Fundraising is quite a different game then it was even just a few years ago. Mobile and social media has donors constantly distracted (and bombarded) with messages from friends, brands, and competing causes.

For nonprofit marketers this shift means embracing a donor-centric approach that moves from interruption to invitation.

For example, Human Rights Campaign often presents a fundraising ask only AFTER a supporter signs a petition. Their assumption (a correct one) is that people signing a petition are more likely to give.

After signing a recent petition supporters were encouraged to buy a t-shirt:

One way to construct a donor-centric strategy like HRC’s, is to build a marketing funnel.

What’s a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel is a framework to define the steps a supporter takes to go fromawareness about your cause, to donating to your cause, to sharing your cause with friends.

But a marketing funnel isn’t just an nice idea. In practice, a it’s a series of traffic sources, landing pages, and emails that work together to:

1. Capture interest – Once someone is interested in your cause, capture it.
2. Nurture interest – Build arousal through personalized and responsive email messages.
3. Convert interest – Maximize giving at the right moment.
4. Partner – Turn new supporters into spokespeople. Some are added to the development funnel.

Let’s break down each of these stages:

Top of the Marketing Funnel: Capture Interest

Once someone is interested in your cause, capture it. And by capture, I mean emails.

For example, let’s say a Facebook friend shares a petition to save the polar bears. If you aren’t interested, you’ll simply ignore it. But if you love polar bears, you will sign that petition (name, email, etc).

Polar Bears International captures your email, but they also capture:

• Your interest – In polar bears and other cuddly creatures.
• Your past support – In previous campaigns and fundraisers.
• Your permission – To send you emails about the polar bear campaign.
• Your news feed – Targeting you with Facebook ads about polar bears.
• Your future support – Volunteering, donating, and sharing campaigns.

The critical part of capturing interest (and emails) is this: You must offer enough value for them to give you their email.

What kind of offers provide value?

• Free resources like toolkits, guides or ebooks.
• A discount on membership or event registration.
• Free invites to educational webinars.
• Action alerts and volunteer opportunities.
• Your amazing newsletter delivered via email.
• Photo contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways.

Another (very creative) example of offering value is Malala Fund’s campaign to engage artists:

Regardless of your strategy, you must exchange value for value. There is no value at all in filling out web forms.

To do: Create a landing page for your offer. Make sure emails are properly segmented as having participated in the campaign.

Middle of the Marketing Funnel: Nurture Interest

Once someone has joined your list, they’ve raised their hand. They’re saying “I want more”. They’re ripe for the asking. Your job is to offer compelling reasons to do more.

Email plays a critical role during the nurture phase. Only email allows you to send the right message, to the right people, at the right time:

• The right message – For each acquisition campaign, write a series of email messages designed to nurture interest and deeper action. The key here is that the messages have to be relevant to the campaign.
• The right people – Before you start capturing emails, make sure you’re properly segmenting contacts as they join your list. Capturing each contact’s activity and interest allows you to nurture interest with relevant follow-up messages.
• The right time – When someone signs your petition, joins your newsletter, etc, they’ve expressed interest. You are on their mind. But not for long.

Make sure you follow-up right away via email. For example, after signing HRC’s petition, I received the following email:

To do: Write an email drip sequence to nurture interest. 3 short but powerful emails should do it.

Want more? Click here to download my 1-Page Social Media Marketing Plan Workbook

Money in the Marketing Funnel: Convert Interest

Let’s face it, when someone visits your donation page it’s an extremely rare and precious moment (OMG they actually clicked on our email and went to our donation page!)

It’s a moment you can’t afford NOT to seize!

There are several factors that increase the likelihood that someone will support your fundraiser:

• Audience relevance – Who’s being asked to give? For example, people who signed the polar bear petition.
• Massage relevance – Does the ask align with the audience? Your gift will save even more polar bears.
• Timing – When are they being asked? Recent polar bear petition signers are primed for giving.
• Feels – How amped up are they, emotionally? Unless they feel some love for the polar bears, very few will give money.
• Mobile – If your donation page doesn’t work on mobile, fix it.

