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This article originally appeared in Bloomerang. See the original article here.
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Text-to-Donate campaigns are easier than ever with upgraded features.
Are you looking for a way to make donating even easier for your supporters? Text-to-Donate is a powerful Kindful Fundraising Tool that gives you new ways to reach donors, and our latest updates make it easier than ever to set up and manage.
Easy to set up and manage. Some features to make campaign setup and management easier include the flexibility to choose your own phone number directly within the app, so you’ll never need to rely on support. Search and copy form URLs without ever having to leave the setup page, and with unlimited keywords, you can link to any form URL such as registration, events, campaigns, donation plugin, and more.
Donors can give in just a few seconds. Giving supporters a frictionless way to respond to your campaign helps ensure they’ll complete their donation. They simply text a keyword to a designated number and instantly they’ll receive a link to your selected donation page. Best of all, donations are recorded in your Kindful or Bloomerang account, so you can easily track transactions.
Reach new donors who aren’t in your database. Text-to-Donate makes it easy for individuals to make a donation using any connected mobile device. This allows nonprofits to tap into a wider audience, as individuals who aren’t currently in your database can still make a donation. And, by promoting the text-to-donate option through channels such as social media, email, or in-person events, nonprofits can reach even more potential donors who may not have otherwise been aware of their organization.
Ready to get started? Visit the Kindful or Bloomerang websites today to learn more about Text-to-Donate and how easy it is to set up for your organization.
Ready to try it? Check out our Help Article here.
The post Text-to-Donate campaigns are easier than ever with upgraded features. appeared first on Bloomerang.
This article originally appeared in Bloomerang. See the original article here.
The Southwest Airlines Flight Fiasco: Lessons For Your Nonprofit
It started December 21st with a bitter winter storm: Winds, snow, and record cold temperatures swept across the United States and Canada. Thanks to a combination of the storm’s effects and outdated technology, Southwest Airlines (SWA) started canceling the first of what would become almost 17,000 flights over the next week or so.
While you may never find yourself in a crisis of this magnitude at your nonprofit, you can learn from Southwest’s mistakes and use those lessons to prepare for a potential disaster. Keep reading to learn more.
What happened?
Here are a few things that most likely contributed to the fiasco:
- A winter storm and just plain lousy luck (can’t control that timing!)
- Outdated software and insufficient and outdated processes
- Lack of an effective rapid response plan and/or contingency plan
- A communications disaster that left customers and staff without information or help for hours and even days at a time
What can you do to avoid a situation like this or mitigate the possible negative outcomes if you can’t? Let’s look at the following lessons.
Lesson One: You need the right software and processes in place.
Infrastructure includes more than just the tools you use. It also includes the processes you have in place that define who uses those tools to do what and when.
You need the right software and processes in place—not just when it matters, but before it matters. You’ll need to make decisions as soon as possible—as many as possible before the crisis—so you don’t waste valuable time figuring out what happens next.
First, look at the technology you use and the processes you have in place. Identify your technical gaps and software needs.
For example, is all of your data stored in one place? Can you easily pull reports of donors who may be affected by an event or unforeseen error? Do you have a way to communicate with donors quickly?
Once you identify the gaps you have and research the tools you can use to fill those gaps, update your budget and get approval to move forward with these purchases.
Lesson Two: You need to anticipate the challenges that could affect your organization and plan accordingly.
Look at the factors that contributed to Southwest’s predicament. Now think about your nonprofit and what you could face in the future.
When you anticipate challenges, think about cause-specific and generic ones. Here are a few examples of challenges your organization may face:
- A winter storm or other climate disaster impacts your local community.
- Another kind of disaster, like an electrical blackout, affects your ability to carry out your mission or process donations.
- A terrorist attack, either domestic or elsewhere, occurs and you don’t feel like it’s an appropriate time to ask for donations, which impacts your revenue goals.
- A policy goes into effect that changes how you work or raise funds.
Each of these will require a different set of precautions and processes, and you’ll want to have those defined long before you need to react to one or more of them.
Lesson Three: You need a contingency plan.
So, you’ve got your tools in place. You’ve anticipated the challenges that may affect your organization. What now? It’s time to write out and practice implementing a plan to make sure you’re prepared for those challenges.
