Charities

10 Aug 2017

Stephen Mally Canvassers, Charities, face to face

Face to face canvassers – are they engaging the wrong people?

Walking out of Sydney Central station on any given day, I witness a collection of face to face canvassers who are raising money for a variety of charities. I watch them stop people in their early 20’s and ask myself – are they engaging the wrong people?

I never get stopped. Is it the fact I carry a laptop bag, look relatively professional, and am middle aged? Do I look unfriendly? What is it that causes canvassers to pass me up and stop people 30 years younger than me?

People in their 20’s are more likely to engage in a conversation than someone my age. I get it. That said, people in their 20’s have a far more restricted budget than typically someone my age. Additionally, people in their 20’s likely have a lower credit limit on their credit cards. So, why is it suppliers train their teams to canvass in the neighbourhoods where collections of 20 year olds commute, live, and entertain themselves? I have never understood this situation.

Further, charities pay these canvassers not only for successful sign ups. What good is it to sign up a lot of 20 year olds simply to have them cancel after their first or second transaction? Charities are likely to lose people at a greater rate the younger they are due to buyer’s remorse and budget stress.

Someone help me understand why canvassers are not engaging with people in their 50s. Please explain it to me.

30 Jun 2017

Stephen Mally Charities, end of financial year, Happy New Year, New Year's Eve, Non-profit, Non-profits

Happy New Year, Australia! End of financial year

It’s new year’s eve. An end of financial year. Happy New Year, Australia! Many of us are receiving eMails and last minute pitches from companies and charities reminding us it is the end of the financial year. These eMails state it is our last day to purchase this item or that service and it’s our last day to give a donation this financial year.

Prior to today, our letter boxes were stuffed with advertisements and also with charitable appeals seeking that end of financial year purchase or last donation. In three days, I received over two dozen appeals because of the various charitable organisations I give to or am affiliated. That’s not a gripe – it’s just a reality. And, today, I woke up to a dozen emails from charities, alone, stating it was the last chance to give this financial year to save an organisation, to help another organisation reach their goal, and to help another discover life saving cures for diseases, etc.

It’s sort of like a political campaign. Candidates get their messages out through mass marketing and try to convince the voter they are the best choice or a terrific choice amongst the field. Non-profit organisations are in the same boat. Charities have made their case through the post, phone, and eMail. It is now up to people to decide : a) will they make a donation today and, if so, b) which organisations will they give their final donations to on the last day of the financial year?

Charities have done their job. Most non-profit organisations have been strategic and many have been persistent. Donors will make final decisions today. It’s all in their hands to decide. Let’s hope the donors decide yes on question a, above, and name your organisation in their answer to question b. Good luck! Happy New Year!

27 Jun 2017

Stephen Mally AFP, Association of Fundraising Professionals, Charities, donorCentrics, FEP, FIA, Fundraising, Fundraising Effectiveness Project, Fundraising Institute Australia, NFP, Non-profit, Non-profit organisations, Pareto Benchmarking

Fundraising Effectiveness Project – what is it and is it worth launching in Australia?

The Fundraising Effectiveness Project – what is it and is it worth commencing in Australia? In 2006, the Association for Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute established the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) to conduct research on fundraising effectiveness and help nonprofit organisations increase their fundraising results at a faster pace. Now, 11 years later, the project has allowed 6,000 non-profits in the US to measure, compare, report, and analyse their growth in fundraising.

Australian charities are hungry for information to compare and contrast their organisations against others in the marketplace. Not all organisations can afford to participate in Pareto Benchmarking or Blackbaud’s donorCentrics. One way to gather this information is for an organisation to survey organisations seeking information about fundraising revenue and spend, staff size, and other metrics for use in fundraising strategic planning, budgeting, and other areas. The challenge with surveying colleagues is most fundraising professionals will say they are time poor and many will shy away from responding. Imagine if 5an organisation surveys 12 NFPs in a given year. Now multiple that times the number of us who survey colleagues wanting to know this type of information. That’s a lot of time spent on gathering and reporting information. Additionally, there is a great variance in how one organisation reports data compared to another organisation. So, we are often not looking at apples to apples and, instead, apples to grapefruit.

Enter the FEP.

FEP provides nonprofits with tools for tracking and evaluating their annual growth in giving. Growth in giving is the net of gains in giving minus losses in giving. Nonprofits raise more money by investing more money in growth-oriented fundraising strategies that both increase gains and reduce losses. The FEP is focused on “effectiveness” (maximising growth in giving) rather than “efficiency” (minimising costs). FEP conducts an annual survey, provides useful growth in giving performance measurement tools and publishes gain(loss) statistics in a yearly report through a partnership between AFP, The Urban Institute and participating donor software firms. The FEP resources support growth-oriented fundraising programs.

In this day and age when we are being asked to measure results in a greater, smarter way and when the media and others are demanding we prove our worth, wouldn’t the Fundraising Effectiveness Project assist to provide the kind of data needed?

