When a new staff member comes on board at your organization, it’s a good idea to set up a new login and password for your Nonprofit Account Area. Similarly, when somebody leaves, you can delete his or her login information.
This process is really easy and will help keep your staff informed and prepared about updating your Firstgiving account info.
Here’s a video that will show you how quick and easy it is to add and delete users:
Firstgiving’s Account Management Team has been on the road for the past few months, talking with you about how to raise more money online and listening to your feedback. One thing you’ve told us is how helpful it is to receive an automatic email when someone creates a new fundraising page for your nonprofit.
But have you ever asked yourself, “What should I do next?”
Not to fear. . .this week we bring you #9 in our countdown of top 10 ways to use your page creation auto emails.
It’s a fact: people get inspired by other people. Make the most of this and send around an email to all your fundraisers with a link to an example of a page you find particularly good. That doesn’t necessarily mean the page that has raised the most money–maybe it’s a page that has a compelling message, a funny picture, a YouTube video or something else that you feel will be inspiring for other fundraisers.
Some nonprofits have an employee create a fundraising page and send it out as an example. This also communicates to your fundraisers that you are in this fundraising effort together.
To get you inspired here are a few examples of terrific fundraising pages we’ve seen recently:
Keith is raising money for the Special Operation Warrior Foundation, running 100 miles from Key Largo to Key West Leslie is raising money for the Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota Laura is the ED of Mustard Seed Communities Maggi is an Account Manager here at Firstgiving
If you or your fundraisers have any questions, you can chat with our support team here. Or give us a call at (877) 365-2949 .
Remember, when your fundraisers get inspired to ask for donations for your organization, they’ll really surprise you. Happy fundraising!
We’re hosting another free fundraising webinar one week from right now, on Wednesday, June 17 at 3:30pm East coast time (12:30 West) all about fundraising with Facebook. Every time we talk about social media fundraising, there are always Facebook fundraising questions, so we decided to put together a whole session on using Facebook to build your communities and fundraise online. We hope you can join us.
As you can see, we’ll talk about the basics a bit and then get right to the meat of how to raise money and build community on Facebook. Since about 75% of our usual webinar audience already has at least a personal presence on Facebook, we’ll be sure to leave some time for your questions. You can register now here: http://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/694448243 All are welcome but space will be limited.
They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but these days on the web, it seems that a little knowledge is all you really need. One of the big challenges for any nonprofit organization, but especially for smaller ones, is managing a good website. It used to be that a website meant expensive consultants, but more and more nonprofit organizations seem to be making it on their own, with the help of some smart volunteers or interns and a raft of free software and services. Specifically, we’ve been seeing more and more nonprofit organizations building their website with blogging tools like WordPress. In fact, we might even be a little behind the times on this one, as the Non-Profit Tech Blog broke the WordPress for NPO story back in December.
Last month, we did a survey of the participants in our webinar, SEO for the NPO, and found that over half are making their website go with staff they already have who also do other jobs. Add to that the 14% running on intern or volunteer power and you get over two thirds doing it their way. Additionally, 19% are outsourcing their websites and a mere 13% have dedicated web staff in their organizations.
We’re curious, have you taken the WordPress plunge? Besides this very blog, Firstgiving is also using WordPress for our new help and support site. Take our poll below and see the results.
How does your organization manage its website?
We use a specialized Content Management System (CMS) (43.0%, 3 Votes)
We use web editing tools like dreamweaver (29.0%, 2 Votes)
Our web person does it all, we don't know how (14.0%, 1 Votes)
We use blogging tools like wordpress, blogger or typepad (14.0%, 1 Votes)
Our website doesn't change very often (14.0%, 1 Votes)
Firstgiving’s Account Management Team has been on the road for the past few months, talking with you about how to raise more money online and listening to your feedback. One thing you’ve told us is how helpful it is to receive an automatic email when someone creates a new fundraising page for your nonprofit.