When thinking about your plan, think about who has to work together and what they have to accomplish. For example, your legal, leadership, and communications staff must be able to do their work independently while also working to find a way to get to a point where they can work collaboratively again.
Ask yourself:
- Do you have a rapid response or crisis communications plan?
- Does it include CEO and legal representatives? Do they know what to do and how to respond immediately?
- Do all team members know what is expected of them? Can they do those things immediately? If not, do they know who to go to for support?
- Has this plan been communicated to all relevant parties?
- How will your crisis team get in touch with each other to draft statements and reply to inquiries? Do you have sample statements and replies ready to go?
- How will you get in touch with your donors and supporters? Think about immediate communications and ones you’d send over the next few days and weeks depending on the scope of the challenge.
- How will your donors and supporters get in touch with you? Do you have a form or information on your website that shares this information? Who will respond to their inquiries?
No matter the size of your nonprofit or the challenge at hand, you can put together an effective contingency plan when you plan ahead.
Conclusion
You can’t know for sure what challenges your nonprofit will face in the future, but you can plan for the challenges you might face.
Invest in updated software and tools that will allow you to work effectively, plan ahead, and know your contingencies. Just taking a moment to ask yourself these questions puts you ahead of the game!
If you’re ready to arm your organization with a fully developed crisis communication plan, but you’re not sure where to start, look no further! You can download a free nonprofit crisis communications plan template.
The post The Southwest Airlines Flight Fiasco: Lessons For Your Nonprofit appeared first on Bloomerang.
This article originally appeared in Bloomerang. See the original article here.
Rebuilding a Cultural Economy: A Story from the Nipmuc Nation
The cultural sector is actively seeking alternatives to business-as-usual. This article is the third in the series, “Remember the Future: Culture and Systems Change,” co-produced by Art.coop and NPQ. In this series, queer, trans, and BIPOC artists and cultural bearers reflect upon the unique role that culture has played and can play in activating and enacting structural change—and in building a solidarity economy.
This article offers a conversation between two friends, neighbors, and peers, Andre Strongbearheart Gaines, Jr. (Nipmuc) and Carlos Uriona, who collaborate with Double Edge Theater, a cultural cooperative and ensemble collective based in Western Massachusetts in the small town (population 1,695) of Ashfield, that “assumes responsibility for art making, visioning, and survival needs of the theatre,” and Ohketeau Cultural Center, an autonomous place for Indigenous culture that centers Nipmuc teachings.
Originally founded by a small ensemble of women, Double Edge Theater is now a permanent, cooperatively run company that engages in theater production and design, food systems, farming, administration, carpentry, music, dramaturgy, performing arts, and other interdisciplinary cultural endeavors.
The theater recognized, seven years ago, that they were on the unceded land of multiple tribal nations, and it made a commitment, through their relationships with the tribes, to giving land back. This led to the recent opening of the Ohketeau Indigenous Cultural Center, which is adjacent to the theater. The collaboration between the Ohketeau Council and Double Edge Theatre represents a practice of acknowledgement, repair, and reparations.
This conversation, edited for clarity and length, shows that the path to land back and decolonization is not a metaphor—it is rooted in everyday acts of power redistribution, knowledge reclamation, and solidarity with Indigenous peoples.
Carlos Uriona (CU): When did you realize that you didn’t want to live in this system where we live or how we live? How would you describe it, and then, what would you do now?
Andre Strongbearheart (AS): I don’t think that there is an actual time when that happened inside of me. But it took me a long time. I spent 17 years in the construction field, in the dog-eat-dog world, climbing up these particular ladders that are meaningless and create gentrification. There’s a lot that was going on inside of me. You know, what society tells me, “Oh, you’re moving up the ladder, you’re in a good class, you’re making x amount of dollars!” It’s the story of the frog, you know…
CU: Stay in the pot until the heat kills you.
There are a lot of things that happened, and for me, it was the ceremonies that woke me up.
AS: Yeah. Some years ago, I grew up around power. I grew up around my people, but I didn’t want to take part in it. I lived a crazy life when I was young. Then, when I got sober and in recovery, things started to get clear inside of me. And I think that’s part of it. What happened is that’s part of the system of drugs and alcoholism, like, it puts this cloud in our people’s minds.
