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.

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Predictions are a tricky thing. They’re mostly comprised of strong currents of the present, past habits and a big dose of educated guessing. When it comes to nonprofits, there’s also an element of hopefulness that’s thrown in, at least in my list of predictions for 2016.

2015 has seen much innovation in technology and communication. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were recently approved and organizations and countries have started working towards the newly revamped goals. We’ve also seen the world change dramatically – terrorism in all its new iterations is ever present, and we’ll be seeing how nonprofits and global development and relief organizations respond to the current challenges on and off the ground. Here are my predictions for 2016 that reflect our changing global dynamics and expectations.

Social Media – Both large and small social good organizations will be capitalizing on hashtags in much more proactive and creative ways. We’ll be seeing more organizations use mainstream hashtags that aren’t necessarily exclusive to the nonprofit sector, such as #finance #innovation and #smallbiz to inject themselves into digital conversations that are related to their causes. We’re also going to be seeing the hashtags #globalgoals and #SDGS become increasingly popular unifying hashtags as social good organizations and countries come together to work on the newly approved United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We’re also starting to see nonprofits dip their toes into social livestreaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat, and the capacity it has to take us to places and share experiences largely unseen by supporters and donors.

Global Development – As the world continues to counter terrorism, war and violent conflict, and natural disasters, we’ll be seeing governments and mainstream media work much more closely with both large and small NGOs, in an effort to tap into local knowledge and expertise. We’ll see nonprofits respond cautiously but proactively in their new role, and invest more resources into communications and messaging.

Intrapreneurship – As social entrepreneurship continues to rise in the social good sector, more and more nonprofits are looking at the model that incorporates not only profit-making capacities, but also relies strongly on innovation and an ability to pivot quickly when needed, as potential new ways forward. Intrapreneurship, often led by solution and innovation-focused staff members, will continue to pick up speed as nonprofits start looking at new ways of creating revenue, exploring new partnerships and collaborations, and expanding their ability to sustain themselves beyond their present fundraising strategies.

Transparency & Accountability – Nonprofits will continue to make greater investments and improvements in monitoring and evaluation methodologies and staffing, improve on their impact storytelling, specifically using data visualization and graphics. We’ll see more nonprofit websites, social channels and blog posts that speak to us ways in ways we better understand, with more institutional knowledge and opinion shared, as more “fortress” nonprofits embrace communication and openness.

Content Marketing – As blogging continues to be the most rewarding content marketing tool for nonprofits, we’ll see more nonprofits train and encourage program and other staff members to share their field stories and expertise. Traditionally in the hands of communications staff members, we’ll also see more CEOs and Executive Directors creating more content on various platforms, in an effort to increase their organization’s visibility, positioning, and thought leadership.

The challenge for nonprofits in the new year, as it is every year, is finding the internal staffing and financial resources (and often the organizational will because of limited capacity) to move forward on new initiatives that help move the ‘mission needle’ forward. It will be exciting to see how nonprofits take on their various challenges and show us that the social good sector is innovating and moving forward in the most meaningful ways.

This post was originally published on The Huffington Post.

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Sharing with your audience on multiple levels is key

Post by Teddy Hunt

Target audience:  Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, marketers, managers, general public.

Nonprofit organizations have to reach their audiences effectively in order to find supporters and donors for the cause at hand. Social media offers nonprofits the very platform they need to get their voices heard, but going the social media route doesn’t necessarily guarantee success. In order for your nonprofit to extend their social reach, here are a few pointers that’ll help turn your nonprofit into a social media darling.

Get your story out there

As a nonprofit organization, you’re always working on telling your nonprofit’s story to your social media audience in the best way you can. You need to let your followers know what you’re trying to accomplish in a straightforward way while also giving your mission a personal touch.

There are many ways to go about telling your nonprofit’s story, but no matter how detailed you get with your mission, always remember the three w’s: who, what, and why. Who is it your nonprofit is helping, what is your nonprofit doing to accomplish its goals, and why has your nonprofit chosen its charitable field on a personal level?

Say, for instance, your nonprofit is trying to end world hunger. When campaigning on sites like Facebook and Twitter, your nonprofit should introduce itself socially by:

• Describe who it’s helping — Is your non-profit trying to end hunger in a specific region, country, or on a local level? The sooner your nonprofit describes who it’s trying to help, the faster followers will respond to your efforts.
• Explain what it’s doing — Is your nonprofit involved in local food drives or money-raising events? How will those funds reach those in need? By describing your nonprofit’s process, your organization will look more professional and responsible, which helps build trust and makes followers more likely to respond.
• Explain why your nonprofit  is doing what it’s doing — Is your organization trying to end hunger because it’s affecting a specific community, or is it trying to help the hunger cause in general? Do you have beneficiary stories you can share with your audience? Giving your nonprofit’s story a personal touch will help others relate to your cause.

