queer ideas

Putting the power of mums to work

Nick Clegg is off to the UN Summit in New York at the end of September and Save The Children want to put some pressure on him to encourage world leaders to refocus their efforts to ensure we achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Getting help from 100,000 people to nudge him in the right direction through signing a petition is part of their plan and they have decided that some influential UK parenting blogs could be a good recruiting round.

So they have invited three prominent bloggers: Josie from Sleep Is For The Weak, Sian from Mummy Tips and Eva from Nixd Minx to fly out and see what the charity is doing in Bangladesh. All three will obviously be speaking to mothers and children about their lives, hopes and fears and sharing their experiences on their blogs.

And through their blogs, they'll encourage their readers to get involved by signing the petition, donating money and giving unwanted clothes and household goods to their local Save the Children shop.

Some tweeters with huge followings like Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry have already starting promoting the campaign (known as #blogadesh) and are generating some significant traffic.

But it will really kick off when the bloggers start writing about what they see. When someone you know and trust as a source of advice and inspiration starts talking about poverty, it's going to be more relevant, more motivating and more engaging that just seeing an advertising banner asking for help.

There's been some interesting research in the last few years in neuro-cognitive science that helps explain why this is the case. In short, if we see someone experience an emotion - anger, joy or sadness – the same neurons spark in our brain as if we were experiencing it ourselves.

It's one of the fundamental donor needs. We are driven to be sociable. We need to belong. And it's empathy which is the primary driver behind that need.

Rather than make you trawl through 1,500 words on the latest scientific research that backs up this claim, I've found this great animated video from the RSA where Jeremy Rifkin explains it far more effectively (and entertainingly) than I ever could.

As you'll see, new technology is changing the way we think about our fellow human beings. We are now extending our identities far beyond national and religious boundaries.

As a result, we are able to directly relate to people's suffering on a far more personal level - as mothers for instance – and do something that is becoming increasing clear that we psychologically need to do - offer help.

That's why I think Save The Children's approach is so exciting – it directly taps deep into our psyche and, as a result, I expect the outcome should be very rewarding for everyone who's involved - not just the people being helped in Bangladesh.

For more more details on donor needs take a look at this previous post.

Thanks to @charityclare for the heads up.

What's wrong with Mashable's Summer of Social Good?

The desire to raise serious sums of money for charities (or non-profits as our American cousins might say) is a fantastic thing.

Animal rescue, tackling global poverty, protection of wildlife and the environment and funding cancer research and awareness are cracking causes that deserve every penny they get.

But after twenty years in fundraising, I'm sticking my neck out. Though I am going to sound a right miserable sod, I don't think – in its current form at least – Mashable's Summer of Social Good is going to raise much money. Not through normal everyday donors anyhow.

Here's why.

Mashable is an amazing resource that has proved its value over and over again by improving our understanding of social media. @Mashable on Twitter has (as I write) over 867,000 followers. Couple that with those who read the Mashable website and throw in a few dozen re-tweets and you have a serious body of people behind you.

But that's not all.

You can add GlobalGiving, the Social Media Club, Treehugger and even Facebook to the mix, as they are just a few of the partners involved in the summer long campaign.

The trouble is, the free transfer of information is not the same thing as the raising of funds. Though coming up with great ideas is hard work, we love to share them. It validates all those hours tapping away at the keyboard. Just ask any blogger. As soon as a post is up, you start checking your stats to see who is looking at it, where your referrals are coming from and how long people spend rummaging around the rest of your site.

Money is a different thing. Getting people to give it to charity is hard.

And, as a fundraiser, I know that simply putting four causes (no matter how great they are) in front of a donor isn't going to mean much money is going to change hands.

Take a look at some basic statistics from the traditional world of fundraising through direct marketing.

• The average highly personalised cold recruitment appeal sent to a targeted cold list presenting an emotional case for one particular organisation might generate a response of 1% or 2%. 

• The average press insert – again presenting an emotional case for support – placed in an appropriate publication will generate a response rate of about 0.001% or 0.002%

• A strong display press ad will have a much lower response - perhaps 0.0001%. And often less.

