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Is Your Nonprofit Running Away From Your 5K Runners?: Part 2

Submitted by Ashley Puderbaugh on Fri, 02/03/2012 - 10:45am
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Nonprofit promotional materials, how to reach 5K runners

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development

Last week, I suggested ways to reach your organization’s 5K participants before the race. Of the 22 5K’s I ran last year, only a handful were effective in reaching out to me — whether they wanted me as a future donor or volunteer.

Audience engagement is the lifeblood of your organization, but many nonprofits fall short when it comes to events such as an annual run. How many 5K participants truly know about your company? Piggybacking off of your run is the perfect time to educate them.

Don’t miss your chance to reach hundreds — perhaps even thousands — of 5K participants. Use these suggestions to beef up your communication game plan for your next run:

During your run/walk

• Mission sharing and thank you: Using the speaker system near the start line, thank your runners and take a few minutes to explain your nonprofit — the mission and how the money raised at the run is benefiting your organization.

Tell your runners how much money was raised. They’ll be impressed with how the entry fees (typically $20 to $35 per runner) can really add up, and they’ll be happy to know most of entry fee money is being put to good use.

Sharing your mission and your story right before the race starts can be deeply inspiring to your participants.

• Printed materials: Have plenty of your brochures, flyers or copies of your annual report on a table for runners to take home after the event. Place these pieces near the tables with the bagels, bananas, oranges and water.

• Board members and staff: Have extra Board members and staff mingle among the runners before the starting gun and after runners cross the finish line to thank them and remind them to watch for race results on your website and Facebook page.

Perhaps hand out business cards that list your website, Twitter and Facebook URLs; logo; and mission. These easily fit into running shorts pockets.

• Recruitment sign-up sheet: Have a clipboard sign-up sheet where run participants can request to be contacted after the run to learn more about how to volunteer for your organization. Include a place for runners to sign-up to receive your print or electronic newsletter.

After your run/walk

• Thank you email: Send a thank you email to run participants within 24 hours after the run. Thank them for participating. Remind them how much money was raised and how the money will be used. Include links and ways to sign-up for your eNewsletter. Provide a link to the run results, and to your Facebook and Twitter pages.

• Pictures: Post pictures from your run on your Facebook page and website. Encourage runners to “like” the photos and share them. Include the photos in your upcoming eNewsletter.

• Future events and volunteering: For everyone who has opted-in to receive communication from you via either email or mail, be sure to stay in contact with them throughout the year. Share with them news about other fundraising events. Tell them how they can volunteer for your organization. Communicate with them regularly.

• Donations: Wherever you communicate with your run participants, clearly explain how to make donations to your organization. Some runners will have left your event truly inspired by what your organization does and will be ready to engage with you financially in a greater way.

Yes, doing any or all of these suggestions is extra work. But it will be worth it. And, yes, these suggestions may also seem like no-brainers, but remember: Fewer than a handful of the 22 nonprofits for which I ran last year did even a few of what you see listed above.

Whatever you do, don’t run away from your 5K runners. Don’t communicate with your hundreds to thousands of runners (and walkers) only once a year. Engage them fully.

What has worked well for you at your 5K run/walks to keep your runners engaged with your organization throughout the year?

Also, learn more about how Greater Kansas City area nonprofits effectively communicate with their donors and volunteers throughout the year.
 

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Is Your Nonprofit Running Away From Your 5K Runners?: Part 1

Submitted by Ashley Puderbaugh on Thu, 01/26/2012 - 5:36pm
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Learn to engage your nonprofit 5K runners

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development

Last year, I ran 22 5K runs (between January and October), all benefiting different nonprofit organizations — most of them fulfilling their mission within Greater Kansas City.

Surprisingly, of those 22 nonprofits, only a handful fully shared their story and mission with the runners and walkers. And fewer than a handful truly sought to engage me as a future donor and/or volunteer, or to invite me to their other fundraising events during the remainder of the year.

As I look back on those races, I think about all the missed opportunities. Missed before each race. Missed during each race. And missed after each race.

Most races were well-organized and managed. Most, unfortunately, missed the mark when it came to effectively communicating, marketing and engaging.

There were no fewer than 100 participants at each race last year, and in most cases there were 500 runners up to many thousands. That’s a lot of missed opportunities.

Don’t run away from your 5K runners.

Instead, if your nonprofit holds an annual 5K run/walk, have a game plan in place for how you will engage your racers before, during and after your race.

Yes, some participants run strictly to have a race to run on a weekend. Many participants, however, run because they want to support your mission and they believe in your mission.

Here are some ideas for engaging those participants before they even begin the race. Check back next week for more suggestions on how to reach your audience during the race and afterward.

