turning your social networks into donations
TRANSCRIPT
Fundraising in Social Networks? (A.K.A. Integrated Nonprofit Marketing in the Wired Age)
Justin Perkins & Heather Holdridge
•We work for Care2.com.•Care2 is a social network full of 9 million do-gooders.•We help nonprofits & political groups do List-growth, Advocacy, Branding, and YouTube Campaigns on Care2.•Care2 recruits millions of people for nonprofits annually •[email protected] & [email protected]
Be Prepared
Are you ready to quickly reach
several hundred thousand people
who trust your organization?
Be Prepared for Katrina-like Moments
•Care2 had largest animal activist list
•Recruited 5000 new donors
•Raised $205,000 for American Humane in one week
Save Darfur: 10 Days to $415,000
•In June of 2007, M&R helped Save Darfur raise $415,000 via email in 10 Days
•Over 6 months on Facebook Causes, Save Darfur raised $15,000 from nearly 1 million“friends” = $.02/friend
What Makes Social Networking Campaigns Work?
LOTS OF FRIENDS+
MEDIA EXPOSURE+
LOTS OF TIME+
LUCK+
NEWSWORTHY CAMPAIGN!
What!? “Flip the Funnel” is a pipe dream?
Yes, the dream has a few kinks in it:1. There are very few successful super-organizers in the world 2. The good super-organizers are spread too thinly across 1
million organizations to have significant financial impact for any one org
3. Returns to orgs from Peer-to-Peer fundraising is insignificant for MOST orgs and not a scalable strategy
4. MOST donors are happy giving $50, feeling good, and getting on with life
Who Should Try Social Networking Campaigns?
•Groups that have already
maximized their email marketing
strategies
•Groups with lots of volunteers
•Groups with huge email networks
and budgets to experiment
•Groups with dedicated staff for
care and feeding
Social Network Profile = Mini Website
Social Network Profile:•Layout, design, optimization
•Grow Friends list
•Post content
•Get people to do stuff
•Brand control
•It talks back at you
•Competing w/ other profiles
for attention
Website:•Layout, design, optimization
•Grow email list
•Post content
•Get people to do stuff
•Brand control
•It talks back at you
•Competing w/ other sites
for attention
Social Network Profile vs. Website (Pros)
Social Network Pros:•The tech platform is free
•Located in connected
audience
•In context of connected
friends
•Info can spread easier
•Posting content can be
easier
Website Pros:•Tracking of performance
•Customization
•Control of brand
•Optimize for goals
•Higher conversion rates
•More people using “Search”
than Social Networks
•Proven ROI
Social Network Profile vs. Website (Cons)
Social Network Cons:•Can’t track important stats
•Harder to customize & optimize
•ROI unproven & costs deceiving
•Lots of competition & noise
•Managing multiple systems
•Time-consuming
•Less control
Website Cons:•Can be costly to do well
•Most people aren’t surfing for
nonprofit websites
•Pace of technology hard to keep up
•Requires more highly-trained staff
•Coordination with email
•Driving traffic to website a challenge
Presentation Overview
1. Online trends
2. Nonprofits online
3. Integrated nonprofit
marketing
4. Social Network Strategy
1. Online Trends
From the Wayback Machine
Care2.com circa 1998
14
Recent Online Tech Revolutions
• CMS
• CRM
• SEO
• Mobile
• Web 2.0 technologies
Web 2.0 & Human Needs
•The need to connect with others
•The need to create, be creative
•The need to have voice and influence
Culture is Shifting
• Constantly wired
• Blogs competing with traditional news
• Less privacy
• Accelerated cultural change
• Information overload
Online User Behavior Shifting
• Instant gratification• Short attention span• Customization• Informal, quick,
personal• “Google” is a verb• User-generated
content• Online shopping
Informal and Personal Web
• Rise of bloggers• Personal voice• Transparency and trust• 3-way communication• A Facebook “Poke”
might go further than a press release
News, Noise & Opportunities
• The “War on Terror”• Global Warming hit
USA Today• “Green” is in• MoveOn.org & Dean
Campaign• Pending political Sea
Change
Top US Websites, Dec 2007
1. Google2. Yahoo!3. MySpace4. YouTube5. Facebook6. Windows Live7. EBay8. Wikipedia9. MSN10.Craigslist11.AmazonSource: Alexa.com
Web is mainly used for
Communications, Search, Web 2.0,
Shopping
2. Nonprofit Impact Online
Nonprofit Mindshare
(Hint: Most people are
NOT visiting nonprofit
websites !!)