• Then you have a tweet of 140 characters. Hardly enough to include the organisation's name and what the Summer of Social Good is about.

• That 867,000 might be expected to generate a cash response of about 0.000001%. That's about 1 (or maybe 2 people) / tweet. I'm not talking about click throughs here as they will be higher - I just think the number of actual gifts, based on my experience of other media, might really be this low (if you know better, please get in touch - I'd love to be shown I'm wrong). 

• If @Mashable followers were asked ten times a day, that would generate up to 20 new gifts (at the higher end of my estimation). At $10 a go, that works out at $200 / day. Over the three months of the campaign, we might see $18,000 generated.

In the words of Kevin Keegan, I would love it if I was proved wrong. I love Twitter and I think @Mashable is a great resource and I want nothing but success for them both.

That's why, based on a fair amount of time at the coal face of raising funds, I would make the following recommendations to @Mashable about how they might improve the Summer of Social Good.

At the crux of the issue is the fact that people are most likely to give to charity when they feel involved and engaged. Normal tweets won't reach the emotional buttons that cause people to give.  If fundraising was as simple as asking for money, I'd be doing a very different job (ideally something to do with shark research).

If Twitter is going to raise serious amounts of money (outside of emergencies) we need to recognise that a different type of relationship is required. So to pay back Mashable for the huge amount of great ideas they have shared with us, here are the top ten tips of a humble fundraiser on how to make the Summer of Social Good more effective.

1. Make the ask personally

A direct message (DM) is better than a normal tweet. If that message is from @Mashable it's certainly going to be read, particularly if they address the reader by name. Rather than just ask someone to give, ask the people that you DM to let you know if they are going to give or not. It's harder work than putting out a general tweet, but as I've said, fundraising isn't easy.

2. Show people you value them

The most basic sign of recognition on Twitter is to follow people. It shows you are interested in them and what they have to say. I still don't fully understand why some very large charities follow so few of their followers back – this isn't about broadcasting, it's about connection. Obviously you want to avoid the pirates and the Britney vids, but following is the start of a relationship. It's a huge number to manage, but effort equals reward.

You could, of course, set up a second account - one for the day job and one for charity work (see point 5 on how to make it look different).

3. Justify the ask

A broad "please give $20" (or even $10 or $5) is never as effective as giving donors something tangible to do. I've posted before on the benefits of earmarking a recruitment gift. Organisations such as Nothing But Nets and Charity:Water (the latter helped Twestival raise $250,000) have grown very quickly through making the most of our desire to do something "real" to help people in need. So rather than just asking for money, ask people to give to do something like planting a tree or provide a meal for a real person.

Tweetsgiving, for example, raised over $11,000 in 48 hours through taking a focus on building a single school in Tanzania by asking for $10 a brick (and getting support from over 100 press and blog sources).

4. If you can't justify the ask - make it personal and relevant

The charities that will benefit from the Summer of Social Good are in the big league – The Humane Society of the US, Oxfam America, WWF and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. They will be looking for unrestricted funds that they can spend on broad areas of work. This is not a great way to motivate people so I'd suggest looking at other ways to make the ask engaging. 

One idea might be to place the focus on the donor and ask people to donate 1 cent for every follower they have as a sort of Twitter Tithe. It might be expensive for those with tens of thousands of followers, but would get people thinking. If you add a Twitter Tithe calculator you'll get people starting to interact as well.

It may even be something that might be attractive to the big twitter players who want to show they are doing their bit, which brings us to...

5. Give people a badge

The sticker on the lapel has worked as a means to thank and build social momentum for generations. In the UK , the poppy is seen everywhere in November and red noses sell in their millions raising money for Comic Relief. These symbols are so powerful that people feel left out if they aren't wearing them.

I've been impressed by the number of people going green with their Twitter icons in support of democracy in Iran. By giving people an opportunity to add a badge to their picture another reason for giving is created and the social momentum starts to build. A frame, flash or picture effect offered to people who give, could really help. These guys have the right idea.