Before your run/walk

• Thank you: Use the e-mail addresses gathered by your run registration partner/vendor (or from your system) to send a thank you e-mail to each registrant shortly after they’ve signed up to run or walk.

Share with them a brief summary of your organization’s mission, and how the money being raised at the run is benefiting your organization. Tell your runners how much was raised last year and what your goal is this year. Suggest they invite a friend or additional family member to register for the event. And, then thank them again.

• Social media: Post your run/walk event information on your Facebook page and Tweet updates about your run, such as number of participants, progress toward reaching your fundraising goal, etc.

Encourage registrants to invite additional runners. Most likely, the bulk of your runners are in the age range (including Generation Y) where they are fully engaged with their smartphones, tablets and laptops. So, engage them electronically. Encourage them to promote your run and their participation in your event via their social media channels.

• YouTube videos: Include video from previous year’s runs on your organization’s YouTube channel. Post short videos of runners sharing their story of why they run at your annual 5K. Post links to your YouTube videos on your website and in your eNewsletter.

• E-mail just prior to race day: Send a reminder e-mail to all run registrants two days before the race. Thank them again for participating. Remind them about your mission and how the raised money will be used. Include final instructions about start time, parking and other logistics. Include links to your website, YouTube channel, Facebook and Twitter pages. Include a place to sign up for your eNewsletter.

These suggestions, as common as they may seem, are such simple ways to reach out to your participants and introduce them to your organization. You’d be surprised just how few organizations did these before I ran in their races last year. Make sure to engage your participants using multiple media, and don’t worry about “over-communicating.” This will ensure you reach as many people as possible before they ever step up to the starting line.

In what ways has your company communicated with race participants before the race?
 

Wake Up Call for the World of Nonprofit Fundraising

Submitted by Ashley Puderbaugh on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 12:07pm
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Nonprofit fundraising tips

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development

Charitable giving in the U.S. is estimated to be only 2 percent of average household disposable (after tax) income, according to Giving USA Foundation 2011. And despite an increasing marketing effort on the part of nonprofits, planned-giving websites, the Internet, social media and ever-emerging digital channels, the 2 percent level is also the 40-year average.

In other words, individuals today are no more generous than their predecessors were over four decades ago.

This is indeed a wakeup call. It’s this alarming statistic that brought together the nation’s first Growing Philanthropy Summit, held in Washington, DC, on June 9, 2011. Thirty-five leading U.S.-philanthropy experts attended, from:
· AARP & AARP Foundation
· Arthritis Foundation
· National Wildlife Foundation
· Project Hope
· Special Olympics International
· The Salvation Army
· Habitat of Humanity
· Humane Society of the United States
· Consulting firms and universities

Attendees gathered to develop an action-oriented agenda on growing philanthropy. Their discussions covered more than 30 topics on these four themes:
· Enhancing the quality of donor relationships
· Developing public trust and confidence in nonprofits
· Identifying audiences, channels and forms of giving with a strong potential for growth
· Enhancing the quality of fundraising training and development

The full report, presented by Blackbaud, Hartsook Cos. Inc. and Hartsook Institutes for Fundraising, offers attendees’ recommendations for nonprofit fundraising.

What strikes me most are these 11 observations and recommendations from the report, stated mostly in the words of authors Adrian Sargeant, Robert F. Hartsook chair in fundraising at Indiana University, and Dr. Jen Shang, philanthropic psychologist and an assistant professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University – Bloomington:

1. We should be striving to find new and creative ways through which individuals can discover and express their own philanthropic identity and thus experience the joy of giving.

2. We should develop a new set of fundraising metrics focused on the long-term value in relationships.

3. Know that a typical charity will lose 50 percent of its cash (i.e. annual) donors between the first and second donation and up to 30 percent year over year thereafter.

4. In general, there is a failure among nonprofits to understand what is meant by “relationship building.”

5. The sector is too fixated on the categories of the campaigns it runs, be it annual fund, capital campaign, planned giving or endowment.

     a. “No one supports a single nonprofit because they happen to have an annual fund or an endowment. It is not the vehicle that matters to donors, it’s the difference they can make in society,” Sargeant and Shang write.

     b. “The food bank Harvesters, for example, used to approach its donors for annual gifts, capital gifts and so forth. In contrast, it now asks donors to help them feed children, feed families, feed seniors and promote healthy eating. This approach is immensely more powerful,” they explain.

6. The wide adoption of monthly giving (also known as regular giving or sustained giving) in the U.S. could itself transform philanthropy. The lifetime value of supporters giving in this way is estimated to be 600 to 800 percent higher than the annual giving (also known as cash giving).