But have you ever asked yourself, “What should I do next?”
We work with lots of nonprofits, and we’ve got some ideas from your peers about how to make the most of your online fundraising. Over the next few months, we’ll highlight 10 quick action items you can jump on to help you boost revenue for your non profit on each individual fundraising page.
First things first:
Create a list, either in excel or in your email address book, with each fundraiser’s email address. You can find all these addresses in your reports. For a quick overview of the reporting section click here. The best way to stay on top of the emails is to keep a running list–when you see someone has created a page from your auto emails, simply copy and paste the email address into your list. When you have all the emails compiled into one location it will be easy to send one email to all your fundraisers at once.
Now onto the Top 10 list (drum roll please…)
Number 10.
Thank each fundraiser personally for creating a page and offer a few quick tips to get them started.
It only takes a minute and you will be surprised how far it will go. Some people just need a few ideas to get their pages started. Even though we’ve made it easy to do, sometimes fundraisers don’t understand the impact uploading a customized picture or a You Tube video or even just developing a compelling message can have on their fundraising. Remind fundraisers that these are easy ways to make their pages their own. Your fundraisers will also appreciate hearing from YOU!
If your fundraisers have questions about how to edit their pages, send them here, or have them email or call our friendly support staff at Suport@firstgiving.com or (877) 365-2949 .
Today we bring you a fundraising Best Practice in Action from our new weekly series. Each week, we’ll highlight an organization that has done an incredible job of promoting its online fundraising efforts with Firstgiving and show you how to do the same. This week’s Best Practice is. . .
Mobilize your fundraisers by helping them build a team of participants for your event. Our friends at the Vermont Food Bank have partnered with Harpoon Brewery for the 8th Annual Point to Point event this summer–a day of fundraising and cycling across the fine state of Vermont:
Maybe it’s because two heads are often better than one, but whatever the reason, here’s what the Point to Point folks have figured out:
Event participants who fundraise = donations
Event participants who invite their friends to join their teams = more fundraisers = even more donations
Because having more participants who fundraise drives more donations to the Vermont Food Bank, the Point to Point organizers went right to the heart of the matter. They knew that saying “ask your friends to participate, too!” wasn’t enough. So they actually created an email for their fundraisers to send to their friends. Here’s what it says:
Dear Friends,
Please join Team ________ and ride the Harpoon Point-to-Point with us on August 15, 2009. It’s a great bike ride event, and our fundraising efforts will benefit the Vermont Foodbank. It’s easy to join us, and simple to raise money because when you join our Team _________, you can set-up your own personal fundraising page to reach out to your friends, family, and coworkers to collect donations for the ride. For example, check out this page http://www.firstgiving.com/eileenkelly.
So I need to your support, there’s strength in numbers! Please join our Team; I promise a fun experience, and it’s for a worthy cause!
The work of a champion online fundraiser is never over, not even when the race ends. So as soon as your ice packs come off, it’s time to get back on the fundraising trail for your cause! Here’s what you should do as soon as you’re able:
Thank everybody. Everybody who helped you, not just your donors. Thank your coach, your training buddies, the volunteers, the academy, everybody. You can thank them privately or publicly. And mention your fundraising when you do, which leads us to…
Report your results. That means your race results as well as your fundraising results. Tell everybody (see above) how it went for you, your time, funny or not so funny stories of your adventures along the way, how it felt, how you feel now, the works. You can even share pictures of your blisters. And then tell them how your fundraising went and how much you raised, how much that will help your chosen cause, and how much more still needs to be done…
If you met your goal, raise it. Just because you finished the race doesn’t mean your cause is finished too. Especially this year, worthy nonprofit causes need help. If you haven’t met your goal yet, that’s all the more reason to ask everybody again.
So congratulations again to all those Boston Marathon runners and everybody who helped them along the way. We salute you, and we encourage you to keep doing great things for the cause!
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