks and crazy schemes are certainly frowned upon.
The good news is this: the Internet is not a replacement for direct mail fundraising. It is, in fact, something much bigger than that for just about every non-profit.
As soon as commerce started online, many non-profits discovered lots of income from their websites. This was mistakenly chalked up to brilliant conversion and smart marketing. In fact, it was just technologically advanced donors using a more convenient method to send in money they would have sent in anyway.
The big win is in changing the very nature of what it means to support a charity. The idea of "I gave at the office" and of giving money in the last week in December speaks to obligation. Many people donate to satisfy a guilty feeling, or to please a friend. This doesn't scale. Not one bit. It's super easy to ignore a direct mail solicitation when all you have to do is hit delete and no one notices.
The big win is in turning donors into patrons and activists and participants. The biggest donors are the ones who not only give, but do the work. The ones who make the soup or feed the hungry or hang the art. My mom was a volunteer for years at the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, and there's no doubt at all that we gave more money to the museum than we would have if they'd sent us a flyer once a month.
The internet allows some organizations to embrace long-distance involvement. It lets charities flip the funnel, not through some simple hand waving, but by reorganizing around the idea of engagement online. It means opening yourself up to volunteers, encouraging them to network, to connect with each other, and yes, even to mutiny. It means giving every one of your professionals a blog and the freedom to use it. It means mixing it up with volunteers, so they have something truly at stake. This is understandably scary for many non-profits, but I'm not so sure you have a choice.
Do you have to abandon the old ways today? Of course not. But responsible stewardship requires that you find and empower the mavericks and give them the flexibility to build something new, not to try to force the internet to act like direct mail with free stamps.
Sphere: Related Content
Once I went to eat at Chili’s and my husband called for the waiter to come and take our order. As he was on his way to our table, the customer in the table next to us called for him, so he shifted to his table and got what he asked for first and then came back to us. When my husband commented that we called for him first so he was supposed to serve us first, his answer was ridiculous, he said:”he is already eating and he just wants something to complete his meal”. He did not even bother to apologize. Not only that, but in the same day they brought me the glass of juice I ordered in a glass with part of its tip broken. I took a picture of it to show it in the post!
I went to Starbucks once and wanted to understand the difference between the different types of coffee beans they sell to buy a packet for my mother. The waiter who served me was extremely helpful; he explained all types in details. He explained also the difference between the different ways of grinding. I told him I wanted it to be closest to the Turkish coffee people drink, so he recommended one type to me. Then he explained how he can grind it for me, the Turkish way to make it suitable for a Turkish cup of coffee. Even after I made up my mind and bought the coffee pack and he grinded it for me, he explained to me that it has to be kept in its pack to stay fresh. He showed me something like a button in the pack that works on sucking away the carbon dioxide from the pack to keep the coffee fresh. That was an extra step on his side, as I already bought the pack so he was not doing it to make me buy but he was serving me right. He was very helpful and answered all my questions without making me feel that I am asking too much. He made me feel that he loves his job and wants to make his customer happy so he does his best to please him. I was satisfied enough that I was interested to know his name and take his picture to put it here in the post.
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