If you’ve done a good job in your follow-up emails, prospects won’t need much convincing to take that next step. But they will need a solid donation page:

• Trigger giving with an impact story – Reinforce your stories told with social and email. One powerful picture that tells a story, along with 50 words (or less).
• Make the potential donor the hero – Talk about the impact they will make. Remove your organization from the narrative.
• Get rid of the word “donate” on your donate button – Instead, use language that communicates impact. “Feed hungry families”, “Stop hate in your state”, “Give clear water”, etc.
• Remove the sidebar and other distractions – You want them to make a donation, right?

Important: Remember that each email in the nurture phase (above) should include compelling reasons to support, along with clear call-to-actions.

Sharing in the Marketing Funnel: Turning Supporters into Spokespeople

The last part of the funnel is partnering, which can mean a number of things. But for new donors it will mean sharing your campaign.

Add sharing features to your thankyou page. This way, donors are prompted to share immediately after giving.

Marketing Vortex (A disclaimer)

One shortcoming of marketing funnels is what they suggest: Supporter actions are linear (awareness -> capture -> nurture -> convert).

But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In reality, supporters enter and leave your funnel at various stages, making the funnel look more like a vortex.

For example, many petition signers don’t donate (convert), but instead share your campaign with their friends. Also, people in your email nurture sequence will continue to engage with social media and other messages at the top of the funnel.

Set and Forget It (Almost)

Once you’ve created your donation page, thank you page, and drip sequence, you can let the process run on its own. Your job now is to focus on driving relevant visitors to the top of the funnel (capture).

Lastly, make sure you monitor the effectiveness of your promotion, and the conversion rates of your emails and landing pages.

The post How to Build a Marketing Funnel Your Donors Will Love appeared first on Socialbrite.

You’ve no doubt heard the advice that posting photos will help you get more reach on Facebook. That advice has been tried and true for years, until now.

According to a study by SocialBakers, photos now get less organic reach than videos, links, and even text updates. In fact, videos are now the king of the News Feed!

Socialbakers analyzed 4,445 Facebook Pages and 670,000 posts between October 2014 and February 2015. They discovered that videos now get more than twice as much reach as photos (shown below).

There’s no clear reason for this recent Facebook algorithm change, but Socialbakers offers two explanations:

1. Facebook is responding to Pages looking to game the newsfeed with photos.
2. Facebook is taking on YouTube as the king of video content.

Jan Rezab, Socialbakers CEO, told Business Insider: “Video is proving to be a very engaging format and gaining in popularity, consumers really like them. Therefore we’d advise marketers to include video as part of their content strategies.”

How should your nonprofit respond?

• First of all, check your reach report in your Facebook Page Insights. Specifically, analyze post reach by type between October 2014 and February 2015, the period of time Socialbakers analyzed.
• Second, consider stepping up video content.
• Third, consider publishing blog posts on your website. This way, you’ll be armed with a Facebook Page AND your website, in your Facebook marketing action plan.

What do you think?

The post Photos no longer get more reach on Facebook appeared first on Socialbrite.

As a consultant and trainer in the nonprofit community, I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the Nonprofit Communications Trends Report. And it’s here! Kivi published the first Nonprofit Communications Trends Report back in 2011, surveying 780 nonprofits.

For the most recent report, Kivi surveyed 1,535 nonprofits – mostly in the US.

Highlights from the 2015 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report are presented in an infographic (below), which includes the following eye-openers:

• Nonprofits no longer have new donor acquisition as a primary goal. Instead, retaining current donors and engaging their communities is becoming more important.
• Communications Directors and Development Directors have conflicting goals. Development, of course, wants to retain and acquire donors. Communications wants to focus less on fundraising and more on brand awareness and engagement.
• Nonprofits are planning on sending more email and direct mail appeals in 2015. 45% of the participants said they will send monthly appeals, and 36% said they will send quarterly direct mail appeals.
• Facebook is still the king of social media channels. 96% of participants have a Facebook page.
• Nonprofits still say their website is the most important communications channel, followed by email and social media. This is as it should be.
• Communications Directors are challenged with lack of time to produce quality content.
• Facebook takes up more time than blogging or email marketing.

