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Imagine having to raise every cent for your organization going door to door. Just the thought Buy Cialis Professional Online makes you sick, right?
Asking people you don’t know for money the first time you meet feels slimy. Especially if the meeting is on their doorstep and you’re already intruding.
That’s because fundraising doesn’t work without a strong relationship between the donor and the fundraiser.
That relationship is generally developed through a process most fundraisers call “cultivation.” The more cultivated a person or organization is, the more likely they are to give and give often.
A lot of people have a lot of ideas about how best to go about “cultivating” people. I have some pretty specific ones that we’ll get into later on this blog.
Terry Axelrod thinks you should do it with site tours and events, Penelope Burke believes (probably a lot like Terry) in donor-centered fundraising, and “Moves Management” is a another term that is starting to get thrown around.
There are a lot of models Viagra Jelly for how to do the same basic thing…build enough of a relationship with your donors to make them give. Build stronger relationships, get better gifts.
Why Should It Be Any Different Online?
Too often, we think the internet has some sort of magic potion that makes it possible to ignore people and have them give us money.
“If we set up a donote now page, donors will come running! It’s so convenient,” we think. “How can they resist?”
That’s the kind of thinking that got the business world into the dot com bubble.
There’s Buy zetia no magic on the internet! It’s just a new platform for the same old strategies. Online donations need to be cultivated just like regular donations.
The internet offers some pretty amazing opportunities for fundraisers who do it right. It takes the old strategies and scales them up to get an amazing return on investment. I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I didn’t whole-heartedly believe that the internet gives savvy fundraisers power beyond their wildest dreams.
But we still need pharmacy buy our dusty fundraising textbooks to do it right.
Umm…So How Do We Fix It?
Ok. Here it is…
The way we fix our online fundraising is online cultivation.
There are proven ways to build strong relationships online.
Most of us just need a little push in the right direction to bring what we know about fundraising and what we know about the internet together.
So How Do We Do Online Cultivation?
Ever heard of social media?
It’s been around since the invention of email in the early 70s.
Whether you’ve heard of it or not, the best way to build quality relationships online is through social media…specifically (as the title of this website suggests) blogs.
In the right hands, blogs have the potential to create the perfect online giving environment and build relationships at the same time.
They also serve as the perfect spring-board for all your other social media efforts (ie. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) because you have a place to point all of that traffic. You have a home base that gives you complete control over where to lead your potential donors.
I’m a big advocate of starting a blog before you even consider jumping into Facebook, Twitter, et al. I’m an even bigger advocate of being a good fundraiser before you consider doing anything even remotely related to fundraising online.
While there’s no magic on the internet, there are a few fundraising strategies that are well suited to the internet that may not be in your arsenal. SEO, keyword research, email marketing, and the simple mechanics behind tools like Facebook might be among them.
If you’re a good fundraiser and you’re just confused about how to translate your knowledge to the online space, this blog’s for you. I want you to feel at home here, and I definitely want to hear what you have to teach me about the ancient art of fundraising.
This blog is about how to build those online relationships that will make people want to give.
In Cialis fact, unless I get some serious feedback on this post, I’m planning on writing a series of posts about what it means to use social media for building donor relationships. I’ll be answering questions like:
- What do I write about on my blog?
- How do I get readers?
- When Buy Cialis Professional Online Pharmacy No Prescription Needed do I make “the ask” online?
- When and how should I start using Facebook Causes?
- Can I raise money with Twitter?
And Viagra buy online more.
So if you’re interested, stick Brand Levitra around.
While we’re on the subject of sticking around…
What Cialis for women are some of your strategies for cultivating donors online or off? Let me hear them in the comments.
(Also Kamagra jelly if you know of any good books on offline cultivation, let everyone know about those too.) Levitra 
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Great points in this post! I would echo your feedback that organizations should develop a blog before diving into Twitter & Facebook. I think blogging is the backbone of social media for both nonprofits & businesses. I also agree with the importance of cultivating relationships! I recently did an online fundraising blitz for Cystic Fibrosis, and I only received donations from people where there was an established relationship (online or face-to-face). I was naively thinking that more of my social media friends would support my cause, but in reality, the depth of the relationship is not the same across the board. Thanks for sharing! Blase
Hey Blase good to see you again:)
Yeah, I would definitely drive home the point as much as possible that blogging is the backbone. That said, I would also point out that an email list is the best tool for converting readers into donors.
The rest (twitter, etc.) are wonderful to have, but should really be used to drive traffic to the blog so you can get them on an email list so you can get donors. Content is still king though, and if you aren’t putting your readers first in any of those steps and developing relationships, you’re wasting your time.
Since you seem to be one of the only commenters so far
, is there anything you think I should delve into first as far as THIS blog is concerned?
Hello again Paul,
I’ve got an e-newsletter as well that I try to send out weekly, on a consistent basis (every Friday morning). It’s actually rss feed driven, so I set up a template that automatically gets sent whenever I create a new post-no excuses anymore for not sending an e-newsletter!
Personally, I subscribe to almost no e-newsletters, I use rss-feeds to find out about new posts, and find that it keeps my inbox clean while allowing me to be the 1st to see new content (even before an e-mail or tweet is sent in many cases). I personally believe that this is a future trend where people will migrate away from e-mail for content and more toward rss feeds. I personally use netvibes (it’s free), but there are several other similar services. Here’s a short podcast that does a great job of explaining feeds: http://www.bit.ly/5cJDcL
You can use Social Media (I use Twitter predominantly) to find others who compliment what you offer. Share their tweets, develop relationships, and then offer to do a guest post & accept 1 of theirs if you like what they’re writing and it’s a going to help your audience of followers. Nothing has helped drive more traffic to my blog than exchanging guest posts. Increasing guest posts was one of my New Year’s resolutions, and it’s dramatically impacted my blog traffic, and improved my visibility in Google.
Blase,
Your point that you subscribe to almost no e-newsletters is precisely why the giving over of an email address is so sacred an act and should be treated as such.
With that sacredness comes the responsibility to offer more value in an e-newsletter and simultaneously makes readers sub-consciously value your content more, thereby making the conversion rate (donation rate) for email lists higher than RSS subscribers.
It’s the old rule of reciprocity. They feel like they’re getting more in return, because they’ve had to give something of value (their email). This would be true even if you didn’t offer more value in an e-newsletter (like a straight RSS to email campaign) but it’s always imo, better to just go ahead and add more value for email subscribers since they’ve paid for it with an email address.
I fundamentally disagree that RSS is “the way of the future.” I use RSS for blogs I read maybe once a week or so. For the blogs I absolutely have to read every day, I use email. Email subscribers are generally more passionate about your content. More passionate = More donors.
As for guess posting, you’re absolutely right. That’s definitely going to be worked into “The Blog Raiser success model”
once I have some more cornerstone content on here.
Thanks again for the comments Blase. I really do appreciate it.
Touché! I agree that e-mail is a better platform for appeals and cultivating a group of nonprofit supporters. My bias for RSS feeds is from the perspective of a blogger looking to be the 1st to learn new info, and share with my network, not a nonprofit so your point is well taken. Keep up the good work!
Blase,
Thanks for all you do for CF. I would love to connect. I have the disease, lost a sister to it and have raised more than $1 million for the CFF. I also have a book coming out in February with a foreword from Celine Dion.
Andy