You could watch this.

You could play this.

You could go here, and look up a question you were scared to ask: (I started you off on a less scary one)

You could throw a party. You could ask all your friends for five bucks at the party and then give it to Head & Hands.

Or you could go to their party (this Montreal Gazette article calls it “innovative” and “edgy”)

You could go to a drop-in clinic in your area. You could get tested. If that freaks you out, you could call here: 514-481-0277.

And if you were too freaked out to talk to the person at Head & Hands about this stuff right away, you could say “Hey, I just threw a party and all my friends gave me five bucks to give to you.” and they would be thrilled, and ask you to drop by so they could thank you. And if you felt like asking some questions once you got there, I’m sure they’d be cool with that.

You could volunteer to be a peer educator at the Sense Project.

If you aren’t quite ready to train to be a peer educator, you could remark conversationally to a friend “Hey, I was thinking, doesn’t it seem to you that AIDS is inextricably intertwined with social justice problems such as poverty, women’s rights, education and globalization?” and they could ask if they could borrow your copy of Race Against Time and then you could lend it to them.

You could wear a red ribbon. If someone asked you why you were wearing it, you could tell them that Dec 1 is World AIDS Day.

The idea is simple – bloggers commit to staying up for 24 hours, and collect pledges and donations. Well, the idea is simple: in practice, that’s 49 posts and no sleep, which is heroic before you throw in the fundraising. What makes it so attractive as an online fundraiser to donors is that you can support your favorite writers with the click of a button, and it lets you discover new writers blogging for the same cause.

What does your non-profit need to make this happen?

- a popular ringleader and her friends. In Vancouver’s 604 area code, that’s blogger Rebecca Bollwit (Miss 604)

- bloggers, lots of (here’s the list). One great thing about this event is the big age range in bloggers – it’s intergenerational, and there’s a blog for everyone’s interests.

- a secure website that people can donate through. The 2009 Vancouver Blogathon has a perfectly lovely website (logo donated by Kontent Creative), and the bloggers are using Canada Helps as their donation platform

- a space to blog in that has wireless. Workspace donated their downtown space

- food and goodies donated from local businesses to feed the bloggers

Since everything can be donated, including the most precious resource (good writers!), blogathons are an event any non-profit community can try. The possibilities are huge: the Vancouver Blogathon has raised over $40,000 in under 24 hours for a few good causes (including the BC Children’s Hospital, hurrah!)and they aren’t finished yet. Cheer them on by Twittering #blogathon or better yet, by donating on the Blogathon site.

Now, I have two reasons for wanting to get you interested in this. The first reason is: I’m animating this campaign, and I’m excited to take you on the journey with me for an inside look at social media and fundraising. I’m going to post updates so you can see that it’s not a magic trick that only charismatic American presidents can pull off – this is a strategic way to fundraise by building a story with your donors. My second reason is simple: I know a 4 year old who had heart surgery at the Children’s recently. (He’s fine now.) So I have a very keen sense that these are the people who heal our kids, and they need our help.

As time goes by on the campaign I’ll talk a bit about how we came up with the concepts behind it, how the pick-up is going, and what we’re learning. To watch us in action, Fan the Facebook Page I’m animating, or follow @bcchf on Twitter. While this widget is the way Social Signal found to do online micro-fundraising, we know it’s going to take a real community posting photos, stories and videos about their heroes to make this campaign fly. I would love to work with you, gentle reader, so please participate by tagging your mentions of this campaign (by which I mean pictures of yourself in a blanket cape a la my example) with bcchf (or on Twitter you can use the hashtag #bcchf)

How You Can Help:

-  Put the widget on your Facebook profile or donate (do! I designed this special thank you video that will knock your socks off…)

- If you aren’t in British Columbia, spread the word to the people you know in BC by sending them the video. If you’re a blogger, grab the widget and/or write about it. Gillian Shaw from the Vancouver Sun broke the story and posted her widget here.

- And finally, cheer us on! Please fan BCCHF on Facebook, Twitter to us @bcchf, post to our wall or… …take a photo of yourself jumping  with that red blanket cape and tag it bcchf (I’m starting a League of Extraordinary Blanket Capes) or with the hashtag #bcchf if you mention it on Twitter. By donating, you’re  a hero to the children who are patients at BC Kids. So tie on that red blanket cape! Up up and awaaay!

don't forget to tag your blanket cape photo with bcchf or #bcchf so that i can show the children's hospital what upstanding heroes support them. Excelsior!

