Upcoming Events
WealthEngine Webinar
2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
May 12
APRA
Webinar
1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
June 6-8
Chicago, Illlinois
|
|
Tell Me More...
Looking for funding opportunities? We've identified a few funds that might be useful to you. Visit the links below to learn more about the requirements and deadlines for these opportunities.
|
|
| |
|
Letter from the Director
Dear Colleagues,
Technology offers wonderful possibilities for us to connect with and acquire prospective donors. Both big and small data can greatly advance our institutions' fundraising and educational goals. Technology, further empowered by the Cloud, the Internet of Things, and mobile internet access, provides us many opportunities, but also challenges in the way we conduct business.
In order to take full advantage of the power of data, we need to transform our institutions to data-driven organizations. The first essential step in achieving this transformation is collecting and effectively managing good data. We must continuously update, verify and improve the donor data in our databases to ensure that it is reliable. Once we have a process for maintaining quality data in place, we can use this data to build insightful reports to assist in raising funds.
In addition, making data easily accessible to all users should also be a priority. It is important that those who will benefit from the data the most can easily find and use the data that we have gathered and verified. Moreover, methods used to gather and transform data into insightful information should be shared with end users so that they can understand how various data points play together to better assess prospects. For example, combining data from social media with participation rates of different constituents in your internal database may help identify affinity connections of some of your alumni and donors, and this information will help both fundraisers and alumni relations professionals.
Finally, given the ever increasing importance of data integrity, data governance and policies should be put in place to start the process of data-driven transformation. These will help to continue to grow and steward the data in your database.
We wish you the best as you move toward creating a data-driven approach in fundraising efforts. As always, please feel free to reach out to us with questions, comments or any assistance with prospect research!
Best Regards,
Sapna and the USM Advancement Research Team
|
Online giving is rising among older donors according to a recent study by Campbell Rinker. In fact, the study indicates that older donors are just as likely to give online as younger donors. In addition, older donors are increasingly using social media, and are likely to give online after receiving mailed and emailed appeals. This trend supports putting as much emphasis on communicating to with older donors as the young donor when trying to solicit donations online.
More here.
|
|
This time of year is not only known for blooming flowers, but also for spring cleaning. This
blog post by Ann Green offers some tips of tasks to do this at the workplace, particularly for fundraising organizations. You will find good tips from cleaning up your database and mailing lists to freshening up your appeal and thank you letters.
|
Social Media Effectiveness for Public Engagement: An Example of Small Nonprofits
Social media is increasingly being used by nonprofits. This article in NonProfit Quarterly reports that small organizations face many different challenges when using social media as a platform, and they may not be using social media to its full potential. The article present several solutions for success on the engagement of social media for small organizations. (Note - This article was adapted with permission from a paper published by ACM in May 2015.)
|
19 Ideas on How to Cultivate Your Donors
Jeff Schriefels of NonProfit Pro writes, "If there is one area of 'moves management' that never has sat well with me, it's the word 'stewardship.' Stewardship is what you are supposed to do with donors after they give you gifts. The reason I don't like it is that it conveys more of a passive approach to the relationship with your donor. I'd like to say that you are always in a cultivation mode with your donors." This post provides you with 19 ways you can achieve this proactive approach.
|
|
The 2015 Benchmarks X study, conducted in partnership with the Nonprofit Technology Network, examines data for 2015 by various sectors in the nonprofit industry including email messages, online donations and advocacy actions. The study found that last year nonprofits spent four cents in advertising for every dollar raised online, and those with the largest email lists spent the most. In addition, the study also revealed that there is increasing growth of monthly online revenue even, although it is generally less than ten percent across the sector.
More here.
|
|
| |
|