I was trying to work full time, do side work on the side, and do all my traditional work somehow in between. I was probably just as busy as I am now, but somehow, also living society’s lifestyle, too. There are a lot of things that happened, and for me, it was the ceremonies that woke me up, being able to just break away and go to these ceremonies. These ceremonies started to unveil these things within me that were already lying dormant.
CU: What ceremonies are you talking about?
AS: Yeah, some of the ceremonies, I mean, are ceremonies that were illegal until 1978: Ceremony of the Sundance, Ceremony of the Sweat Lodge, Water Ceremonies, Harpoon Ceremonies, these Pipe Ceremonies….All these ceremonies will start waking you up more and more. And I got to a point where things became really clear, and I didn’t know why I was walking and doing the things that I was doing. So, I started to gravitate more towards the things that fed my spirit, rather than the flesh and the monetary things that were created around me.
CU: How did COVID-19 affect you and your community?
AS: A lot of people were upset about COVID-19 and what happened here, but our people never had this fear of crossing over. We know that this journey is so short in our flesh, and that fear was a tactic for colonialists. Fear was a way for them to create a particular lifestyle for us. And so, we never feared taking that journey of crossing over. It was sad when our folks weren’t flesh anymore. But we had a whole understanding, a complete understanding about what happened to our people after we’re here in flesh.
And so, yeah, COVID-19 itself was really the icebreaker for me. When COVID came, I was in the midst of a divorce anyway. I had built up a four-bedroom house and Jacuzzi house and boats, and this, that, the other things, all the things that society says that make you the norm or the healthy person here. And then, I got to a point where none of that mattered.
Like I said, those ceremonies wake you up, and you realize all you have is your flesh and your hair in this world. That’s all you have. You actually possess nothing but that. Everybody thinks you possess these other things. These are just temporary things that come and go just like our bodies.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was what, what was true. I walked away from the job, walked away from the house, walked away from all these things that were trying to make me comfortable, and confronted all my truths.
So, when COVID came, and my job site shut down, I said, “All right, enough is enough. I haven’t been back to the [construction] union since then. This year will be three snows.” Basically, I went to our reservation and found an old ratty camper and gutted it out, put a woodstove in it, started splitting wood and hauling water. And it was back to basics for me, in the midst of the pain and confusion. The only thing that was healthy was the time of solace and hibernation.
It was right around November when I did that. And I was able to step into the winter. And for our people, that’s a time of storytelling. That’s a time of hibernation. And so, I was grateful that that happened at that time because I was able to step into that from there, and then wake up in the spring with a whole new outlook.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was what, what was true. I walked away from the job, walked away from the house, walked away from all these things that were trying to make me comfortable, and confronted all my truths.
From there, I’ve never really looked back. I look back in the sense of acknowledgment, but I never looked back in the sense of, I need this job, or I need this benefit, or I need this health insurance. No, I don’t need that. What I need is…traditional food to eat. I need to be able to hunt. I need to be able to be in the forest and acknowledge all these medicinal plants. These are the things we actually need here. And every year and every day, it gets clearer and clearer.
CU: So, what did you start doing then? When you stopped working, you go to the camper in the reservation. You create a new place. Because you started to create things.
AS: So, what happened was, the Creator is funny in the way things all worked out and the time that the Creator allows you to free yourself from the bondage. My cousin had developed a relationship with Double Edge Theater. And they had been talking about remodeling some space. He asked me if I wanted to do some construction for the tribe or for the people in general, Indigenous folks. And that gave me a new mindset, like, “Oh, maybe I can use my skills just for my people, that will be okay.”
And so yes, we began to build a cultural center, a little social spot, and named it Ohketeau, which means to plant a seed to grow. And what happened was, my brain started to grow; that seed that got planted, I was able to have the freedom of building. Things have just started to work in place. When you walk in a good way, things just work out. And it’s hard. It’s not easy. It is because I walked away with all the same bills that society says that you’re supposed to pay.
CU: And you pay them?
AS: Yeah, and I have for three snows now. And it’s hard to explain the way it worked.
CU: Let’s name a couple of things that happened (more than a couple). So, you have been using your skills to create the building for Ohketeau, which is now a center. And many people use that. It’s a resource for the community. So, you have then started using your skills and you have the knowledge, ancestral knowledge, hunting, tanning. You developed a lot of things that you have been doing, from burning the mishoon to leading workshops.
