That Masses are Catching Up
I’m not sure how all the other blogs find stuff first, but oh well. Someday we’ll be primary blog sources.
Over at Read/Write Web they picked up on a new study that shows that people didn’t like personalization that didn’t add value.
A great quote from the study’s author:
“Nowadays, consumers are so much more savvy,” she said. “They’re so bombarded with tricks of this nature that they start to seem like tricks. So the onus in on marketers to convince consumers that this isn’t a trick, that it has some value.”
I personally couldn’t agree more. When you couple this with the post about realizing the value of database marketing, it makes me start to think some of the strategies I’ve been supporting for a long time aren’t the best.
They are time-tested and they sound good to nonprofit managers, but I’m fairly convinced that moving forward they aren’t going to be effective.
I think the future in nonprofit fundraising is incredible donor service.
That doesn’t just mean answering your 1-800 number on the first ring, although it does mean that. It means giving donors up to the minute information on how projects are going with touching stories and real metrics. It means connecting donors to people in the field via blogs and webcasts and chats. It means connecting donors to each other and encouraging philanthropy broadly.
It means spending less on eCRM platforms and spending more on staff time to develop content. It means trading database administrators for story tellers.
And I think it means finding ways to involve your constituency that don’t necessarily include donations. Maybe they can promote you on facebook. Maybe they have a blog. That sort of thing. A constituent evangelism can be as powerful as a constituent donations.
(Also, I wouldn’t worry about not being the primary source on this info. Read/Write web wasn’t either–it was the U of Illinois. Regardless, you essentially had the scoop from my perspective because I read it here first.)
Mark Goodyear
July 2, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Good point Mark (not Marcus anymore?).
I agree that as an organization you need to cultivate the organization evangelist, which sometimes are just plain old evangelists depending on the organization.
Increasing I think nonprofits will find they already have some folks who are talking about them, and they just need to join that conversation.
Jake
July 2, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I think you’re spot on and we can see the success of that change in approach with an example like Kiva or Global Giving. We are promoting similar ideas as part of the Citizen Base initiative at Ashoka– everyplace has their jargon, our word is “citizen” we call nonprofits “citizen sector organizations” and we refer to this process of engaging your constituency in meaningful and appropriate ways as “building your citizen base of support.”
We’re definitely looking at the same problem and promoting similar solutions.
You’re evangelical reference is funny, one of our fellows from Nigeria was in the office yesterday and told how he recruits youth evangelicals for his cause to go “preach” on buses, which is quite common in Nigeria-the evangelical preaching on buses but not for social issues. I think the trick is being able to package your work in a way that you can hand it over to your citizen base
and let everyone of them be your marketers. I think that was some of the success of Kiva for example in providing easy ways for their supporters to share their work with other people, prepared badges for blogs or email signatures, having a very simple “elevator pitch” and of course their core operations being online make that an easy fit but the same principle can be applied in communities.
Dave
July 3, 2008 at 6:18 pm