Keep your followers in the loop

Whether it’s a social media follower or a longtime donor, the secret that every socially successful brand will tell you is to keep your audience in the loop. This means not only keeping followers updated on your nonprofit’s charitable efforts, it also means sharing everything from your donation goals, to volunteer opportunities, to upcoming fundraising events.

Above all else, staying social with your followers means answering any and all questions that come your way through the social pipeline. Answering your followers’ questions helps keep your audience informed, involved, and feeling like part of the cause. So, reply to all questions and all comments thoughtfully, respectfully, and in a timely manner.

Don’t be afraid to ask

Your nonprofit’s social presence is there to help you reach out to your followers and part of reaching out is asking people to donate. That’s ultimately why you use social media and your followers are well aware of it, so never be afraid to ask for donations via social media come fundraising time.

If you follow all the pointers above and make your cause as engaging as possible, your followers will be more than happy to donate to your NPO. So, the next time you’re need of online donations, call-in donations, or volunteers, ask your social media audience for help and support — you’ll be surprised with the positive response you receive.

Link to your victories

Whether your organization reached a personal goal of signing on a handful of new volunteers or it reached its quarterly fundraising goal early, it’s important to link to all your nonprofit’s victories. Linking to large and small successes could inspire others to get involved, by highlighting how no win is ever too small.

By keeping in mind some of these social media tips , an organization can help build a greater sense of community on their social channels and ultimately grow their following.

The post How nonprofits can extend their reach & build community 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!

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Highlights of 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study (infographic)

This is the second of two articles on NTC 2013. Also see:
• Highlights of 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference

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

Every year, Socialbrite takes a look at the annual study of online nonprofit trends put out by the communications firm M+R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network. This year, we waited a couple of weeks after the report’s release to hear directly from Madeline Stanionis, creative director of M+R, who dissected the annual survey of the nonprofit sector at last week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in Minneapolis.

The 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study offers the sector’s only in-depth look at how nonprofits fared with email marketing, online fundraising and nonprofit advocacy over the past year. The report studied data from 55 generally large nonprofits in the environmental, health, human rights, international and wildlife and animal welfare sectors. As I’ve said in the past, a study of 55 large organizations — which sent 1.6 billion emails to 45 million list subscribers and raked in more than $438 million online donations during 2012 — is hardly representative of the 1.5 million mostly small nonprofits in the United States. Still, the trend lines are worth examining.

Here, then, are a few of the top-line takeaways:

• Online revenue was up 21 percent last year. One-time gifts continue to make up the bulk of online giving, with monthly giving programs across all groups bringing in 43 percent more revenue than the previous year.
• The average monthly gift was $19, while the average one-time gift was $60.
• Twitter had a big year. Nonprofits began paying serious attention to their social channels, and their Twitter followers increased by 264 percent in 2012.
• But perspective, people: For every 1,000 email subscribers, participating nonprofits reported just 149 Facebook followers and 53 Twitter followers.
• Email had a Jekyll and Hyde year. Subscriber lists grew by 15 percent. And open rates remained steady at 14 percent overall.
• But email response rates — the percentage of people who responded to a call to action — were way down. Click-through rates for all sectors stood at 1.7 percent (down 22 percent), and fundraising message click-throughs stood at 0.42 percent (down 27 percent).

Infographic shows email, social media trends at a glance

You can download a PDF version of the study at e-benchmarksstudy.com. Here’s an infographic that summarizes some of the findings:

“The world is changing,” Stanionis told the packed room. Some 33 percent of online donations to nonprofits come from email (down from 35 percent last year). I asked about the 67 percent that doesn’t come from email solicitations — how much of that is from social media? M+R and NTEN don’t know, partly because reporting of online donations is hard to track in a reliable way. (Next year, folks? Please? Please?)

Secrets from the Obama campaign

Stanionis shared these surprises from Obama’s new media staff about what worked — and what didn’t — during the most successful online fundraising campaign in history:

• Segmentation based on donor behavior is the only fundraising segmentation worth doing. Donor behavior turned out to be far more significant than demographics, past history and the like.
• Novelty works, until it doesn’t. “Try new stuff,” Stanionis advised. “But you may have a short lifespan of only two weeks before it gets old.”
• Short emails. Long. Whatever. No patterns were discernible.
• The same email sometimes elicited the highest donation rates — and the highest unsubscribe rates. “Push the envelope to elicit emotion and responses. Touching a nerve is a good sign,” she said.