Then give people a different badge

The credit card companies know that people like to be able demonstrate how rich or caring you are by what sort of card you use. Let people upgrade their badges when they give more money or recruit more people.

6. Test your message

Anyone involved in fundraising knows that testing and re-testing messages is the key to success. Many people think that charities don't really know that much about metrics. They couldn't be more wrong. Real success comes from knowing your data inside out. The current range of sample tweets available could be better.

People might want to brag about how good they are, but it must be subtle. These sample tweets are just too direct to be attractive to the donors I know.

By testing and analysing response, we'll learn what works.

7. Let people help in the way that works for them

Ask people to choose different responsibilities - giving money, getting the message out, recruiting others to give, blogging. Social networks have been used to raise money for centuries and anyone who has ever managed an appeal committee knows that you get people to do what they are best at AND what they actually want to do in order to reach your goal. A registration that allows someone to define themselves with a role (with a set of responsibilities) is much more powerful than just asking for a re-tweet or a small donation. Which links neatly to...

8. Focus the landing page on the donor

There must be about twenty logos on the current landing page. It's about everyone else other than the donor. Click through to the charities and it's just about them and their work. In the bottom left hand corner of the landing page there are some of the latest tweets - but that's about it. Donors want to see and hear about what they can do (going back to points 3, 4 and 7). It is a subtle difference that makes the difference between success and failure.

It may be that some form of reporting back is part of the next stage of the plan. If it is, why not tell potential supporters about it. Which brings us to...

9. Show someone the impact they have made

Show supporters how their money has made a difference. The team at Charity:Water are excellent at this. Another charity that has a very donor focussed approach is MSF.

10. Show people you know them

Once someone has engaged with the Summer of Social Good, recognise the fact in every communication. Don't drop back into the easy but largely ineffective (for fundraising) mass tweeting. Twitter, like blogs, represents a means to start the realtionship. From then on it's back to fundraising basics.

And finally

I'm relatively new to Twitter and blogging and maybe I don't know as much as some of the experts. I might have a rather red face come the end of August, but I think far too many charities have forgotten the basics of fundraising when it comes to new media. 

The majority of charity blogs, websites and twitter streams are about pumping out what the charity wants to say. It's when an organisation stops and asks the donor what they actually want to hear, that amazing things can happen. Twitter is a fantastic tool that allows us to listen (if we can be bothered to follow back our followers). I would suggest to charities that is where the secret of its power lies.

If you think I am misguided, mad or simply ignorant, please let me in on what you know.

Finally, if I've suggested things which are already in place, please accept my apologies. 

Pay what you choose

It seems the downturn in the amount of goods being donated to charity shops is continuing.

David Moir, head of policy at the Association of Charity Shops, is reported in The Guardian as saying:

"While we are getting reports from some members of increased demand, the main effect (of recession) is that people are not replacing their existing clothes.

"They may be selling some on eBay but they are definitely not donating them in the same volumes. When people are worried and money is tight, people tend to hoard.

"But we have, we are, and we will, continue to send out the message that unwanted clothing and other items can make an enormous difference if sold through charity shops."

Other charities are reporting a similar story. 

Cancer Research UK is desperate for stock and has recently launched a detox your wardrobe campaign to encourage people to donate unwanted clothes and accessories.

It's the same for BHF. Chief executive, Ken Blair reports that sales are up but stock supplies are down.

And at the end of 2008, Barbara Buckley, the PDSA's charity shop manager on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh was reporting that sales have increased 10 to 15 per cent on last year, with a large number of new customers:

'We've never seen many of them before,' she says. 'They're talking openly about their finances at the tills and all say they're very short of cash.'

Oxfam continues to buck the trend. I've already blogged about their partnership deal with M&S, which was launched a year ago this week (Oxfam offer a £5 M&S voucher for each bag of goods that contains at least one M&S item). It's reported that this has raised an additional £1.7m over the last 12 months. 