Check out the full infograph below, and download your copy of the report here.

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How to maximize and follow through on your communications goals

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

If you’re like most nonprofit communicators, you have a list of specific quarterly or yearly goals. No doubt they include growing your e-mail list, acquiring new donors and increasing engagement on your Facebook updates.

But whatever your goals are, make sure they cover these seven tips below:

Write it down

1A plan is very difficult to follow and measure if it’s not written down. Most nonprofits don’t have content strategy. And based on the limited work I’ve done, they also lack an online marketing strategy that’s written down.

Make a resolution to create written plans for each campaign throughout the year. Your plan should include stated goals, stated messaging, a strategy outline, and finally, tools and tactics. How much detail you include in this document is up to you, but at least include these elements.

Also, check out these three articles on develop a solid online marketing strategy:

Practice split-testing

2If you’re like most nonprofits, your donor retention rates are less than satisfactory. Improving this starts with fixing the places where you’re converting poorly.

• Begin by split testing your fundraising pages, if you haven’t already. Split-testing helps increase conversions by testing out variations in the content. Some typical areas to start with include headlines, images, button location, button text, button colors, and copy. Check out how the Marine Mammal Center split-tested variations of a call-to-action.
• You should also split-test email subject lines and email content. This will eventually point the way to increased open rates, click-through rates, and eventually conversion rates.

Check out this article on how split-testing raised over $100,000 for WWF.

Maximize secondary actions

3Make the most of every interaction people take with your nonprofit. For example, when people sign a petition, immediately email them to ask for a donation (says thanks first). This approach uses recency to create momentum towards a secondary call-to-action – essentially killing two birds with one stone.

In fact, maximize any webpage people see after completing a transaction (signing a petition, joining your email list, making a donation, registering for an event). Carefully consider what secondary actions make sense for each transaction. For example, if someone makes a donation, make sure they can easily share that with their friends.

See beyond the dollars

4All too often, the scope of the supporter relationship is limited to money. But donating money is only one way that they interact with you.

Supporters also share your Facebook updates, sign your petitions and pledges, and re-tweet your blog posts.

Develop a specific plan to encourage these types of actions, remembering that growing a community is like growing a garden. It takes time, care and consideration. Focus on growing your community, both in terms of numbers AND engagement.

Be useful

5It seems like all the social media experts claim that the key to success to being awesome. But what your community really needs is for you to be useful.

Being useful is much easier than trying to be awesome. Being useful is about putting the needs of your community first, like in this Facebook update from the Museum of Fine Arts:

Take risks

6New tactics and strategies for using social media sprout up every week, making “best practices” somewhat limited. In fact, I think we should change the term “best practice” to “most commonly used practice that gets average results.”

The fact is, the web and mobile are changing very fast. Those who play is safe get average results at best, while risk-takers adopt more quickly (test, fail / win, learn, repeat). Fail forward, they say.

Test and measure

7Most nonprofits are not strategically testing or measuring digital media. Yes, data is collected and stored in excel spreadsheets. But the hard questions aren’t being asked: Why are we measuring click-through rates? Why are we measuring our Facebook page fan growth?

Let your strategy dictate what should be measured. This will make your data much more useful. For example, if your goal is to convert more donors via email, then you want to test and measure conversion rates via clicks in those messages. Go back to what I said about split-testing.

Remember to breathe

If you’re like me, you need a fair amount of down time.

You need time to step back, take a breath, and take in the panoramic view of what you’re doing – in work and in life. Pace yourself and be smart about daily habits.

And try to have fun.

The post 7 tips for your nonprofit communications plan appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, journalists, general public.

Post by Nancy Schwartz
Nonprofit Marketing Problem Solver & Coach at Getting Attention.org

Pressure. You feel it. I feel it. Every nonprofit communicator and fundraiser out there feels it. Social media pressure, that is.

