This is the third of our four-part series of frank talks on social fundraising and its effect on the future of your non-profit with Managing Partners Todd Levy and Paul Ghiz of Global Cloud, the makers of DonorDrive Social Fundraising software. Part 3 covers the cost savings of social fundraising and the high cost of not adopting.

Fundraising shouldn’t be a gamble.

Traditionally there have been steep costs associated with making the ask. While old-school non-profits have firmly established and depended on methods like direct mail and paid phone solicitation, these are getting less and less cost effective. Donors (as well as potential donors) are not paying attention to their mailbox like they once were. They’re not tethered to their land line and with Caller ID on their cell phone, they’re not responding to calls they don’t deem urgent. What were once good bets for fundraising have now become gambles. And with ever less-favorable odds. While these methods are becoming more costly and less effective, online giving is proving to be a better bargain. Read More

This is the second of our four-part series of frank talks on social fundraising and its effect on the future of your non-profit with Managing Partners Todd Levy and Paul Ghiz of Global Cloud, the makers of DonorDrive Social Fundraising software. Part 2 covers how social fundraising hands you new donors and how to address their needs in order to retain them.

Social Fundraising is introducing you to new donors.

Face it: traditional donors are playing less and less a role in non-profit funding. Most likely your non-profit has felt it, which gives financial evidence to take to your Executive Board to convince them that you need to seek out new donors. Part of the problem is that many of these new donors don’t respond to a phone call or mailed letter, but they’re ready to listen and act on social media. Read More

Many non-profits are not really using Twitter to its full potential. Social Fundraising software like DonorDrive has built-in Twitter functions to help your constituents generate donations and get the word out about your event or campaign. But there are many other Twitter tricks (including using Twitter during the event itself) to boost the excitement and increase last-minute giving.

1. Ask for retweets. Encourage adding the phrase “Please RT” to pertinent event/campaign tweets. It can generate four times more retweets. (Limit tweets to 120 characters to allow space for retweeting.)

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Our DonorDrive Social Fundraising Software/Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council webinar on engaging Millennials (with Zac Johnson, head of Youth Marketing at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals) has been a hit. Quite a few readers of the series of blog posts have asked if it’s available in a more portable form. We’ve compiled it into a PDF and also included some bonus content not in the posts.

Feel free to pass this PDF around and forward it to colleagues you think might benefit from it. A few have also asked for a quick read, so here’s a list of the top findings from Zac’s Dance Marathons on Millennials and fundraising. (If you’re tweeting or linking to any part of this series, this post contains it all.)
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This is the third excerpt from our DonorDrive Social Fundraising Software and Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council webinar with special guest Zac Johnson, head of Youth Marketing at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Zac explains how to communicate with Millennials, how to attract them to participate in your event and how to get them to come back next year. For Part 1 and Part 2, start here.

Listen to the webinar

How to communicate with a Millennial.

Zac: As we talk about this generation and the social media feed that they’re plugged into mentally, the multiple communications channels available are definitely a key. You can’t expect an email to get to them necessarily, nor can you expect a text. You really have to hit them on multiple levels and multiple platforms. That can seem frustrating and daunting at times if you don’t have the staff to pull that off. DonorDrive has provided us with the tools to do that at least in terms of the online fundraising component for events. The realtime support comes from that immediacy. Read More

This is the second excerpt from our DonorDrive Social Fundraising Software and Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council webinar with special guest Zac Johnson, head of Youth Marketing at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Zac reveals the secrets of Dance Marathon’s annual $10 million success and explains the role that DonorDrive has played in that success.

Read Part 1.

Listen to the webinar

Why Dance Marathons are so successful.

With 150 colleges currently hosting Dance Marathons, Zac is targeting to double that number. Dance Marathon dollar amounts grow for each event every year as well, so the current $10 million raised annually will be substantially plussed. Growth is built into Zac’s roadmap, but not necessarily with the strict plan you’d expect. Read More