Care2's Digital Engagement Blog

While more than 55% of nonprofits are frustrated by lack of resources and leadership support for marketing, only 37% do the tracking that generates increased budgets and confidence.  Nancy Schwartz, our friend from the Getting Attention blog, informed us about this just-released study that questioned 350 nonprofits about their marketing initiatives.

Understanding what attracts donors is vital to effectively appealing to an existing donor base or to expand the base. Some prominent celebrities in the nonprofit world are Bono (One Campaign), Mary Tyler Moore (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), Bon Jovi (Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation), and Michael J. Fox (Foundation for Parkinson’s Research). The prominence of celebrity spokespeople would lead one to think that celebrities are extremely influential in attracting donors. But, how can we be so sure about this?

Knowing your donor means knowing what they want from your organization and letting them get to know you.  A variety of strategies are being used to accomplish these goals. Allowing for donors to have online personal profiles kills two birds with one stone (suggested by Sheeraz Haji in his article, They're Doing What?).

It looks like text messaging is here to stay.  Sure, costs are still high and while it's difficult to measure ROI, it seems that only major players like Amnesty International, IFAW and Oxfam can pull it off (bigger campaigns achieve better economies of scale).  But with billions of phones in use internationally and increased adoption of mobile messaging by for-profit marketers, the pricing pressure may reduce costs substantially. While mobile messaging won't replace email, it will certainly become an important component of some campaigns. At its current rate of adoption, SMS in particular, is set to become the first major mobile technology to change the landscape of nonprofit communications.  Already used by organizations like Get Out the Vote, the New York State Democratic Committee, and the Republican National Committee, text messaging is becoming one of the easiest and fastest ways to reach people. For stats on text messaging usage see Jordan's article.