Whether the source of this anxiety (Am I keeping up? Do I have a billion Facebook likes or Twitter followers? Is my Instagram strategy driving action?) is your immediate boss, board chair, or colleague in programs, it’s there. The pressure to generate a social media miracle.

Breathe—There Is a Solution

You can boost marketing and fundraising impact, and you can deflate that pressure. Here’s how:

1.  Get to know your people. Research, via online survey or calls, where your current supporters are when it comes to social media.

2.  Use your marketing/fundraising plan to remind yourself exactly who your prospects are (the people who are most likely to take the actions that will drive your marketing or fundraising goals forward). Then, use your supporter research to project where similar prospect groups are on social media.

3.  Assess if and where to invest in social media, even if your organization has been there for years. Probe whether the most-used social media channels are useful in helping you achieve your broader goals. Ask yourself two questions: Does the interaction in that channel mesh with your calls to action and goals? Is your investment in each of the most-used channels likely to be profitable?

4.  Focus your energy and time on the single most-used channel, but only if the return on investment (ROI) seems to be there. Note: It will be far more effective to use one platform well, rather than use multiple platforms in a half-baked way. That’s been proven time and time again.

5.  Invest the time. Block out at least 30 minutes, twice daily, for social media if you are using just one platform. I urge you to get that one channel to work—or realize it’s the wrong one—before you take on another platform.

6.  Create some incremental benchmarks so you get a sense of how your investment is or is not paying off. That might be retweets and followers for Twitter or likes and shares for Facebook. Request that your colleagues ask those who do take action—to give, register, or spread the word—what influences sparked them along the way.

7.  Like or follow five to 10 colleague or competitive organizations on that channel, be it Facebook or Instagram. It’s important to see what folks who are competing for your supporters’ and prospects’ attention and dollars are doing. You can also find some relevant models by watching what organizations similar to yours in approach or issue—but not competing with you—are doing.

8.  Adapt your approach as needed on an ongoing basis. Build into your work plan an ongoing analysis of what is and isn’t working, a review of other organizations’ successes and failures, and a revision of your own approach. Social media, including websites and blogs, is a communications channel that requires ongoing evolution. Otherwise, don’t use it.

Take these steps to make your social media efforts meaningful and measurable for your nonprofit. How are you making social media matter for your cause? Chime in with your ideas below! Also, don’t miss Social Media for Nonprofits when this conference comes to Washington, DC on July 14. Register now with code “N4G” to save up to $30.

Nonprofit marketing consultant, speaker and coach Nancy Schwartz  rolls up her sleeves with contagious passion and refreshing practicality to help organizations like yours get attention and motivate giving, volunteering and more.

The post 8 ways to make social media matter appeared first on Socialbrite.

14 IFTTT recipes to hack social media marketing

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, journalists, general public.

If you’re not familiar with it, IFTTT (If This, Then That) is a free utility that automates tedious online tasks.

For example, updating Google spreadsheets with retweets, updating profile pictures across networks, or uploading Instagram pictures to DropBox.

Basically, it’s a digital personal assistant who takes care of repetitive tasks, based on simple if/then rules. The automated tasks you create with IFTTT are called recipes.

Here are 14 IFTTT recipes for nonprofit marketers:

1. Add a calendar event by voicemail
2. Create shared meeting notes via email
3. Update a Google spreadsheet when someone makes a donation
4. Track #hashtags in a Google spreadsheet
5. Get a text if your competitor blogs about a specific topic
6. Track an Instagram contest in a Google spreadsheet
7. Save all your Instagram photos to DropBox
8. Post Instagram pictures to Tumblr
9. Post Instagram pictures to Flickr
10. Update your Facebook Page when an event starts
11. Save all your tweets in a Google spreadsheet
12. Email your iPhone photos
13. Save new comics from The Oatmeal to Pocket (of course!)
14. Text to get away from people (this one’s funny!)

Do you have a favorite IFTTT recipe I should add to the list? Post it in the comments.