Original Photo courtesy of Flickr user wallyg (CC Licensed)

Have you ever experienced that dreamy, hungry look on the face of non-profit organizations’ staff when you say: “I have experience in fundraising”? No matter whom you speak to, be it directors or campaigners, the chances are good that you’ll grab their attention. Better yet, if you offer to help their fundraising efforts as a volunteer, they will veer between the wish to hug you and the attempt not to seem too enthusiastic. But once you go into detail, talking about fundraising strategies, possible financial sources and so forth, this lovely atmosphere might be replaced by misunderstanding. There are certainly various ways to raise funds in Europe; and depending on where you want to get your money from, “experience in fundraising” translates into very different skills.

Issue No. One: Grants vs. Individual Donors

My experience in Europe is that fundraising is usually understood as grant writing. By contrast, the idea of developing a strategy to obtain and enlarge a basis of individual donors is met with scepticism. Instead, organizations prefer to put this effort into creating a project proposal from scratch within a few days.

In her book Fundraising for Social Change, Kim Klein breaks the myth that most of a non-profit’s funding should come from foundations or corporations. Instead, 75,6% of contributions  to successful non-profits stem from individuals. Many people in the US and Canada will already know these stats. But then again, the book is written from a American perspective, where community fundraising is a traditional, successful tool  for various reasons – one being a historial lack of social services provided by the state. So what about Europe?

With the welfare state in place and the European Union and many foundations offering grants, individual charity might be much less important. NGOs – particularly small NGOs – often focus their fundraising activities almost exclusively on project grants. This holds especially true in new EU Member States, where European Structural and Cohesion Funds are available (see also a Wikipedia article on these funds). This results in a focus on constant “project work” with no possibility to develop longer-term strategies.  It also sets up a  culture of looking down on fundraising as an “Anglo-Saxon” approach, one which does not work in Europe. Because of this, organizations are increasingly lacking funds for overhead costs. This has been affirmed by Blackbaud’s survey on the European State of the Not-for-Profit Industry 2008. The survey among 466 non-profits in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands shows that 54% of respondents in the UK and 48% in Germany respectively (but only 13% in the Netherlands) are having trouble getting funds for general operating purposes.

I contacted Kim Klein to ask how she would handle this situation. When confronted with this European perspective, she suggested a little more reflection: “Do people in European communities support a church or other faith based institution? Do you ever see people give money to someone who is homeless? Is generosity considered a virtue?” (For the record: the answer to all three questions is “Yes”.)

And she continued: “Usually these questions cause people to realize that money is being raised and money is being given away, even if it is not as common as it would be here in the USA. When I have travelled and gotten these objections, I have reminded people that the history of grassroots fundraising in America is full of these objections: in the 1940’s, many people said ‘Americans will never respond to mail appeals. They are invasive and it is un-American.’ By the 1980’s, most donations were made by mail. In the mid 1990’s, many people said, ‘The internet will never work for fundraising.’ Today on-line fundraising is the fastest growing area of fundraising.”

Issue #2: The Internet

One would expect internet fundraising to be met with the same scepticism as fundraising in general, because after all it also asks for individual giving. But on the contrary, online fundraising  in Europe is up and coming. The survey mentioned above shows that about 50% of organizations already use online fundraising and that this is expected to grow further. Donation buttons seem to have become a standard feature on non-profit websites, and during the last week, I spoke with people from three different  European organizations who were psyched about creating their first Facebook presences, welcoming social media and its possibilities.

I wondered where this seeming contradiction comes from. On the one hand, it could simply be that the young employees and volunteers of these organizations personally like using Facebook and the internet. But on the other hand, today’s patterns of involvement in charity could make online fundraising the appropriate reaction to a more sporadic civic engagement and a reluctance to become actively involved. Clicking a button is easy and the effect of giving money for charity seems to be the same. (Actually, I’m convinced it is not the same – but that’s a story for another blog post… )

In any case, solutions for an effective use of the internet for communications and fundraising are still desperately sought after by many European non-profits, with only about a third of the Blackbaud’s survey respondents considering their websites effective.  The possibilities of online communications channels to the general public are only vaguely recognized. Usually, Facebook presence or other online activities are managed as an afterthought to other duties, or by volunteers.

I’m guessing that you’ve all already thought about these two fundraising issues. So what is your advice to the Europeans? Does individual fundraising make sense in (Central & Eastern) Europe? Are there alternatives to grant writing? Do you know of good examples which can serve as models for European online fundraising efforts? (As far as I know, fundraising via Facebook is not possible for Europe. Yet.)

Please let us know through your comments.

“…Creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for clients, partners, and society at large.”*

Surprise: the secret word for your job is marketing. Why is it a secret? When you work as a fundraiser, “marketing” is a bit of a dirty word – it sounds corporate, and insincere. But good marketing isn’t about lying to people or tricking them into your product – it’s about connecting with the people whose values line up with yours.  And a  little cross-pollination is all it takes to save you reinventing the wheel when it comes to, well, getting on with the job of marketing your non-profit.

Where can you access online marketing advice that applies to non-profits?

