Carrot and stick
21 May 2012
Community isn't led by government, so why wait for it to tell you what to do, protests Robert Ashton....
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Digital fundraising - The last frontier for ludites?
A colleague and I attended a digital marketing seminar this morning held by Cascaid in their new offices. We got there early to abuse the delicious free breakfast and took our places to be amazed.
In fairness to Cascaid, they promised no answers, just a thought provoking session. And my thoughts were provoked. The speakers asked us to raise our hands if we had signed up to facebook/twitter/del.icio.us etc. My hand stayed down until he asked if anyone had a blog! Unsurprisingly, my colleague, Mencap’s web development manager’s hand was constantly being raised.
So, as a fundraiser, should I be ashamed that there is all this technological development passing me by while I play online poker courtesy of William Hill?
I think no.
The internet offers so many opportunities that we seriously need to think about where best to spend our time and budget to drive online donations. Meanwhile we need to offer potential donors more reasons to interact with us, hopefully ending up in a donation. This isn’t something that fundraisers can do alone as the charity’s communication strategy and web development play an integral role in building an online community. At the same time, fundraising opportunities need to be considered as part of the overall strategy, not after the strategy is set.
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Mike Naidu
1 Aug 2008
Hi Hayward, Unlike your good self, I haven't swallowed a dictionary so apologise for any offense cause by using the term luddite. As to paper tigers and text extruders, I can only hope that you use more accessible language with your clients as I'm not sure what your point is. See ya, Mike
Hayward Ollerton
23 Jul 2008
What, pray is a 'ludite'? someone addicted to playing Ludo? Influenced by the online poker, perhaps? If you mean a Luddite (cf 18C machine breaking...) I wish you'd say so...in any case most technophobes (q.v.) do not wish to smash the technology; they are simply afraid of it...or inept in its use. As a consultant with almost threescore and ten summers in my memory bank, I have no problem with even the wilder shores of the use of technology. I do however have a problem with yet another setting up of paper tigers - and sloppy use of terms, the curse of fundraising text extruders. This is no more than a restatement - for our times - of Lord Lever's frustration that he knew 50% of his advertising was wasted - he just didn't know which 50%... HO
Mike Naidu
21 Jul 2008
Interesting you should say that Roger, because just giving someone the means will not necessarily mean they will donate. They still need to feel an emotional link to the cause before they may be motived to give. I do wonder how quickly charities should chase the fluid social networking generation. We must keep an eye on the costs against the potential long term return. At this point in time we don\'t know what the future potential to give is from this pool of donors, and if they are anything like young donors recruited from other sources they will be fairly promiscious and affect by trends and fashions. I read today that Google has had an awful return on it's Youtube online advertising. If it doesn't work for corporate advertising, whose to say that it will work for the charity sector? Mike
Roger Jones
18 Jul 2008
I was glad to hear the session provoked thought. We purposely kept the session light – giving an overview of new social networking communication mechanics. They are not and never can be stand alone one-dimensional “Donate Here” buttons but an intelligent savvy way to create a long term meaningful engagement with your donors. As we discussed the web user is becoming more discerning about which communities they join – and in order to engage, with integrity, you must do so on their terms and in their preferred digital medium.
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Sara Waller
17 Sep 2008
Hi there Great piece, just like this article too www.fundraising-forum.de/facebookfundraising.html I have authored a book on Facebook Fundraising, if you would like a copy of this free ebook 7 Secrets to Facebook Fundraising, please email me wallersara@gmail.com. Thanks Sara
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