What do we need to get the FEP off the ground in Australia? An organisational body to coordinate the project and the key software suppliers to offer the FEP measurement tools in their software offerings. A key to the success of the FEP is the participation of a variety of donor software firms – many of them offering the same products in Australia. Most already have the FEP reporting mechanisms built into their software.

Read the 2017 Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report here and judge its value yourself.

6 Jun 2017

Stephen Mally Charitable, Charities, National Volunteer Week, Volunteer, Volunteer organisations, Volunteer service, Volunteering Australia

National Volunteer Week – 8 May – a missed opportunity

What happened? National Volunteer Week was 8 May and was a missed opportunity. The week came and went and charities, volunteer service, and other organisations failed to recognise it and what it stands for – volunteer recognition. Not a single organisation I volunteer for mentioned it, sent any sort of eNewsletter, eMail, or any form of thank you. Did you hear about it or get recognised by an organisation you serve?

Weeks like these are developed as marketing campaigns to assist charitable and volunteer organisations. The campaigns not only recognise a special day or week but they encourage others to join in. They remind the general public the importance of, in this case, volunteer service to those in need. The campaigns offer an opportunity for your organisation to capitalise and to offer you an additional reason to reach out to and engage with your volunteers. Volunteering Australia offered a host of resources available on their Website.

Save the date of 21-27 May 2018. Volunteering Australia has moved the date for the next year in order to not clash with the federal budget. When planning for 2018, think about:

Volunteer recognition events.
Naming a volunteer of the year.
Recognising long service volunteers.
Thank you cards.
Thank you eMails.
Calling and simply saying thanks!

Volunteering Australia offers 101 ways to recognise your volunteers.

20 Apr 2017

Stephen Mally Charities, Charity, customer, Email, Facebook, Non-profit organisations, Social media, Twitter, United Airlines

Age of social media requires delicacy, professionalism

The United Airlines PR department has been extremely busy. All of us watched in horror as the police dragged a United passenger from a flight. The age of social media requires delicacy, professionalism, and, sometimes, rapid response. Companies and organisations must be on top of their game, including those of us in the non-profit sector. This United Airlines situation was not handled well by any stretch of the imagination.

None of us know all of the facts about this circumstance or fully understand the way US airlines overbook flights to try to gamble on revenue. Nonetheless, the manner in which this story went viral, including the subsequent handling of the situation, provides lessons for non-profit organisations to learn, including:

Twitter and Facebook are not just used for positive and social reasons.
- Every company and non-profit needs to be prepared to respond to customer complaints/issues 24/7.
- The joke emojis on social media continue more than a week after the incident.
- This story likely went viral before the plane even left the ground.
eMail is never private and confidential.
- eMail may be forwarded externally, as the United CEO found his internal eMail to staff forwarded to the media following this incident.
Blaming the customer is never a good idea.
- Someone even investigated the passenger’s past and surfaced unrelated information. This information was released to the media. The focus of the story became about the man’s past rather than about the incident or the situation, which caused the problem in the first place.

In the end, the way United Airlines handled this situation caused them more harm financially than it would have cost the airline to hire two pilots to fly the passenger and his wife privately to their destination. The financial impact of this story goes well beyond the 100+ passengers on the flight. On top of the reputational problems United Airlines now faces, the airline will likely face a lawsuit and ongoing/further financial ramifications.

8 Mar 2017

Stephen Mally Blackbaud CRM, Charities, End of year tax appeal, Non-profit, Raiser's Edge, Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack, segmentation, tax appeal

Is your non-profit’s tax appeal file ready?

Is your non-profit’s end of tax year appeal file ready for your supplier to create your tax appeal? Have you appropriately segmented the file? It is getting late on the calendar – 30 June is nearly upon us.

Many charities take the “easy way out” and send the same tax appeal package to everyone on the data file. These organisations do not take the time to segment the data file in order to test various treatments against one another and to measure and monitor which segments are performing best and which are underperforming. To some, segmentation and data preparation is direct marketing 101. Others would rather have a root canal.

Non-profit organisations using tools like The Raiser’s Edge, Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack, Blackbaud CRM, and others have premium tools at their fingertips. These tools allow for charitable organisations to properly segment each data file. Creating segments such as recency, frequency, and value (RFV) segments may be done in a few hours. Once the RFV segments are set up, you will be able to use the same strategy for marketing efforts into the future. Imagine having your tax appeal set up correctly and deploying the same strategy for the second wave of the appeal and having it in place for the Christmas appeal!

Your end of tax year appeal file segmentation does not have to be something you dread. It ought to be considered as best practice. Contact FundraisingForce if you require assistance with your next data file.

31 Dec 2016

Stephen Mally 31 Dec, Alzheimer's Association, American tax year, Charities, Clinton, Clinton Foundation, FundraisingForce, New Year's Eve, Non-profit, Non-Profit organisation, President Clinton, Shriner's Hospital

It’s end of tax year…in the United States

It’s the end of the tax year in the US. It may seem odd to Australian’s, but the American tax year ends at 11:59PM on New Year’s Eve, 31 Dec.