Some excellent (and amusing) tips are available in the form of The Age of Persuasion, a CBC radio show about advertising. Hosted by Terry O’Reilly, it’s not available in podcast format, but it is available for streaming. While O’Reilly is specifically talking about advertising, truths about considering your target group and doing your homework are made awfully vivid by stealable examples from the corporate world.

Katya Andresen’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog calls this “Robin Hood Marketing”, that is “the concept of stealing corporate savvy to sell just causes”  and offers clear-cut breakdowns of marketing essentials, such as going to where the attention is. Nedra Weinreich’s excellently-written blog Spare Change focuses on social marketing and how it applies to non-profits.

No matter what, though, you cannot do better than getting an expert into your non-profit. Offline, see if your local university has opportunities for marketing students to intern with you and take their knowledge seriously – an intern who helps you learn the ropes of Robin Hood marketing could be a fantastic board member in the making.

Guess where the term "marketing" originated? Original Photo: Flickr user lumierefi (CC license 2.0)

*quoting the American Marketing Association’s definition – you can see the whole definition on Wikipedia.

Launched yesterday, the non-profit IntraHealth International has partnered with Youssou N’Dour, Senegalese/World Music superstar.  They have released a new charity EP titled OPEN Remix, to support a project that to enables health workers in Africa to access open-source technologies.  As the CEO of IntraHealth says, “With growing connectivity and mobile phone use, Africa can take advantage of cutting edge technologies.”  Note that mobile phone use is increasing across Africa at twice the global rate.  This opens the door to implementing mobile e-health solutions, and open source technology is ideally suited for the project: it’s inexpensive, flexible and collaborative. Check out the full video introduction to the project.

Plus, the project allows you to rock.  Youssou’s song, “Wake Up” is available on the EP, but he’s also put it out there under a open-source license.  And a bunch of big names, like Nas and Peter Buck of R.E.M., have already been busy tweaking it up.  You can download the remixes - or make your own remix - and make a donation.  How much money Intrahealth International will make, I’m not sure – but they certainly will get some attention from the Boing Boing crowd.

ps. Check out the music blog, Culture of Me, who tipped me off to this one.

If your non-profit is working on a social media plan, you’re going to need to think about how your non-profit tells stories. If you fundraise, you already know that the best collateral a non-profit produces are stories about their audience. Here’s an example – think about the last fundraiser you participated in. Chances are, it told you a story about what kind of person you are – you are someone who votes for change, or believes in the environment, or supports youth organizations. And the way they did it?  Good sequence, emotion, an unexpected turn of events, a telling detail or two: all bench marks of good storytelling.

If you’re not sure how to get started storytelling, stop by We Are Media (a social media starter kit curated by Beth Kanter for NTEN) where you will find a terrific module on storytelling, including interviews with NPR and essential essays.

If you’d like to see hilarious story telling: better stop by An Excellent Boring Presentation.

The Pew Research Center published a report this week on the changing demographic profile of social networks.  I would, ahem, modestly point out that Social Ch@nge was one day ahead of the curve on this one.

Among the responses of the blogosphere, the Agitator has run two interesting posts on the theme.  The first talks about the recent Pew study, and points out that your donor base might not fit the demographics of Facebook.  Fair enough.

The second post looks at the buying habits of users of social networks.  The key point being: people don’t like being sold stuff through the medium of a social network.

This isn’t earth-shattering, nor rocket science – and fundamentally it’s a good point.  You shouldn’t have to worry about product placement during a dinner party for your friends.  Neither should banner ads intrude on your little Facebook flock.

But I think that this aspect is, in fact, what makes social networks such an interesting and powerful fundraising tool for non-profits in particular.  A social network, by its very nature, commands a certain level of trust.  You can screw up a good relationship with your donors/customers by trying to purchase their trust in this fickle medium.  Don’t advertise – keep it honest and earn their trust.  Political causes have certainly figured out how to make this work, for the very same reasons.  It’s not mass media, it’s personal media – keep it personal.  A smart non-profit will take this and run with it.

ps. Put the Agitator on your RSS feed – always great food for thought.

Electronic Arts (EA), the gaming behemoth, has entered into the fundraising world.  The Xbox live version of NHL ‘09 rewards players who raise $100 for the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation by allowing them to compete in special online tournaments.  And if you do well in the tournament, and raise over $500, you get your digitized face plastered onto a grunting electronic hockey fan in the NHL ‘10 game.  The online didn’t quite raise as much as the Foundation hoped – but a related off-line event at the EA headquarters in British Columbia recently raised over $20,000.

So what should you make of real world fundraising, with in-game benefits?

Gamers, as a community, represent an interesting niche for non-profits.  They certainly are not a target group for every organisation.  But there clearly are ways to tap them.  For example, Child’s Play is an organisation that collects donations from gamers to help provide children in hospitals with toys and video games.  Since their formation in 2003, over 100,000 people have joined, and $3.5 million dollars in donations have been collected.