The post Using social media shortcuts to increase productivity appeared first on Socialbrite.

Unless you have a publicist, public relations strategies at small to medium nonprofits are often on the back burner. There are press releases that wind up sitting on your website and not getting much distribution. Press pages with long listings of news article from 2010. You get the picture and we get it too — it’s difficult to focus on PR, especially when you’re a small to mid-sized organization with limited staff and resources.

The good news is that there are a handful of social startups out there focused on helping businesses and nonprofits have an easier time of getting their news out, and helping you find the outlets you should be focusing on. So, I’ve compiled a short list of social public relations tools that will help your nonprofit take the next steps into your newly revitalized public relations plan!

Totem

My new favorite PR tool for nonprofits is Totem. Totem is a simple app that creates professional looking and comprehensive press pages for your website. Typically, a press page is a place for you to put all the information a reporter needs to write about you. If they’re writing a story about your organization, they’ll often need to use a logo, fact sheet, a photo or two, some video. The problem is this kind of information isn’t available on most websites. Many nonprofit sites aren’t designed with the reporter in mind, and there is much to gain by making it easier for a reporter to cover your news. Sure, if they’re writing a story, they can always contact your communications staff, but a nicely stocked press page makes it easier for reporters to cobble together a story last minute and it gives off the impression that your nonprofit is media friendly – both good things when you’re looking to drum up press. If your website’s press page only has published coverage and press releases, then it’s time to make your press page work a little harder for you.

Pitch Engine

PitchEngine is a social media press release app that allows you to pitch all kinds of content, including text, slideshows, a video section, captions, tags for blog posts, link to related news and a ready made tweet.

Combining short paragraphs and bullet points with Web-friendly links and multi-media, the PitchEngine aims to give reporters and bloggers the key ingredients for a story in an immediately scannable and digestible fashion.

One of the reasons social media press releases have been successful is because it capitalizes on three big trends: The use of multi-media, emphasis on press release search engine optimization and because email has allowed anyone to pitch a story, making the social media release valuable because its format enables reporters to quickly assess what’s newsworthy.

Another big reason I really like PitchEngine is because it lets you easily distribute your release by typing in whom you want to send it to (via email, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook). All releases created in the system automatically appear in their PitchFeed, a stream of current pitches that can be accessed by reporters and bloggers on site or via RSS.

I think it’s a great tool for nonprofits because of how easy it is to use and how low cost it is. There’s a free version and you can also pay for more features. It’s a nice alternative to shelling out upwards of $350 to get your news release out on the wires, something that can be cost-prohibitive to many nonprofits.

Newsle

Newsle tracks your Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections and email contacts in the news. You just sign up, and you can follow everyone you know. Newsle notifies you about important articles and press, seconds after they are published and you can choose to follow anyone not just the people in your networks. Newsle lets you stay up-to-date on your board of directors/CEO achievements, your peer’s latest projects, and explore articles on your favorite thought leaders, bloggers and trendsetters all in one place.

I find it also gives me ideas on different ways to partner with individuals and their organizations, and also just motivates me to get out the messages that I know deserve that same kind of attention. I hope it does the same for you!

Any tools that are helping you ramp up your PR? Share them with us in the comments below and tell us why you like them!

The post Three free tools to boost your nonprofit’s public relations appeared first on Socialbrite.

11 tips on moving subscribers to take action

Target audience: Nonprofits, fund-raisers, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, social marketers, cause advocates.

If you’re a regular reader of Socialbrite, you already know that email marketing is extremely effective for converting transactions like donations, renewals and action alerts.

Email is also awesome for nurturing a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.

What is an email drip campaign?

A drip campaign is an email marketing strategy intended to get subscribers to take specific actions over the course of the campaign. Drip campaigns consists of a series of messages delivered over a specific timeframe.

For example, a Facebook fan who signs a petition would then receive a series of emails over the next few weeks encouraging him to donate, share the petition with friends or share a story on Facebook.

