Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises.

Guest post by Rob Wu
CauseVox

Do you want to know how to attract more donors? Want to learn the secrets used by professional fundraisers?

Of course you do! Fundraising is your nonprofit’s lifeblood. It funds fuel the impact you make.

But thinking of effective ways to raise funds occupies valuable time and energy you could be spending on your programs. Most of us aren’t professionally trained fundraisers, so it doesn’t come naturally to us. We know how to make an impact, yet we’ve had to learn fundraising the hard way: through trial and error, learning from our mistakes.

But we’ve got great news! At CauseVox we’ve just launched a free 7-part video series to coach you on fundraising fundamentals. Ruthellen Rubin, CFRE (Certified Fund Raising Executive) and professor of philanthropy at New York University, teaches the series. She distills more 30 years of professional nonprofit fundraising experience and expertise into seven short videos.

Consider these seven tips for getting more donors for your nonprofit a preview of the series:

Develop a case for support

1Your prospective donors are asking why they should support your nonprofit. You need to clarify why you’re asking for a donation, and sell the successes of your nonprofit. Developing a case for support gets donors to invest in your organization. People don’t give to charity anymore; they invest in results.

Create real, personal and urgent appeals

2The most effective fundraising appeals are real, personal and urgent. Use compelling storytelling with images and videos to connect a donor’s donation to a tangible impact. Let the donor directly see the result of his or her donation.

Startup founders must have fundraising responsibilities

3In a start-up nonprofit, the founding team is responsible for setting an example. The team should be the first to donate to the organization so that others will follow their lead. The amount doesn’t matter. Participation by the full team matters more.

Be good stewards

4Committing to year-round stewardship will retain current donors and recruit new repeat donors. Their funds are an extension of their faith in the organization and the missions, so remember: You’re not only stewarding their money, you’re stewarding their trust.

Care for your donors by investing in them. Send a personalized thank-you note; a formal, written thank you note; mid-year update; and a personalized ask the following year.

Create annual donors

5Where can you look to find more donors? First, focus on your obvious prospects. Recruit from your board, staff and volunteers. You could ask your vendors (i.e., accountant, lawyer) for an annual gift. Next, move on to the people you serve, such as your alumni and constituents.

Create a culture of fundraising

6Help your board envision what fundraising success looks like. Get the entire organization involved in the process by empowering and training everyone on the basics of fundraising, so that they grow comfortable with making an ask.

Develop an email strategy

7Email outreach is one of the best ways to encourage giving. You must have a set strategy and plan for your emails so that they augment fundraising. Segment your emails to focus on specific niches of your audience. Personalize the “From” and “Reply To:” fields with a person’s name rather than a department or general inbox.

You’ll find the entire 7-part video series on getdonors.com for free. We hope these fundraising fundamentals will help your nonprofit recruit more donors! Do you have other suggestions based on what’s worked for you? Please add them to the comments below.

Related on Socialbrite

• Unleash your nonprofit’s fundraising potential

• 3 secrets to raising big bucks online

• Social fundraising tools for nonprofits & causes

• 5 best practices for email fundraising and marketing

• Social fundraising: Main page

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Strategies for identifying stories that exemplify your organization’s mission

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, educators, video producers, Web publishers, storytellers, individuals.

Part 1 of a two-part series focused on using video to tell compelling stories. Also see part 2:
• 16 tips for making video interviews come alive

By Lindsay Oberst
Socialbrite staff

All too often, nonprofit organizations fail to take advantage of their greatest asset: stories.

Stories help us interact with our world and make sense of it. They link us together and shape our view of the world. Nonprofits, however, often miss the stories that surround them; the stories that can help them raise more funding, expand awareness of their cause and reach their goals.

Rob Wu is the creator of CauseVox, a platform to help nonprofits raise funds. He believes that nonprofits are missing a huge opportunity in stories.

“Generally, nonprofits use some level of storytelling but not to the fullest,” Wu said in an email. “The nonprofits that use stories in a meaningful way craft an overarching narrative of their organization and supporting stories that compel their audiences to action. Often, I hear nonprofits talk about fundraising strategies or a communications plan, but seldom do they talk about a storytelling strategy.”

Using stories is something that nonprofits can do in many areas of their work, yet videos are a particularly powerful tool. Especially considering that U.S. Internet viewers watch almost 20 hours of online video per month, according to statistics released in June.

Video storytelling draws us in by appealing to our emotions — a faraway woman with big eyes telling us about the children she can barely feed or the excitable entrepreneur full of passion for his idea. And then if done properly, video stories cause people to take action.