I think that there are a few aspects that makes “Child’s Play” work.  First, they appeal to gamers to give games – a nice alignment between donor and recipient.  In fact, they encourage the donors to pick specific gifts for the kids in the hospitals.  Next, they keep it manageable: donations came be processed through a variety of existing sites, and can be big or small.  Finally, they appeal to the sense of community among gamers: despite huge geographic differences, Child’s Play taps into the common interest of this group.

And that’s the real story here: communities of support can be found in pretty unlikely places.  The Long Tail effect of the internet means that – even if you think your cause only appeals to a small niche – that niche might be bigger than you think.

1) Cells will save lives

One of the things you will surely see more of is the creative use of cell phones in conflict areas to bring aid.  Earlier this year, Poland pulled off evacuating its citizens from Georgia via cell phone. You can expect more cell use for governments to communicate with civilians in a hurry, and also cell phone use by civilians in areas with poor communication to map out violence, food, medicine and to share information about what’s going on in their areas. You can check out tools like Ushahidi and see how cell phone mapping has already been used to save lives during outbreaks of violence.  Finally, while it’s a bit early yet to assess the sustainability of cell phone hacks that let you do life-saving blood tests using only your trusty Sony Ericsson, expect more of these multi-use hacks, especially in developing countries.

2) You will learn to fix it yourself

Times are tougher. Non-profits and individuals will learn to fix their own computers, cell phones, mp3 players and bikes, and other people will donate to you to teach them to do this. If you’re in charge of a community non-profit and looking for fundraising ideas that are sure to be a hit in 2009, plan to host a skills fair where your volunteers’ practical smarts will be donated on behalf of your non-profit to eager bidders.

3) We will all get more competitive

Nothing brings out ingenuity like an economic crisis – the 1930’s saw a flowering of competitions in both Europe and North America as people got motivated to get creative – and earn some rewards for doing so. Expect more small scale and local competitions that will be used to get individuals involved in big organizations through collaborative and creative problem solving.  There will also be more competitions that reward individuals for activities like commenting on blogs or for mash ups of material – and you can expect more non-profits to hack these concepts for fundraising purposes. We also predict that this is the year that it will become main-stream to get small but motivating rewards from businesses for simply being tops in your online social group. So naturally, this is also the first year that non-profits will start asking you to help by donating these rewards, along with building on your social networking power to build their strategy and funding bases.

4) European non-profits will have to learn to fundraise

In North America, most non-profits don’t rely on government grants because the government is neither a reliable nor plentiful source of funding. But the EU is a different matter – any one of the EU grants available through their funding programs can easily triple your organization’s budget,  and their calls for proposals go out consistently and often. For this reason, a number of European non-profits have fallen into the trap of chasing funding by creating special projects tailored to funding calls, while disguising administrative costs inside these special projects in order to keep their doors open.

You can expect European non-profits based on this approach to funding to crash over the next year for two reasons: the EU is pulling back on the number of grants they issue, and at the same time they are raising the amounts these grants go for to co-funding levels that are absolutely inappropriate for the budgets of most non-profits.

The European non-profits that won’t crash are the ones who are systematically embracing fundraising and building individual donations as their core support. Expect North American non-profits to lead the way in improvising new and diverse ways to fundraise using connective technology – Europeans, get set to learn to fundraise.

5) Your board will finally go online

And when your board finally discovers collaborative and project management platforms for networking, planning, writing grants together and making funding databases (we recommend Comindwork)- they will wonder why they resisted going online for so long. One of the reasons your board will go online is that most non-profits are about to experience a near-complete board turnover, courtesy the economic crisis. Specifically: people will get frustrated at the notion that board fundraising will be key to your non-profit’s survival and they will leave; people will move; people will believe they need to work more and volunteer less, older board members will go back to work part time. Your board may look a lot younger after the turnover.

And if you’re trying to break into the non-profit job market in 2009?

Here are the skills that will be hot:

- hard business skills (accounting, marketing) and obviously any kind of funding development experience. Personal fundraising on platforms like Facebook will count on your resume, so get started now.

- soft internet skills – social networking, the ability to set up collaborative platforms for donors to get involved with your non-profits, searching/selecting info that non-profits need and figuring out how to get this information across to coordinators in a usable format. Example: most coordinators don’t have time to read all the new studies that come out in a given field during the year. If you’ve got ideas on how to make this info available, accessible and summarized for coordinators, you’ve got yourself some new best friends.

- any experience or knowledge you have that’s connected to alleviating poverty, the hot topic for 2009 because of how it aligns environmental and health issues with concrete actions people will be paying a lot more attention to in their own communities, such as food security.