The benefits of a drip campaign are that you can target the right messages to the right people at the right time. Drip campaigns also tend to get more opens and click-throughs than your run-of-the-mill monthly newsletter. Finally, after you set one up, drip campaigns essentially run themselves.

How to create a email drip campaign for your nonprofit

The technical steps for creating drip campaigns vary depending upon what email marketing software you use, but generally follow these steps (the example screen shots are taken from my Aweber account):

Create clear goals and objectives

1Decide what the objectives are for the campaign. Do you want petition signers to donate? Do you want folks who create a peer-to-peer fundraising page to get the most out of their fundraiser?

Select your segments

2Will you be targeting new petition signers? Lapsed donors? Current donors? This all depends on what your objectives are.

Determine message quantity and frequency

3Decide on the frequency and number of messages. You have to strike a balance between reminding them about the campaign and being a total pain in the ass.

Your message frequency will depend on what actions you want people to take, when you want those actions taken and how long the campaign is.

Write your email messages and subject lines

4Write the messages in advance, and base them on your understanding of what motivates your segments / personas.

Keep them super short and written in the second-person, as if you’re writing to a friend. Read this post on email marketing for more tips on writing more effective email messages.  And don’t forget to write awesome subject lines!

Create a unique list or segment for the campaign

5Creating a unique list allows you identify these folks for future campaigns — these folks signed the petition to save the sea turtles, and these folks signed the petition and donated.

You’ll also want to add opt-in forms for this list to your website, Facebook Page, blog or wherever you plan on capturing people.

Enter your messages into your email marketing tool

6After you’ve written your messages and subject lines, enter them into your email marketing tool, which as I’ve said will have a different process (I use Aweber, you might be using Constant Contact or MailChimp). Also, skip the fancy email templates and try using just rich text. In several tests I’ve done with clients, rich text email get a 17 percent higher average click-through rate over HTML templates; please test this for yourself.

Configure your message frequency

7In terms of how the drip part of all this works, the timing of your messages is typically kicked off when someone opts into various stages of the campaign.

For example, when someone signs a petition, he or she will receive an email the next day and then once a week for the next month. If that same person donates during that period, he or she is removed from this list and added to a different list with different, more relevant massages.

Most decent email marketing tools automate these types of rules.

Add an unsubscribe option to each message

8At the bottom of each message, give subscribers the option of unsubscribing. The last thing you need to is to piss people off by not making this easy. Again, most email marketing solutions automatically do this as well.

Launch your drip campaign

9Your campaign is launched as soon as the Web forms are live and people are aware of the campaign. We’ll talk about promoting your campaign later on, but for now just know that you need to promote it via multiple channels or it won’t work.

Measure your drip campaign

10The effectiveness of your campaign is solely based on a hypothesis up until it launches. After launch, you’ll want to start tracking open rates, click-though rates, unsubscribes and other stats important for measuring the effectiveness of your campaign.

One important thing, though: Measure right away — don’t wait after your campaign is over. The data you gather from day one will help you avoid unintended disasters by adjusting the messaging and frequency during the campaign. Measuring is your campaign’s GPS system.

Conduct a postmortem

11Unless someone was killed with your drip campaign, your postmortem will simply be a discussion (in person preferably) about what went well, what didn’t and how your organization is more capable.

What else can you add about drip campaigns? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

The post How to create an email drip campaign for your nonprofit appeared first on Socialbrite.

Savvi’s new fundraising program resonates with nonprofits

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, social change advocates, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, educators, community organizations.

Guest post by Kiley Newbold
Savvi.com

There are plenty of people in the world who want to give.  That’s evident by the billions of dollars given to charities each year. But talk to any nonprofit and you’ll find the challenge is in how to engage supporters, get them to donate, and then the really tricky part – get them to keep donating again and again. What if nonprofits could create a residual and continuing stream of fundraising revenue? That’s the idea and question that brought a consumer shopping mobile app into the nonprofit fundraising world.