Some final lessons learned

Participating nonprofits also saw a healthy spike in their Facebook fans — a 46 percent increase over the previous year. Nonprofits posted about once per day on Facebook, though larger organizations posted more frequently. Photo posts were the most popular content for users to like, share or comment on. But photos were ineffective at driving people to webpages beyond the confines of Facebook.

The median number of Facebook fans, across all nonprofit sectors, was 35,538, which tells you only that the survey is skewed toward larger organizations. The median number of Twitter followers? 21,788 or, again, probably far more than your organization has.

Interesting factoid shared by one of the attendees, who works at Edutopia: “This year for the first time, our website’s referral traffic is pulling in more visitors from Twitter than from Facebook. And we spend a lot more time on Facebook than on Twitter.”

There are tons of interesting datapoints in the study. Download it and check it out for yourself.

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Chris Brogan offers three big rules for your online presence

In the 8-minute video above, marketing icon Chris Brogan, co-author of “The Impact Equation,” “Google+ For Business” and “Trust Agents”, talks about three rules of the road that nonprofits should keep in mind when thinking about their online presence:

• How nonprofits can make good first impressions online – for instance, how do you get people to notice what you’re doing? how do people interact with the information you provide?

• How nonprofits can make donating, subscribing and volunteering easier for people (Chris says, “I am forever baffled by people who create a donation site and make it really hard to find the donate button.”

• How nonprofits can focus on two metrics that really matter.

Chris gives some insight into the business of nonprofits, why trust is a critical component in relationship building, and the importance of your organization’s online storefront.

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Make scarce marketing dollars go further with targeted, tested ads

Editor’s note: We’ve combined John Haydon’s 3-minute video tutorial above on how to use Facebook Insights to target Facebook ads more effectively with the following guest post that dissects the different kinds of Facebook ads.

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, marketing pros, Facebook administrators, anyone with a Facebook page.

Guest post by Taryn Degnan

If you build it, they will come … but what if they don’t? What if you’ve done everything to build a strong Facebook community, consistently post quality content and do your very best to engage with users, but you (or, in some cases, your executive director or CEO) still want more?

With limited to no budget, you have the opportunity to grow your community organically and develop meaningful relationships with your fans, bringing them closer to your organization’s mission with each Facebook post. But with recent changes to Facebook Pages and the newsfeed algorithm that now prevents parts of your audience from seeing everything you share, nonprofits big and small are turning to Facebook ads for as little as $1 per day to ensure eyeballs and engagement. 

With so many options at our fingertips, I recently took the time to really understand how it all works. If you’re interested in considering the options, too, I hope my research helps guide you to make the best decision for your organization.

Choose a mélange of ads that work best for your organization

1There are pros and cons to all three of these, but Facebook offers one of the most targeted advertising opportunities out there today. It simply comes down to who you want to target, and how much you are willing to pay to place a bid:

Facebook ads allow you to combine a photo or logo and 90 text characters to promote a page, app, event or external website to people who may or may not yet be connected to your cause – your choice. Ads appear on the right hand side of the Facebook news feed.

Sponsored Posts display posts in the newsfeeds of existing fans who might not have otherwise seen them. They are ideal for increasing visibility of event invitations, questions, photos or important news in a targeted fashion.

Sponsored Likes invite users to like causes that their friends are already connected to, using the power of social context to consistently outperform regular Facebook ads with a 46% higher click through rate, a 20% lower cost per click, and an 18% lower cost per fan according to Inside Facebook.  And it makes sense: According to Facebook Marketing, 92% of people trust the word of mouth of family and friends, as opposed to only 47% who trust television, radio and newspaper.

Make every penny count

2If your goal is audience growth, maximize your dollars by paying only for ads that people click on (CPC) as opposed to paying per one thousand people who will potentially see your ad (CPM).  More specifically, maximize your investment by getting people to click through directly to where you want them to be. If you have a stronger daily presence and richer content on Facebook than on your website, you might want to ask users to like your page instead of directing them to an external link.

Determine your ideal audience

3As opposed to Google Ad Words, Facebook gives you the power to identify users that fit your demographic to a tee. Are you a resource center for parents of children with Autism in Los Angeles, and looking to engage with college educated, stay-at-home parents? You can create an ad that targets those exact users – and even narrow it down further by alma mater!