Greenpeace.orgAmnesty.org
AARP.orgCancer.org
World Socialist
Alternet
Drudge ReportSalon.com
Field of Dreams
Even popular nonprofits only get about .0005% to .004% of all web
traffic!!
Nonprofit Marketers’ Toolbox
Choose the Right Tool
Sales Cycle
Cutting Through the Noise
• Huge email lists• Smart Guerilla
marketing• Constituent-centered
communication• Efficient use of web
presence• Coordinated efforts
across org silos
3. Vision for Integrated Nonprofit Marketing
Nonprofit Websites Circa 1998
Optimizing Marketing Strategy
Sales Cycle
Mission
Email = Best Lever for Impact
•Efficient•Timely•Drive traffic precisely•Traceable•Controllable•Proven ROI for $ and Advocacy•Personal medium•One to one•One to many•Viral•Grandma uses it
The value of an email address to a nonprofit is $9.50!
Nonprofit Benchmarks 2006
Email list is crucial, and still gives
nonprofits the most control of advocacy
and fundraising results.
List Growth: Speed vs. Value vs. Real Cost
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Low Quality
High Quality
Slow Growth
(<1k/month)
Rapid Growth
(>8k/month)
Banner Advertising$$$
Acquisition from Care2$$
Targeted List Swaps$
Social Networks
$
Democrats.com$$
Google Adwords$$
Collecting Opt-ins on your site
$$
Alternet$$
Canvassing $$$Name Acquisition Large, General
Audience$$
List Append$
Viral Campaigns$$ $
You get what you pay for! Time is money!
Cost of “Organic” Audience Growth
Conventional Nuts$3.00/lb
Organic Nuts$12.00/lb
Calculating Cost Of “Organic” List-growth
Staff Salary + Benefits (+30%)
Annual Email Subscribers
$40,000 + $12,000
10,000 email addresses
Total cost per email = $5.20
Instant loss!! = $2.20-$3.20
Trade-off of Grow vs. Buy
If the cost of growing your email list through in-house marketing is higher than $2-3 per email address, your organization is instantly losing money and lots of time.
Heather & Justin aren’t Stone Age Naysayers
Broadcast Era Paradigm
Network-centric Paradigm
Benefits of Community-building
• Identify Super-activists
• Crowd-source
• Deepen affinity with organization
Old Nonprofit Paradigm
• If you build it, they will come
• Crank out reports and press releases
• Slap press releases on websites
• Wonky, organization and issue-centric
• Static
wah wah, wah
Optimized Nonprofit Marketing
• Audience-centric• Story-telling• Search-engine
optimized• Timed with the news• Creative, fun,
personal, bloggie-style writing
• Funky lamb-chops
4. Social Network Strategy
Sales Cycle
Be conscious and realistic about the goals and possible outcomes for each tool that you use. What phase of the sales cycle are you serving?
Is it realistic to expect thousands of fundraising dollars from Facebook Friends?
(Hint: not really)
Main Ways that NPO’s Use Social Networks
Goal Examples Success?
Awareness & Outreach
New programs, building buzz
Yes
Advocacy Passing legislation
Some
Fundraising Donations Minimal
Long, long tail of Facebook Causes
•1000’s try, > 90% fail•Likely to get between $0-$30•ROI on time invested is negative•Average donation/supporter is $1.24•No way to communicate with donors en-masse•Frogloop.com/facebook-causes-analysis
Who Should Try Social Networking Campaigns?
•Groups that have already
maximized their email marketing
strategies
•Groups with lots of volunteers
•Groups with huge email networks
and budgets to experiment
•Groups with dedicated staff for
care and feeding
MySpace: a Place for Donors?
http://www.frogloop.com/myspace-analysis
Social Networks Fundraising & Advocacy ROI Calculator
http://www.frogloop.com/social-network-calculator
If you’re expecting to use social networks to raise money with minimal work, you can expect to see a -90% ROI against time spent by staff.