If your nonprofit wants to make use of stories, how can you take a step back and find the right stories that support the causes that matter to you? Here are three steps you can take to discover amazing, powerful stories to use in your own videos:

Be open to telling stories

Storytellers for Good

1When stories are part of daily work, people work in a different way. They start asking questions and listening to people more deeply.

Cara Jones founded Storytellers for Good as a platform for telling and promoting stories of people who are making a positive difference. She believes nonprofits should create a storytelling culture in the work place.

“This will have an inspirational impact on all involved,” Jones said by email.

If you want to find stories, you’ve got to weave them into your business model, always seeking them out with a method to collect them.

On the Causevox blog, Jones gives the following tips, which can help nonprofits pay attention to stories:

• Hold a monthly event where you gather your employees to share inspiring stories.
• Create an organizational story bank to record these stories.

Danielle Bernstein created Clear Films, an independent production company dedicated to social change. She also encourages the nonprofits she works with to think about the stories that surround their missions.

She carries a camera with her most of the time. With the rise of easy, handy video cameras, it’s possible for all nonprofits to equip someone on their team with a video camera.

Another thing you can do is to stimulate your creativity by watching other great videos. (Here are eight great examples of nonprofit video storytelling.)

When your nonprofit opens itself to stories, it welcomes great work even with limited resources. But you have to find the right stories that people can relate to.

Look for a story people can identify with

2As you begin to see stories around you, you’ll notice how our stories all contain common threads. Keep yourself aware of the stories that appeal to your personal emotions in some way. These stories are often can be used by nonprofits to make a difference.

“The stories that rise to the top for video purposes will be emotionally compelling,” Jones said.

“Without emotion, without that feeling, people just don’t get inspired,” Chris Yates said in a phone interview. He created Huddle Productions, which combines social media and video.

Sparking inspiration with your videos is important. However, the best videos — the ones that inspire people to act — go further and create a feeling of hope. Tragedy and transformation are key components that work well in nonprofit videos. Both of these can inspire hope when the story has a positive aspect to it.

Bernstein talked about the importance of uplifting stories. If people are going to take action after watching a video story, they need to believe that change is possible.

Pinpointing individuals is also critical. “It’s about trusting when you connect with people,” Bernstein said. “There’s always something even with different cultures.”

The charity:water campaign for clean water in Haiti.

charity: water is a wonderful example of a nonprofit using specific stories to support their efforts to bring clean water to people in developing nations. They have a section on their blog devoted to individual stories “from the field” and “from the office.” Also, they highlight stories in their videos. For example, their water campaign for Haiti uses the story of one of their workers to frame the need for help in Haiti.

As Yates said, “You’ve got to make it personal. Nobody really feels sympathy for a brand.”

Be patient and the stories will surface

3The best stories aren’t always the ones that jump out at you. Sometimes the real stories are the ones you only notice after interacting with people several times.

“It’s about taking the time to be where you need to be,” Bernstein said. “And then spending the time you need to spend.”

Yates doesn’t believe in forcing the story. He doesn’t go into an interview with specific questions. Instead, he allows the story to surface from the conversation.

“The best stories are the answers,” he said. “It’s not my story, it’s their story.”

Humans have always communicated using stories. Some stories are hundreds of years old and are still used to teach and inform people today.

How is your nonprofit organization incorporating stories into its strategy? Have you used stories in your video campaigns? Tell us in the comments below!

Coming in Part 2: Tips for getting people to tell stories on camera

PHOTO AT TOP BY Rae Allen

Related

• Use video to get to heart of your organization’s story: An interview with Cara Jones (Socialbrite)

• 8 great examples of nonprofit storytelling (Socialbrite)

• How nonprofits should be using visual storytelling (Socialbrite)

• Articles on how nonprofits can create media (Socialbrite)

The post How to find amazing, powerful stories for your nonprofit video appeared first on Socialbrite.

CauseVox makes it simple for nonprofits to build successful fundraising campaigns online

Target audience: Nonprofits, social enterprises, foundations, NGOs, cause organizations, community organizations, small businesses.

Iattended the Nonprofit 2.0 conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, and it was a great gathering of some of the brightest minds in the nonprofit space with plenty of opportunities to strategize for the social good. One of the highlights for me was meeting up with Rob Wu, the founder of CauseVox, particularly because he has a lot of great insights when it comes to helping nonprofits navigate the world of online media.

If you don’t know CauseVox, it’s a platform that was designed to make it easier for small and medium-size nonprofits to create dynamic fundraising campaigns without having to develop all the technical know-how. CauseVox’s mission is to take the difficulty and strain out of the fundraising process for nonprofits. Even though they are a startup, the company already has a lot of great success stories of nonprofits that have seen impressive results after conducting their campaigns through CauseVox.