Test, track, modify

4You are in full control of what you put into ads and what you can expectedly get out of them. Elana Leoni, Social Media Marketing Manager at Edutopia, recently told me, “When I first started playing around with promoted posts, I invested $15 per post and I was seeing an average of 2,500 paid impressions, 650 social impressions, 5.65% click-through rate (CTR), $.25 cost per click (CPC), and $.01 cost per impression (CPI). I was satisfied with this data and I decided to continue investing more per post. With my investments of $75 or more per post I was seeing an average of 42,000 paid impressions, 38,000 social impressions, 2.5% CTR, $.08 CPC, and $.002 CPI. Even though my click-throughs were decreasing with this higher level of investment, my impressions were skyrocketing!” Keeping a close eye on your campaigns and making changes when necessary will help you reach your goal.

Knowledge is power

5Facebook has substantial insight into its 1 billion users, so to get the best results possible, determine not only the demographic you want to market to, but what you want to get out of your actions. “With back-to-school season in full swing (our busiest season), we’re trying to be a part of the conversation on Facebook about education even more, so we’re promoting at least five posts per week to our audience,” says Leoni. This is a great example of meeting people where they are, and providing value to your audience at a time when it makes sense for them.

Above all else, authenticity always wins

6As nonprofits, we have an incredible storytelling advantage — to share meaningful, mission-minded content that inspires people to react, engage and share authentically. Try reaching your Facebook engagement goals by using the power of photos, testimonials and stories to communicate your message before you dive into investing dollars and resources that might not make perfect sense (or cents!) for your organization.

Now, let’s hear it from you. Have you experimented with Facebook ads?  What have you learned from the experience? Share your thoughts and ideas to help us all.

Taryn Degnan is the Manager of Social Media and Online Community at Common Sense Media. You can find Taryn on Twitter at @tarynidana. This article (without John’s video) originally appeared at Beth’s Blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

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]]> https://www.socialbrite.org/2013/02/26/what-nonprofits-should-know-about-facebook-ads/feed/ 2 https://www.socialbrite.org/2013/01/15/best-mobile-nonprofit-apps-itunes-android/ Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:31:47 +0000 http://www.socialbrite.org/?p=22432 A round up of five nonprofit mobile apps worth downloading. Find out how the American Red Cross, the YMCA, the UN and others are making their mobile platforms useful downloads.

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Photo courtesy of Daniel Y. Go via Creative Commons

5 organizations with apps worth downloading

Guest post by Kerry Butters

There is an app for pretty much everything these days, whether you want help with yoga, looking at the stars, getting to sleep or maybe you just need to keep all your affairs in order.

However, not every app is in it for the money. There are nonprofit apps out there that are worth more than a passing glance. With this in mind, we’ve put together a list of some of the best nonprofit apps available today.

First Aid App by American Red Cross
1I don’t know about you, but when it comes to first aid, I’m clueless. Anything that involves more than a Band-Aid and I have to look online for advice. This cool app can help you along the way by teaching you first aid, giving you quizzes to improve your knowledge. With its built-in content, you won’t have to worry about finding a signal in a moment of peril. iTunes and Android

Yfinder

2The YMCA does a great job helping youths gain a future. They promote a healthy family lifestyle and are a great part of the USA. With this cool app you’ll never have to worry about being from the Y ever again. Its built-in GPS will help you locate your nearest Y so you’re never far away from a helping hand. In addition to giving you the location, it will also give you directions so you’ll never get lost. Android only

UN Foundation

3The United Nations is constantly working to improve the health and well-being of people across the world. With this great app you can now be a part of that. Whether you want to send messages to those doing good works, read about the great things the UN is doing across the globe, or just simply donate when you see someone that needs your help, then this is the app for you. iTunes and Android

Movember Mobile

4This charity app goes hand in hand with the charity event held annually for prostate cancer. Are you considering growing a mustache and doing your bit later this year? Even if you’re not, download this app and get sucked into the cause. iTunes and Android

PETA (People for the ethical treatment of animals)

5Whether you just want to make a donation, keep up with the good work or get directly involved, then download this be-kind-to-animals app to get started. You can even get points and badges if you want to add a little healthy competition to the app. iTunes and Android

As the mobile app world becomes more ruthless — with Android and Apple vying for supremacy and Windows jumping into the fold — it’s refreshing to know that not everyone is in it for what they can get. If you’re currently shopping around for apps to install on your smartphone, iPad or tablet and are looking for some helpful apps to go with it, these are certainly worth a look.

What are your favorite nonprofit apps? Please add them in the comments!