7. Offering choices can increase loyalty because when supporters choose what they want, communications move from intrusion to invitation. When we offer communications options, supporters should be encouraged to take greater control over the relationship they have with the nonprofit.

8. The sector should continue to promote giving at an early age.

9. We should empower individuals to take action and allow them to articulate their support in ways that they personally find appropriate.

10. While 80 percent of Americans will support the nonprofit sector during their lifetime, only around 8 percent of them will do so on their death. With the baby-boomer generation moving into retirement, 90 percent of this inevitable enhanced mortality will result only in the loss of annual giving.

The full report, Growing Philanthropy in the United States, is a must-read. It’s a wake up call.
It’s also a timely read, being December and end of the year. Ironically, in today’s mail at my home, came annual gift requests for donations from three different nonprofit organizations.

What recommendations from this enlightening Summit report will your organization implement? 

Insider Tips: How to More Effectively Communicate as a Nonprofit Organization

Submitted by Ashley Puderbaugh on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 2:37pm
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Effectively Communicate as a Nonprofit Organization

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development

Among the many findings in our study of how Greater Kansas City nonprofits communicate with their various constituents were the following insightful tips and advice shared by respondents. We also heard sound advice from companies that work closely with nonprofits on how to be more effective communicators.

Show donors your gratitude. Robert F. Hartsook of Hartsook Cos. Inc. tells us, “To demonstrate to donors the value of their gifts, the best thing you can do is to send timely ‘thank you’ letters. Strive to send those within 24 to 48 hours after receiving a donation or gift. If you don’t have the staff or resources to meet that standard, establish a timely and realistic goal and then adhere to it. Sometimes nonprofits tell me their donors tell them it’s a waste of a stamp to send a ‘thank you’ letter. I don’t agree.”

Film meaningful and touching videos. Holly Buckendahl, CEO/executive director with Ronald McDonald House Charities, says her team creates a new video about the organization each year. “We use the video for group presentations, board meetings, fundraising events, Facebook and for website posts. We find that after showing the video to individuals and various audiences, there is a heightened level of understanding and empathy for a family’s journey with childhood illnesses as well as Ronald McDonald House Charities.”

The best videos have a clear purpose and audience. Buckendahl suggests you aim for three to five minutes, and feature a story that will tug at your heart. Having a family tell its story works best for Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Special Olympics Missouri says it produces videos as often as possible, relying entirely on volunteer interns and an occasional donated piece.

Engage new audiences. “We are always reaching out to new, younger and more diverse audiences,” explains Jeff Barker, director of marketing for the Kansas City Symphony. “One way to do this is through social media, such as Facebook and YouTube. It’s also important not to forget traditional means of reaching out to people.”

Don’t worry about over-communicating. “In my 38 years of working with nonprofits, I’ve never seen a case where an organization has either over-communicated or over-recognized its donors,” Hartsook says. “That’s different from organizations that have poorly maintained databases that cause duplicate mailings to an individual. That’s not over-communicating — that’s poor database management.”

Simplify your volunteer management process. Mary Beth Sloan, manager of volunteer services at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, tells us the museum communicates with all volunteers primarily through email. “We also use our volunteer-only website and web-based volunteer management software called Volgistics. Volgistics provides online scheduling, hours tracking and document storage/viewing. It also manages our email communication with volunteers.”

Consider segmenting your eNewsletter lists. Apart from our research study, I recently asked a question in the Nonprofit Marketing & Fundraising Tips group on LinkedIn about whether nonprofits send different versions of their electronic newsletters to different sectors of their distribution list.

All those who participated in the group discussion say they use segmentation. One explains, “To be relevant, our newsletter content is targeted to the needs and interests of our clients. Our segmented newsletters are produced on a monthly basis. The format of the newsletters are similar, but different in content and delivery schedule. From time to time there is some article or content carry-over, but that is more the exception than the rule. We track results via periodic satisfaction surveys and quick polls.”

Read the report. Ascend Integrated Media’s research study was conducted in conjunction with Nonprofit Connect. The study shows that Kansas City nonprofits had an average annual organization budget of $2.6 million in 2010. An average annual communications budget (excluding labor costs and in-kind services) was $29,000.

For a free copy of the 14-page white paper, “Improve Your Nonprofit Communications Program,” contact Eric Jacobson, vice president, media development, at 913-344-1436 or email him at ejacobson@ascendintegratedmedia.com.

What is your tip for your fellow nonprofit organizations on how to more effectively communicate with their donors, volunteers, clients and patrons?