I used my time with Wu at Nonprofit 2.0 to make a video with him that captures what CauseVox is all about and gets Wu dishing his best advice for nonprofits when it comes to creating social media and fundraising campaigns. Check out the video interview above — here’s the link on YouTube.

Rob Wu’s tips for better fundraising campaigns

Rob offered nonprofits these tips:

Tell your stories! According to Wu, a lot of nonprofits make the mistake of not telling their story effectively enough. Typically, organizations will write a whole bunch of text and content on their website and then assume that the visitor knows what they’re trying to do. That doesn’t work. Instead, what nonprofits needs to focus on is how they can tell a compelling story and make it visually engaging online.

Don’t focus on the transaction. Wu says he sees a lot of nonprofits that don’t think about the broader strategy of their fundraising campaign and end up focusing too much on getting the money. His advice is to focus first on building your community and identifying who your most passionate supporters are.

Cultivate your biggest fans. Once you’ve identified your core group of engaged followers, Wu says you want to provide ways for them to get involved in your campaign. You want to be telling your story so well that your community feels compelled to go out and tell it for you. The more you can get your supporters to spread your story, the easier fundraising becomes.

Given that organizations are constantly trying to figure out the best approach to their public relations and communications strategy, Wu’s advice really resonated with me. Ultimately, it comes down to the simple principle of telling our organization’s stories to the right people, in the right way, and at the right time.

And, with CauseVox, now we have the tools to do so easily. So how about using them to do just that? What do you think of CauseVox?

The post Unleash your nonprofit’s fundraising potential appeared first on Socialbrite.

Have you considered asking the community to support your new enterprise?

Target audience: Social enterprises, nonprofits, volunteer groups, sustainable businesses, community organizations.

Guest post by Kerry Given
Green Marketing TV

Finding funding can be one of the biggest challenges for social entrepreneurs. Fortunately, there is a growing number of options for social entrepreneurs and founders looking for capital to start or expand their social enterprise, startup or nonprofit organization and do more good in the world.

One non-traditional funding opportunity that has seen exponential growth in recent years is the phenomenon of “crowdfunding.” Family and friends have been one of the most common sources of venture funding capital for centuries. Crowdfunding takes this age-old source of venture funding and brings it into the digital age.

Thanks to social media and other forms of modern technology, entrepreneurs are able to build networks of friends, colleagues and like-minded individuals more easily and effectively than ever before. Crowdfunding websites allow entrepreneurs or project leaders to leverage these networks to gain funding.

Typically, entrepreneurs post a request for funding on a crowdfunding site with a detailed project description. Depending on the site, funding may be provided as a loan or a donation. Once the funding request is posted, the entrepreneurs use their networks to spread the word about their project to potential donors through word of mouth, email, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Crowdfunding is not for everyone. The majority of crowdfunding sites fund entrepreneurs on an all-or-nothing basis. If the project is fully funded when the deadline arrives, the money is given to the entrepreneur. If it is not fully funded, it is returned to the donors to keep or donate to another project. So it’s important to have a compelling project or story and to be a skillful marketer and networker to ensure that word about your project reaches enough potential donors to fully fund the project before the deadline. If you’re confident that your social enterprise has what it takes to become a crowdfunding success story, you may find crowdfunding to be the perfect option for your fundraising efforts.

The following is a list of crowdfunding websites that can help your social enterprise, sustainable business or nonprofit organization get off the ground:

33 Needs: Connecting microinvestors & social enterpreneurs

133needs is a recent crowdfunding startup that connects microinvestors with social entrepreneurs who have big ideas in categories such as sustainable food, health, education and the environment. Investors can earn a percentage of revenue in exchange for their support.

AppBackr: Offset app development costs

2A specialty crowdfunding site that may be useful to some social enterprises, AppBackr allows Apple developers to get funding upfront for iPhone, iPod and iPad apps in the concept stage by selling the app wholesale to backers, who receive a percentage of the profits for the apps they have purchased. Many app buyers also assist developers with marketing and promoting their apps to ensure that their investment is fully recouped. With a growing number of social enterprises tapping into the explosive apps market to raise awareness and sell products or services, AppBackr may be a useful tool to help offset app development costs, and even gain some extra promotional help.

Buzzbnk: Supporting a wide range of fields

3Buzzbnk is a crowdfunding platform especially for social enterprises that allow funders to donate either money or time to support social enterprises working in a wide variety of fields. Though based in the UK, it is open to social ventures operating anywhere in the world. Social enterprises must submit their project proposal to Buzzbnk and the Buzzbnk team will work with the social enterprise to help develop appropriate fundraising targets and benefits or rewards to offer funders.