Innovative on-line thinking has also driven sales. Oxfam's web shop now sells more than virtual and ethical gifts. A wide selection of donated goods are also available. As a result, year on year to this January, visits to the online shop have gone up by 200% and sales by 250%.

But there are new ideas being tested elsewhere too.

I was perusing my regular copy of the Wiltshire Times (incorporating Chippenham News) when I saw details of an experiment being undertaken by the Sue Ryder Care charity shop in Melksham.

From Monday, customers will be able to pay whatever they think goods are worth, as staff remove all fixed prices from donated items. It's an interesting approach. It re-positions the shop in the charity marketplace. Rather than simply being a fund-raising vehicle it becomes a community service too. 

As Helen Reynolds, business manger for the charity's shops in Wiltshire says:

“Hopefully it will help people who need that extra jumper or coat or cutlery, but can’t afford it."

This is a new dimension in appealing for donations. 

Oxfam is in reality buying stock with the M&S vouchers; Sue Ryder Care is saying to donors that clothes will go to people – who really need them – at the price they can afford. This, at a time of recession, may drive stock donations by giving people a chance to help the people of Melksham who have fallen on hard times. 

It will also be used as a means to determine if traditional pricing models are focussed too high or too low.

Helen cites Radiohead's, In Rainbows experiment as the inspiration for her test.

Choice and honour based pricing isn't new. The New York Times, Freakonomics blog, reports on a range of different businesses that have attempted it with various degrees of success. The latest being a test on Boxing Day.

I'd love to find out how the idea turned out in practice and I'll be trying to get in touch with Helen next week so I can report back on what happened.

But the whole test has got me thinking. Suggested donation levels are a normal part of cash fundraising. We use it in our postal appeals all the time. Sometimes people give more, sometimes they give less. What would happen in a charity shop if all prices were simply suggested – giving people permission to choose what they paid within a controlled framework? That would be interesting!

It makes me wish I was still in charge of the 100 odd YMCA charity shops that I used to have responsibility for.

What interests your donors?

Do you know what really interests your donors? 

How about this list? Do your donors care about any of these issues?

• How efficient you are.
• How green you are.
• How thrifty you are.
• How you monitor the effect of appeals and campaigns, whether TV ads or newspaper inserts, or radio appeals. 
• What criteria you use for judging success.
• What proportion of paid staff to volunteers your charity has.
• What proportion of people who sign up in the street immediately cancel once they get home? Or within a few weeks or months? 
• Why you are worthy of support.

They are all important to Redcookie, a regular contributor to Charitybloggers.com, a site that allows and encourages donors to talk about what they like (and dislike) about being a donor. 

Her point is raised in light of the recession but, quite honestly, it's as relevant to charities now as at any time...

"Given that all can justifiably say that in a world where all are touched by the economic crisis, however indirectly,  the need for aid/charity work is greater than ever, what will be the USP of each? How will, say, the various charities working in Africa differentiate themselves from each other? If many seem interchangeable to me, with my long-time history of donating, then charities really need to look at what they are telling the people to whom they are making their appeal. Maybe it’s just me but pictures of starving kiddies followed by beaming kiddies with nuns in the background is just too darn fluffy. I want something more focussed, harder-edged.I want to know why my cash should go to  Charity A not Charity B."

If you know what makes your charity different, do your donors? And does it make any difference to them? Is your point of difference real or simply a semantic one?

This simple description is taken directly from a charity website. If you don't know which one, try and guess before you click the link.

Xxxxxxxxxxx is a vibrant global movement of dedicated people fighting poverty. Together. Doing amazing work. Together. People power drives everything we do. From saving lives and developing projects that put poor people in charge of their lives and livelihoods, to campaigning for change that lasts. That’s Xxxxxxxxxxx in action.

It's a great approach but does it give a donor any reason to give? Does it offer a difference that a donor will care about? Will it get more supporters on board?

Few donors are specialists in the field of development (or cancer research, child care, disability or any other complex issue). Most are just great people who want to help. 