AS: Yeah, I can speak a little bit on that. So, with this newly developed relationship and space, I was asked about what it needed to grow. And there were answers to that. It was like, “Oh, I need to shop to make my wampum jewelry and other things that I work on. I need to be able to tan hides and teach this traditional knowledge that I have.”
CU: And you’re teaching that.
AS: Yeah. And I’m teaching that. And so, workshops have been put in place. And I’ve started to organize myself with the help of others at Ohketeau and Double Edge. It’s hard to explain. Some workshops generate revenue. I hate to even talk about this because money in general is ridiculous. But we live in two worlds here. And so, there are workshops I do. I’m a paddle maker, a jewelry maker. I sell the skins that I make as well. Peto cans, drums, from water drums to hand drums. Various types of traditional tools and weaponry. Things like that, that a lot of our people that dance traditionally need to buy.
I also teach how to butcher and hunt. And recently, I’ve started doing cultural inventories in our traditional homeland.
CU: That’s amazing.
AS: That was a huge one. Coming into some of the agreements with these land trusts. But it’s doing the walk for us, in showing up when people aren’t going to take care of you right away. A lot of people are like, “Oh, I want this to show up.” It’s like, no, you need to go walk the land and create relationships and see where it goes. And people have a problem with that, but I do not. I will show up anywhere.
CU: You are in a lot of relationships.
AS: Yeah, a whole lot—from the Hilltown Land Trust to Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust. And these particular places really understand what it means to work with Indigenous folks. It’s been really an interesting journey.
CU: You’re operating like a connector also, with different communities, not just your initial community.
Why is it that our kids have to go to these public schools that teach them about Christopher Columbus and Christmas, rather than [the] ways that we moved just a few hundred years before the history books that they started printing?
AS: Oh, absolutely. I move through Shinnecock [in upstate New York]. I spent time in Narragansett [in Rhode Island]. I mean, we’re interrelated as well, in a lot of ways if you go back in time. I’ll be in Akwesasne next weekend, raising money for their emerging school, the Freedom School, on their reservation and sitting with them, talking to them, talking about how we can implement some things back into our communities.
CU: And you were telling me last night about dreams, like creating this school to learn the language and to learn about the culture.
AS: A lot of our folks have thought about these things, but nobody has executed it. But why is it that our kids have to go to these public schools that teach them about Christopher Columbus and Christmas, rather than [the] ways that we moved just a few hundred years before the history books that they started printing? These things are important to us, and they should not be looked at as barbaric or pagan or whatever society calls them.
When they came here, they said, “Oh, they have rituals,” and they just created a whole lot of discourse about how our people were diabolic. They had a way of making us look like we were some sort of animals. Soon, I’ll be bringing a bunch of Nipmuc youth over to the museum, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, so they learn about our peoples.
And so, it’s about rekindling the fire inside of our people because, unfortunately, a lot of our folks are in cities. So, a lot of our folks also haven’t seen wetus. They’ve never been in a mishoon. They’ve never eaten a fiddlehead. They’ve never actually seen maple syrup, sap turned into syrup. Or tasted it fresh. In the cities, you ask them to go get syrup, they’re going to bring it back from Aunt Jemima fructose syrup, that’s not even real. But they don’t know. It’s not their fault. It’s what society and assimilation did.
This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Quarterly. See the original article here.
[ASK AN EXPERT] Where Do You Find New Donors And What Do You Say To Them?
Our Ask An Expert series features real questions answered by Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, our very own Fundraising Coach, also known as Charity Clairity.
Today’s question comes from a nonprofit employee who wants advice on where to find new donors and how to approach them:
Dear Charity Clairity,
Where do you look for donors, and what’s the best way to approach them?
— Where to Begin
Dear Where to Begin,
You’ve nailed the two challenges of donor acquisition on the head:
- Who do you target?
- What do you say to these folks?
This is a difficult question to answer in a brief response, but I’ll endeavor to cut to the chase with (1) five donor acquisition strategies, (2) your case for support, and (3) how to impress.
5 Donor Acquisition Strategies
I list them in order of “warm to cold” effectiveness.
1. Ask for personal referrals
Consider a “Let Your Friends Be Our Friends” campaign. Ask current supporters to refer new names of folks they believe may have an interest in your work. Begin by asking those closest to you (e.g., board, staff, volunteers and donors) for names from their networks. Don’t forget to ask folks if they’d be willing to add a personal note to the appeals sent to their contacts. Personalization makes a huge difference in rates of response!