This is a conservative estimate using widely published benchmarks for online marketing, and an hourly wage of $10/hr.
Microsoft Instant Messenger & HSUS
Save Darfur: 10 Days to $415,000
•In June of 2007, M&R helped Save Darfur raise $415,000 via email in 10 Days
•Over 6 months on Facebook Causes, Save Darfur raised $15,000 from nearly 1 million “friends” = $.02/friend
Intermission
Distributed Work
10,000 people doing 10 minutes of work• =1,667 hours of work• = 42 weeks for one staffer• = 4 weeks for 10 staffers• = $30*1667 hours = $50,000• Value of volunteer hour = $18(Value of volunteer time study:
http://www.independentsector.org/programs/research/volunteer_time.html)
Action MySpace Google AdWords
Petition Signatures 406,678 446,072Care2 list sign-ups 2,258 13,456Citizen Petitions created:
58 422
August 15th, 2006 -January 30th, 2007
Myspace Friends = 2,328Petition sigs/Friend = 175
MySpace for Actions
Humane Society of the United States- Seal Campaign on MySpace
Results
Oxfam America in MySpace: meeting people where they are
That’s Nice, but . . .
55 Million!?!
February Tally for Fundraising:• 727,000 Donors• 82% raised online• >90% under $100• >50% $25 or less
“Web 1.5?” A Recent Example . . .
• June 20th: John Edwards
Campaign at $6.4MM Raised for
2nd Quarter
• ~30% short of announced goal
•June 25th Email Appeal: The
“Thermometer”
Enter Ann Coulter . . .
A Shift in Strategy . . .
• June 26th Email: Appeal tailored to Coulter language, new Landing Page Developed• Elizabeth Edwards calls in to Hardball to engage Coulter live
Spreading the Word . . .
Results . . .• Edwards hit $9MM goal for
quarter. 60,000 new donors.• Over 13k donors gave to
campaign online on site other than campaign site.
What they did well: 1. Saw an opportunity and took it.2. Used existing, identified
Edwards list of supporters3. Reached out to blogs, other
sites where message might resonate
We’re almost done…
The Ron Paul Story: The Insurgent Surges
The Setup
• Congressman Ron Paul running for President as Republican.
• National support has never exceeded 4%• Had raised a total of $8.2MM through 3rd
Quarter, 2007 BUT . .. • HALF of Paul’s donors gave under $200
Hallmarks of an Insurgent Campaign
1. Distributed Network
2. Autonomy--Giving up Control
3. Vibrant Feedback Loop--Transparency
Distributed Network
Supporters: Facebook
83,597YouTube49,866
MySpace130,592
Allowing the Network to Define itself
1. Allows supporters to connect, “tawlk amongst themselves”
2. Posts info/videos.3. Linking them up to
opportunities to get involved.
Ron Paul on the Facebook
Giving Up Control: What a Difference a Day Makes
The Backstory: Ron Paul had raised $8.2 million through the end of September 2007.Paul Supporter organized a day of fundraising on November 5th, presumed to invoke British 17th Century Revolutionary Guy Fawkes. Aimed for $10MM.
“Remember, Remember the 5th of November.”
Results: • Paul raised $4.3 million. • Campaign ran similar day of fundraising on Dec. 16th (anniversary of Boston Tea Party, raised $6MM.• Quarterly total was $19 million, far outraising any other Republican.
Facebook Primary
3 Key Takeaways!
•Be prepared for the big moment
•Be everywhere you can be, but prioritize -- right tools for the right purpose
•Meet people where they are
Think Like a Rockband
Links for more research
frogloop.com/social-network-calculator
frogloop.com/social-networking-tips
Contact
Heather HoldridgeDirector Political Advocacy & Nonprofit [email protected]
Justin PerkinsDirector of Nonprofit [email protected]
Blog & nonprofit communications tips -- lots of Social Networking Case Studies:www.Frogloop.com & search the tagged archives