CauseVox: Fundraising pages for nonprofits

4CauseVox offers nonprofit organizations a fully customizable fundraising page that makes collecting money from supporters easy. Supporters can also create their own personalized fundraising pages. Social media integration makes it easy to embed YouTube videos, Flickr slideshows and more.

ProFounder: Investors share in the profits

5ProFounder caters to entrepreneurs – social or otherwise – who are looking for alternative sources of venture capital. ProFounder provides a secure platform where entrepreneurs can raise money from family members, friends and other connections, who then receive a share of the profits when the business they have invested in succeeds. This revenue sharing system is good for investors and good for entrepreneurs, because it doesn’t commit entrepreneurs to making debt payments (potentially with high interest rates) during periods of bad business, only when the business is successful and profitable.

Kickstarter: Supporting a wealth of creative projects

6One of the best-known crowdfunding websites is Kickstarter, which rose to fame after the open source Facebook alternative Diaspora raised more than $200,000 on the site. Kickstarter funds creative projects such as independent films and music albums, books, software, citizen journalism, theatrical productions and more. Project creators are required to offer rewards to donors, such as bonus musical tracks, autographed books, signed prints, free performance tickets or something similar. Although Kickstarter cannot be used to fund social enterprise start-ups, it can be a great source of funding for social enterprises and nonprofits hoping to use creative projects to raise awareness of their cause, as well as for social-minded creative enterprises such as nonprofit theater companies and independent music producers. Other great crowdfunding sites focusing on creative projects include IndieGoGo, RocketHub, UK-based Crowdfunder and Australian-based Pozible.

ChipIn: Embed a widget, raise $

7ChipIn is a simple widget that can be posted on blogs, websites and many social media profiles. It allows individuals, private groups, non-profits and others to raise money easily online.

Crowdcube: Equity-based investment community

8UK-based Crowdcube bills itself as “the world’s first equity-based crowdfunding community dedicated to business investment.” In exchange for microinvestments of as little as £10, investors can fund worthy enterprises and in exchange gain a share of direct equity in the business. Crowdcube is currently available only to UK-based investors and entrepreneurs who have or can start a UK Limited Company, but hopes to expand to other regions in the future.

Give.fm: Create your own campaign

9Give.fm allows nonprofits and individuals to set up a campaign to raise money for causes ranging from local soccer teams to international efforts to fight poverty, hunger, disease, environmental degradation and more. The site works by allowing donors to set up recurring microdonations of as little as 10 cents per day.

Peerbackers: Raise funds from your peers

10Peerbackers offers entrepreneurs and nonprofits of all types the opportunity to raise funding for their idea from their friends, family and peers. Rather than receive financial returns or equity, backers receive rewards such as free or discounted versions of the products or services offered by the company.

FirstGiving: Raise funds for your favorite cause

11FirstGiving has helped more than 8,000 nonprofit organizations connect with more than 13 million donors and raise more than $1 billion to date, it reports. The site allows nonprofit supporters to create their own fundraising page to raise money for the cause of their choice.

Razoo: Simple, secure tools to raise funds

12Razoo is a crowdfunding platform for nonprofits and charities that allows individuals, organizations, corporations and foundations to set up a fundraising page to raise money for their own cause or their other cause of choice. Razoo also allows team campaigns.

Sponsume: Free fundraising platform

13Sponsume is a crowdfunding startup, launched in 2010, that allows both creative projects and social enterprises to raise funding on the site. Sponsume is currently free to use, but does plan to start charging fees in the future.

Spot.us: Funding citizen journalism

14Spot.us is a one-of-a-kind crowdfunding platform that supports citizen journalists by funding their investigations of specific topics. Spot.us can be a very useful tool for organizations seeking to raise awareness through hard-hitting investigative journalism, community reporting or similar means.

Start Some Good: New kid on the block

15Start Some Good is a new crowdfunding startup that launched in February with the goal of connecting social entrepreneurs with crowdfunded venture capital. Start Some Good allows both for-profit and nonprofit social enterprises to post fundraising campaigns to the site. Team members will help review the campaign’s goals and rewards to ensure they’re a good match for Start Some Good’s philosophy.

Have we left any crowdfunding websites off this list? Please leave a comment below!

Related

• 24 tools for fundraising with social media (Socialbrite)

• 9 Web platforms to help you change the world (Socialbrite)

• 12 awesome platforms for social good (Socialbrite)

• Ideavibes: A new way to do crowdsourcing & crowdfunding campaigns (Socialbrite)

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