2. Leverage in-house lists
Take a look at non-donors who are affiliated with you in other ways (e.g., clients, volunteers, members, vendors, family members of affiliates and even social media followers). Consider how you might reach out by sending them one or more of your current fundraising appeals.
3. Engage in online list-building
One productive strategy is to offer a benefit in exchange for signing up for your email list. It could be a white paper, “how-to” video, tip list or recommendations (e.g., favorite books related to your cause; recipes; things to do on the weekend, etc.). You can also acquire new names by implementing a social media strategy (e.g., by running an online quiz that requires players to give you their contact info in exchange for the opportunity to play, to share the results, or be eligible for other benefits).
4. Exchange mailing lists
Could you trade names with other charities sharing similar constituent bases? Or would another organization be willing to send an appeal on your behalf? Sometimes business supporters are willing to send a “chaperoned” email to their employees, for example.
5. Rent direct mail lists
Consider working with a direct mail broker to purchase lists of folks who give to similar causes. Understand this is an expensive strategy that likely won’t pay off until you’ve retained the donors you acquire for approximately 18 months, so be sure you’ve got a donor acknowledgement and stewardship strategy in place to maximize the value of your investment.
A Strong, Relevant Case for Support
Getting first-time donations is tricky, because you need to create a new market. It’s not impossible, as long as you’re demonstrating a real need and filling it.
Retail Example:
No one knew they needed fidget spinners — until they did. A new market was created, and suddenly everyone wanted to become a part of it.
Nonprofit Example:
Many people didn’t know they needed lawyers to protect the foundation of democracy which they’d previously taken for granted — until the 2016 election and its aftermath came along and threw everyone for a loop. A new market was created for “rage donations,” and suddenly the ACLU was generating $24 million over a single weekend (when their previous annual total for online giving was just $4 million).
What problems do you solve that people may not know are in need of solutions?
Absent a significant external event, getting someone to make a first-time decision to give requires a strong, relevant case for support. I suggest you begin by taking a look at your opportunity. It’s always knocking; you just need to open the door! What do you do that aligns with what is in the news today? What will people likely consider relevant?
Show a need people agree is an important issue.
Then show why your organization is the best to solve the problem. Then show this again. And again. This requires perseverance, because folks must be brought along a continuum (sometimes called a “marketing funnel“) to get them to the point where they feel comfortable making a philanthropic gift. Often it takes seven impressions or more for folks who’ve never heard of you before to take notice.
Best Ways to Make an Impression
Channel your “case” and establish your relevance with strategic, consistent messaging showcasing your expertise and demonstrating how you help.
1. Offer gifts of useful content.
If you want gifts, you must give them. This can include research results, checklists, how-to videos, recommended resources and useful tips. Grab examples here.
2. Promote community through testimonials
An essential human quality is the desire to belong. If you can show you have a large community behind you, others will want to join in too. This is one of Robert Cialdini’s principles of influence: social proof. Plus, when everybody is talking about something, others don’t want to miss out. A psychological principle known as FOMO (fear of missing out) is triggered.
Using testimonials short cuts the decision-making process for prospective new supporters, and is a great way to establish your bona fides and trustworthiness. It’s useful to play into natural human instincts when you’re trying to develop a new market.
3. Harness the power of social media
One way to demonstrate your support is through shares, likes, follows and comments. Don’t forget to join in discussions on LinkedIn groups and Facebook Live. It’s a great way to demonstrate thought leadership and get your message across.
Begin with the people already close to you and ask for referrals. Then branch out to others who may be tangentially related. Demonstrate you have something to offer, and you’re meeting a need that requires addressing.
Show how you address that need differently, and more effectively, than anyone else.
I hope this helps you get started!
— Charity Clairity
Have a question for our Fundraising Coach?
Please submit your question here. Remember, there are no stupid questions! If you need an answer, it’s likely someone else does too. So help your colleagues by asking away. Please use a pseudonym, like “Where to Begin” did, if you prefer to be anonymous.
The post [ASK AN EXPERT] Where Do You Find New Donors And What Do You Say To Them? appeared first on Bloomerang.
This article originally appeared in Bloomerang. See the original article here.