And what research tells us time and time again is that donors want to know exactly how they are (or will be) making a difference and how their gifts are being (or will be) used. In short, they want charities to take their needs into account and treat them like people.

That's what Redcookie is asking for. I'm sure that the first charity that tells her what she wants to hear will get her long lasting support.

A new resource

There are a fair few blogs around with a focus on fundraising and a big chunk of other ones  that look at management issues. But I haven't seen too many that look at management from a charity perspective.

We work in a very special industry. One where people are treated like people rather than staff members who are simply cogs in a machine. And I know from personal experience that sometimes this approach can be exploited. 

As managers, we give people the benefit of the doubt, think of how we can help rather than start investigations, and rarely even consider what less than honourable motivations could be driving someone's actions.

Bluefrogger, Matt Parkes has created a site that addresses this particular concern and other wider management issues (with a generous nod to fundraising) in his blog, parkeslife.

It's a great chance to share the thoughts of someone who has worked at a senior level in some very large UK charities – NSPCC, ChildLine, CAFOD. You never know what you are going to find when you visit, but you do know it will be useful.

Even if you build it, they might not come

If your head has been turned by the success of Kiva and you are thinking about how your charity might set up a similar direct giving product you need to know about FORGE.

FORGE was set up by Kjerstin Erickson, a Stanford University student, who spent a summer working at a refugee camp in Botswana. At the age of just 20, she decided to do something about the problems she had seen first hand and set up her own charity – FORGE.

The idea behind FORGE was simple – recruit and train US college based volunteers to work in partnership with refugees living in camps in Zambia and Botswana.

Over the last 5 years, FORGE has implemented more than 60 community development projects, it has a full-time staff of over 150 and has worked with communities of over 70,000 refugees.

Their fundraising model was simple. Each US student that wished to participate had to raise a minimum of $5,000 for the project. Over 50% of FORGE’s running costs were covered in this simple way.

However, FORGE changed the way it worked. Rather than use students, the charity placed the control of designing and implementing the projects directly in the hands of the refugees.

FORGE had great results on the ground and it was predicted that the funding gap could be filled through grants from trusts and other institutions. This, for various reasons, didn’t happen and FORGE was left with a big financial hole to fill.

Kjerstin’s response was to adopt the social networking fundraising model of organisations like Kiva and donorschoose. Their models were carefully studied and forgenow.org was created. It offered the opportunity to give a small gift – that would be added to donations from other individuals – to fund whole projects. Each of which was illustrated with great stories on the forgenow site

Just check the similarities out between Kiva and FORGE’s online mission graphics, to see just how closely FORGE had been looking at the KIVA model (note: FORGE will be changing their graphic so it may soon be disappearing from their site).

It didn’t work. They had a couple of mentions on CNN (Thanks Sundeep) but didn't get the same media coverage as the organisations they based their strategy on. 

As of November the 8^th (which was nearly six months after launch date) there were 25 projects available for funding. Sara Hall from New Philanthropy Advisors undertook a review and found that:

• 8 projects hadn’t received a penny
• 17 projects were funded or partially funded through gifts that were predominantly from FORGE staff
• 23 of the total 34 contributions listed were from FORGE or its three current paid staff members.
• 11 were from outside contributors.

With a $100,000 shortfall, Kjerstin decided to blog about the problem she faced. She was totally honest and open about her situation and it was picked up by Tactical Philanthropy blogger, Sean Stannard-Stockton.

Sean put her in touch with Curtis Chang, CEO of Consulting Within Reach who has been blogging on his thoughts and findings as he tries to get FORGE back onto an even keel with some very interesting references to Star Wars and Flash Gordon.

It’s not often that you can get so much free advice on implementing a brand new funding model. And if you want to find out exactly what has happened, I’d suggest a visit to Tactical Philanthropy and Social edge. Watching the drama unfold is not unlike watching an online soap opera. 

I don't think I'll be spoiling anything by saying that by the 12th of December, FORGE had already covered 55% of its shortfall and, as of today, got at least one new funder onboard.