US charities are repeatedly reminding me that the tax year is about to end tomorrow evening. I have received more than 50 eMail reminders in the last three days of the year alone. Of the 50, 6 charities have sent more than one reminder in the past 72 hours. 95% of the reminder eMails contain information about challenges and, particularly, matches from generous donors. Some examples, include:

Gifts to the Clinton Foundation will be tripled by “President Clinton himself”;
Gifts to the Alzheimer’s Association will be doubled; and,
Gifts to Shriner’s Hospital will be be doubled.

Matching gifts seem to be abundant this year. These challenges are a nice way for charities to attract new donors, renew lapsed supporters, and get the additional gift from donors who have already given this year.

In addition, some charities have exposed my supporter record in eMails. Some have gently reminded me I have not yet given this year and some have nudged me by showing I have not given in 10 years.

Finally, others have informed me of their financial goal and status toward the fundraising target.

Most of these strategies are employed by Australian charities. If your non-profit organisation is not utilising one or more of the tactics, perhaps you want to test them to see if they may work for your organisation.

Happy New Year from all of us at FundraisingForce!

10 Nov 2016

Stephen Mally 20for20, Charitable organisation, Charities, Charity, Donate, Donation, Fundraising, JCDecaux, Melanoma Institute Australia, NFP, Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, Sculptures by the Sea, Tap n Go Donation

Technology in the NFP space

While attending Sculpture By the Sea in Bondi Beach this last Friday, I was pleased to see the organisation asking for donations. The annual event, free to the public, is a showcase of artistic talent. When I have attended the event in past years, I have often wondered why people are not asked to donate to support the non-profit organisation which coordinates the event. The organisation has information tents along the walk and sells various merchandise, including commemorative books and water bottles. Yet, there has never been an ask for donation…until now.

I was pleased to see a donation station (Tap n Go Donation) set up in the main tent where various sculptures are on display and for sale. The organisation did not draw attention to the donation station and there was only one on the entire grounds. However, at least one station was available for those of us inclined to support this terrific event. Sculptures by the Sea called their campaign 20for20, which symbolised the encouragement of donors to give $20 in honour of the event’s 20th anniversary.

The technology is produced by Square, a US-based technology company.

This type of technology is perfect for hospitals, medical research centres, universities, museums, and other organisations where there is a public location with foot traffic. It is easy to use. I simply selected the dollar value I wanted to donate, I touched my credit card to make the donation, and I entered a few details, including my email address and mobile number. I was pleased the organisation collected my details and not simply my credit card number.

While conducting a little research to write this blog post, I noticed the Melanoma Institute Australia has implemented a test of some similar technology using JCDecaux public advertising spaces. Likewise Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia has deployed a similar campaign.

I am inspired by this technology over gold coin donations. Why? The charitable organisation captures contact details rather than simply the cash and, thus, is allowed to re-solicit these same people in upcoming campaigns and engage the audience in a regular donation. With gold coin donations, you simply reap the cash on the spot.

5 Sep 2016

Stephen Mally Charities, Charity, Fundraising Institute Australia, Include a Charity, philanthropy, solicitors

Include a Charity Week in Australia

5 September is Include a Charity Week in Australia. What is your charity doing to be part of this campaign?

Include a Charity Week draws attention to gifts in wills and offers visibility to the importance of donors, solicitors, and charities working together to increase the number of individuals who are leaving a bequest to charity.

Include a Charity is a collaboration of many of Australia’s favourite charities, covering a range of causes and aspects of our community, from medical research, education, animal welfare, the environment, the arts and more.

The goal of the Include a Charity campaign is to encourage more people to leave a gift in their Will, increasing the funds invested in the charitable sector and thereby increasing the positive impact these organisations have on our society.

In 2015, Include a Charity became part of Fundraising Institute Australia. The campaign relies on the support of its campaign supporters, volunteers and partners, who enable us to promote this important area of philanthropy.

Celebrate philanthropy. Celebrate Include a Charity Week by joining in this wonderful campaign.

25 Aug 2016

Stephen Mally Charities, Charity, CRM, Login credentials, Non-profit, Password, Passwords

Protect passwords for your CRM

Charity staff need to treat passwords like gold. Some do not.

I visit, on average, three clients a week. I see passwords displayed on monitors, posted in workstations, and in other public forums most weeks. It is shocking. In some meetings, I hear things like “just use my login/password”. Instead of the person logging in for their colleague, they will share their password across the room. It is as bad as sharing your credit card number on a telephone call in the middle of an airport.

This is not true of all clients. Some are model examples of security. But, it is certainly enough of an issue for me to write a blog post about the risk.

A non profit organisation’s CRM is the organisation’s number one asset. As staff, you hold the keys to the CRM through your login credentials. Don’t put the CRM at risk by displaying your password on your computer’s monitor or in another public forum.

«< 13 14 15 16 17 >»