How Savvi works with nonprofits

Savvi.com began almost two years ago as the brain-child of a partnership between Banyan Ventures and the nation’s largest merchant discount network – boasting over 320,000 participating merchants in more than 30,000 zip codes. Darin Gilson, managing partner of Banyan Ventures, suggested that this powerful merchant network wrapped in agile, mobile technology could be an incredible solution to the crazy world of deals and discounts. And with that, Savvi was born. From the beginning, the aim of Savvi was to provide consumers with a simplified approach to saving. We wanted to create something that empowered people to save on things they actually needed. We spent hours discussing the core principles behind Savvi. In short, we became very passionate about what we were building and the impact it could have.

It’s that internal passion that helped us connect so readily with our nonprofit friends. Listening to any nonprofit advocate is one of my favorite things. Most often, it is clearly evident that they believe in their cause so deeply that it courses through their veins. And their enthusiasm is easy to catch. That’s likely why there’s no shortage of worthwhile causes around the world — in general, people care and want to make a difference. But there is so much to do, and providing support usually costs money.

Recurring revenue for nonprofits

That’s often where that enthusiasm hits its first rough patch. There is always a glimmer of hope and perhaps a small hint of frustration in the eye of those nonprofit advocates when they begin to talk about what they wish they could do – if only they had more funds.

The shape of a business almost always tells a deeper story. Savvi is no exception. As we built something we felt passionate about, we kept running into other passionate people. It didn’t take long to realize that Savvi was a perfect partner for our nonprofit friends. As we discussed the possibilities, we often heard the same refrain:

• We need something of real value to give our supporters
• We need something that gives us a significant share of the money gathered
• Fundraising takes up so much time, because we have to constantly raise more money
• Fundraising can’t cost more than it brings in

Savvi seemed to fit the bill perfectly. So we launched our Savvi for nonprofit fundraising program.  Essentially, nonprofit partners are able to offer Savvi to their supporters through a turnkey solution, and Savvi shares a generous portion of the membership fees on a monthly and recurring basis.

• Supporters gain real value while supporting their cause
• Savvi shares 30% of all membership fees generated through the nonprofit partner
• The recurring, monthly membership nature of Savvi allows nonprofits to build sustainable fundraising revenue streams
• Savvi is free to nonprofits and requires very little upfront time to implement

Savvi is now helping nonprofits, both large and small, all across the country. Whether it’s sending a team of doctors to Mexico, providing relief to victims of natural disasters, or raising money for scholarships, Savvi is quickly becoming a very popular tool to solve the fundraising dilemma while giving the nonprofit supporters real value in their everyday life.

Align your nonprofit with Savvi

1. Visit http://business.savvi.com/strategic_partners/charities and fill out the form.
2. A member of the Savvi team will contact you to discuss your organization’s needs.
3. Savvi will work with you to customize some marketing and outreach materials.
4. Plug Savvi into your existing fundraising efforts, or launch new campaigns.
5. Start earning recurring commissions to support your organization’s efforts.

Learn more about Savvi through their blog. You can also keep up with us:

• On Facebook
• On Twitter
• On Pinterest.

Have any questions?

The post Savvi: A recurring revenue stream for nonprofits appeared first on Socialbrite.

Why social media & email marketing are key to your nonprofit’s success

If you work for a small nonprofit, chances are you feel the pain of limited staff, limited budgets and the limited hours in your busy schedule. On top of that, no one seems to understand these challenges. They expect miracles.

So it’s natural that at some point you’d ask, Which is more important: social media or email marketing?

Alas, you need both.

In the 2-minute video above, I briefly explain the difference between social media and email marketing and why both are critical components in your marketing arsenal.

Social media and email marketing serve different purposes. How is email different from social media?

1. Privacy. Email is imbued with a degree of intimacy. People invite you into their in-box for a specific purpose.
2. Segmentation. You can divvy up email recipients through their interests. Are they more interested in sea turtles or climate change?
3. Conversion. You can determine how many of the people you reach out to complete the transaction. That’s harder to do with social media.

In short, email is transactional. You can tailor your message to different recipients. Social media is relational. It’s a way to induce people to share your message.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below.

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