Kerry Butters is a contributor for the popular consumer information site Broadband Genie in Great Britain, which covers everything from broadband to the best iPad contract deals. Follow her on Twitter at @kesbutters.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

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]]> https://www.socialbrite.org/2012/11/05/social-media-vs-email-marketing/ Mon, 05 Nov 2012 13:31:16 +0000 http://www.socialbrite.org/?p=22056 With limited time, money and resources, you may be wondering whether email marketing or social media will provide better results for your organization. In this short video, John Haydon explains how both are important elements, serving completely different purposes and garnering different results.

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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.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

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]]> https://www.socialbrite.org/2012/10/25/how-to-create-high-quality-web-video-interviews/ https://www.socialbrite.org/2012/10/25/how-to-create-high-quality-web-video-interviews/#comments Thu, 25 Oct 2012 12:31:38 +0000 http://www.socialbrite.org/?p=22028 Skype can be a great tool for creating high-quality web videos without exceeding your nonprofit's budget. Find out how a few minor investments and five simple tips can help you produce a video to help tell your organization's story.

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Creative Commons image on Flickr by Reflection Films

5 steps to get you soaring on Skype or Google Hangout

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, journalists, video producers.

Guest post by Derek Singleton
Software Advice

These days, recording a professional-looking Web video interview is becoming easier and cheaper. However, it’s still easy to get things like lighting, studio set-up and the background wrong.

It’s now easier than ever to conduct video interviews or conversations over Skype or Google Hangout. If you want to interview a thought leader in your sector, or if you want to have your executive director or CEO sit down for an Internet interview, take the right steps to make it look good.

You have a lot of software options. For Skype, the Evaer Skype video recorder and Pamela for Skype both work on PCs and ecamm‘s Call Recorder for Skype is a good option for Macs. VIDBlaster is another solid choice. With Google Hangout, every Hangout On Air is automatically saved to your YouTube account.

At Software Advice we shoot a lot of Web video, and we wanted to share tips we’ve learned from trial and error along the way.

Here are five key areas to focus on to help you create great Web videos.

Getting the studio ready

1For Skype video calling, you’ll be sitting at a computer while engaging a colleague or colleagues. Think about your shooting area as a studio and consider its various components: the camera, microphone, background, and lighting, and how you will account for each. While you’re setting up your studio, it’s important to limit the framing of the video to yourself and a solid background as you don’t want other items in the room entering your shot.

Pick a quality webcam

2While it may be tempting to stick with your computer’s built-in webcam, chances are that your webcam will shoot low-quality video. Since many people out on the Web are starting to expect high-definition video, it’s a good idea to go out and get a webcam that can shoot and record in HD.

If you don’t have a built-in webcam that can shoot in HD, we recommend checking out the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 for Windows and Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910 for Mac. One advantage of these webcams is that they also record decent audio.

Get the right sound

3You have several options available for getting a decent sound for your Web videos. The first is to use a good HD webcam (like the Logitech models recommended above) that can record audio. If you want to go with this approach, select one that has dual microphones because it will capture the audio better.

Your second option is to pick a USB microphone (see right) that can connect to your computer to improve the sound. We like Blue Microphone’s Snowball ($68) because it offers great sound for price, or you can upgrade to their Yeti ($106) for even higher quality sound. If that’s not your style, you can always go the route of a headset or lapel mic. One thing to note, however, is that these will likely be visible in your video.

Lighting

4Lighting is a big area of focus when trying to get your video to appear professional. If you don’t have the right lighting, colors will dull and there will be shadows in your face. Neither is desirable.

At Software Advice, we rely on two small desk lamps that cost $23 each and use copy paper diffusers to light our foreground. We also use a three-piece lighting kit to light our backdrop (see figure in step 5). One side note about lighting: Dim your computer screen as much as possible to avoid getting lighting from your monitor into the shot. Below you can see examples of good lighting versus poor lighting.

Studio set-up

5Use Skype to preview your shot (#1) and adjust your lighting as needed. You’re looking to evenly light your face. The main light (#2) is your primary light source, while the fill light (#3) comes from the other direction, generally less intense, to bring down the shadows created by the main light.

Two desk lamps ($23 each) with copy paper taped in front of them to act as diffusers (as shown below) are highly effective at providing additional soft light for your webcam — just keep an eye on heat. You may need up to three back lights (#4) to light your backdrop (#5). Other backgrounds can be used but avoid too much activity as it can negatively impact video quality.

There you have five areas that we focus on to create great, professional-looking Web videos without breaking the bank.

Do you have any tips you’d like to provide? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

This originally appeared at Lauren’s blog, Major Multimedia.

Related

• Storytelling Tips From the Experts at Pixar (Socialbrite)

• Video & multimedia tutorials (Socialbrite)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

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