Study of Kansas City Area Nonprofits Shows How to Better Communicate With Audience

Submitted by Ashley Puderbaugh on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 10:43pm
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Nonprofit Marketing Communications

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development 

With a city population of about 450,000 and a greater metropolitan area population of more than 2 million, Kansas City, Mo., is likely representative of many other places in the U.S. when it comes to how nonprofit organizations communicate with their donors, volunteers, clients and patrons.

Based on research Ascend Integrated Media recently conducted in conjunction with Nonprofit Connect, we found that for the greater Kansas City nonprofits (with an average annual organization budget of $2.6 million), the average annual communications budget (excluding labor costs and in-kind services) is $29,000.

The four most used communications channels are:
• Websites
• Print informational brochures
• Print fundraising appeals
• Press releases

The five key communications marketing investment areas are:
• Website
• Print newsletter (most often publishing quarterly)
• Print fundraising appeal (most often sending these out twice per year)
• Print informational brochure
• Annual report

The two most successful vehicles for generating donations are:
• Personal visits
• Events

The four most successful channels for connecting with volunteers are:
• Personal visits
• Events
• Phone solicitations
• Electronic newsletters

We also found that social media presence was strong among Kansas City nonprofits:
• 71% use social media
• 34% of those using social media post videos on YouTube (One Kansas City organization that has won awards for its videos recommends that you always have a family tell its story and aim for three to five minutes that will tug at your heart.)
• 93% use Facebook
• 46% use Twitter
• 28% use LinkedIn

When it comes to cutting-edge marketing techniques:
• 20% plan to add text messaging as a communications channel within two years.
• 13% plan to add a smartphone app as a communications channel within two years.
• 17% plan to start using radio public service announcements within two years.
• 12% use billboards.

Lack of staff and time are two of the largest challenges for nonprofit communications programs. Also, 60 percent of the nonprofits don’t have a dedicated full-time communications/marketing staff person.

When KC nonprofits turn to various resources to help them increase their communications and marketing efforts effectiveness:
• 64% rely on their Board of Directors
• 54% turn to online resources and blogs
• 50% use their local nonprofit colleagues
• 44% rely on contractors/vendors and consultants

Finally, here are a couple fun facts about Kansas City you may not know: It is near both the population center of the U.S. and the geographic center of the 48 contiguous states. It also has more miles of boulevards than Paris and more fountains than any city except Rome.

For a free copy of the 14-page white paper, "Improve Your Nonprofit Communications Program," which summarizes the research results, contact Eric Jacobson, vice president, media development, at 913- 344-1436 or email him at ejacobson@ascendintegratedmedia.com. 

Engaging Generation Y

Submitted by Ashley Puderbaugh on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 1:05pm
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Engaging Generation Y to Give

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development 

Did you read the article in the Wall Street Journal this month about how to discuss the importance of giving with Generation Y individuals?

Experts quoted in the article suggest:
• Invite your son or daughter to sit with you as you write a check to a charity you support.
• In the car, ask your teen what cause they would support if they had extra money to donate.
• Encourage generous grandparents to match a grandchild’s giving to a charity two-for-one.
• Volunteer with your son or daughter to reinforce the idea that your family cares about helping others.

Our recent research with Kansas City-based Nonprofit Connect shows that people aged 18 to 34 (which falls within the Generation Y category of those born from 1978 to 1993) comprises 20 percent of the volunteer base of Greater Kansas City nonprofit organizations, yet they represent only 1 percent of the donor base.

That means many are engaged with their heart, yet many don’t have the bank account to support their causes in a big way. However, they are making donations.

2010 research by Convio, shows that:
• Generation Y makes up 5.1 million of the U.S. population
• 56 percent of them give to charity
• Their average contributions total $341 per year
• The average contribution to their top charity is $161
• 58 percent give less than $100 per year
• 5 percent give $500 to $1,000 per year

So, Generation Y is one that nonprofits and parents should nurture, especially because the future is going to bring the largest generational wealth transfer in history.

Does your organization have a strategy for reaching Generation Y to:

• Engage them even more as volunteers?
• Provide easy ways for them to make their donations under $100?
• To encourage them to increase their donation amounts?

How does your strategy include social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn), eNewsletters, text messaging (i.e. text-to-give and text-to-pledge), websites and smartphone apps?

You can read about how many nonprofits are tackling this issue in the discussion areas of various groups within LinkedIn, such as:
• Social Media For Nonprofit Organizations
• Nonprofit Professionals Forum
• Nonprofit Marketing & Fundraising
• Nonprofit Roundtable
• Nonprofit Leadership

And, for a copy of our free 14-page research report titled, "Improve Your Nonprofit Communications Program," contact at Eric Jacobson at ejacobson@ascendintegratedmedia.com or 913-344-1436.