Recently, a fundraiser mentioned to me that she wasn’t always good about checking her RSS reader. That’s why she was late thanking me for linking to her website in one of my posts.
That reminded me that it took me forever to embrace RSS (really simple syndication). I set up an RSS reader, Google Reader, but I was lackadaisical about checking the feeds and organizing them. I preferred just reading whatever came via email, such as newsletters and emailings of blog posts. Checking my RSS reader was one more chore I wasn’t really happy about.
At some point, however, I got serious about setting up a listening post so that I could monitor how well my blog posts were being picked up and linked to by other bloggers. As a result, I added my own blog to my reader and some Google Alerts for my own name and blog. I also added to the reader a couple of sites that could track links to my blog, such as Ice Rocket.
By tracking myself, I found the motivation to check the RSS reader frequently. I became fond of reading other blog posts in the reader too, and started adding more sites to the reader and then organizing them. To preserve the blog posts that I really liked and wanted to share with others, or use in my research, or wanted to read more carefully, I set up Delicious and started bookmarking those posts. Delicious allows tagging, so that became a way to organize posts by topic or keyword.
Now I am a devotee of RSS and check my RSS reader first thing every morning. I noticed that RSS has it all over email when it comes to tracking what other blogs are doing. Email feeds of blog posts typically arrive the day after the posting. Email newsletters are fine, but they do not contain breaking news and information. RSS brings blog posts to the reader almost immediately.
RSS is probably not on the top of most people’s list when they are on the Internet. I think that because when I compare the number of people who subscribe to my own weekly newsletter and the number of people who subscribe to my RSS feed, the newsletter is way more popular. I mean giant inequality here. I would characterize the difference as being like a horde compared to a handful.
There are some best practices when it comes to using RSS effectively I’ve found. The most obvious is to check the reader every day and dispose of the contents. It’s like your mail at the office…pitch, save, act on.
If you don’t “groom” your RSS reader frequently, the content grows rapidly and pretty soon you’re overwhelmed. That’s likely the reason people set up readers only to abandon them. Similarly, if you’re not getting much out of a particular blog’s posts, delete it from your reader. I find myself adding and deleting frequently. Once you have many subscriptions, you’ll want to start organizing them into folders if your reader has that capacity.
On the flip side, if you have a website or a blog, make sure your RSS button is really obvious for those of us who do use RSS. I frequently find myself searching all over a website for the RSS icon. I’m not even happy with the RSS icon on my own site, but don’t have control over it. If you’re in that situation, lobby for a bigger and more visible RSS button.
If you are interested in using RSS as part of your listening post, here are some resources:
- Listening 101: How to Enter the Social Media Conversation by Beth Kanter.
- Listening, bookmarking and aggregation on Social By Social.
- Listening Posts: The Six Free Listening Tools You Cannot Do Without by Debra Askanase.
- How To Set Up The Ultimate Listening Station Using Google Reader by Colin Alsheimer.
How are you listening? Do you use RSS or something else? What reader do you like? What other resources should we list here?
Photo by Getty Images
How I Went from RSS Like to RSS Love originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 06:05:38.
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I must have nonprofit boards on my mind recently, probably because I read and recently reviewed Before You Say Yes… by Doreen Pendgracs.
In any event, I came across a wonderful article at Blue Avocado, titled Ten Quick Ways to Invigorate Board Meetings. The article is from last year, but goes right to the basics of how to keep a board engaged. These are not fancy or expensive actions but very basic ones that sometimes we tend to forget. Here are a few of them:
- Give everyone name tags. Yes, do it even if the group has been together for a while. Why make people suffer the embarrassment and social awkwardness that results from forgetting someone’s name?
- Make a chart of frequently used external and internal acronyms. And don’t reply, “What acronyms?”
- Write an anticipated action for each agenda item. This is really a great idea. An example is “Public Policy Committee: Anticipated Action = approve organizational statement to city council on zoning changes.”
- Make sure each board member says at least one thing at every board meeting. The board chair should take the lead in encouraging everyone to speak, but all should help out.
- Encourage “dumb” questions, respectful dissent, and authentic disagreements. No one should ever be afraid to say “I don’t understand.” or to voice a contrary opinion.
There are
Related:
- Frustration or Pleasure? A Guide to Volunteer Board Service
- Is Your Nonprofit Board Bored? Eight Ways to Keep Them Awake
- Nonprofit Boards – Find Them, Feed Them, Put Them to Work
Photo by C Squared Studios/Getty Images
Name Tags? Acronyms? How to Make Board Meetings Better originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 06:00:42.
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Fundraising
Jeff Brooks, of Future Fundraising, hosted the Nonprofit Blog Carnival with an April Fool’s theme. I especially liked Katya’s “Don’t be a fool: It’s not about you” and the Bestow Community blog’s contribution, “The Well Endowed Fund.”
Do you know about Movie Mondays? It’s a wonderful resource for fundraisers. Let Marc Pitman, of the Fundraising Coach, tell you all about it in Movie Monday’s 100th Episode: Free Fundraising Videos.
Robert J Rosenthal, on Frogloop, slices and dices information from a study about volunteers and giving. In Taking Advantage of the Time-Money Relationship to Engage Both Volunteers and Donors, Robert provides some priceless tips about how to bridge the gap between managing volunteers and creating donors.
Websites and Blogs
Nancy Schwartz, of Getting Attention, tells us that “only 5 to 15% of your website users are coming in through your home page.” Nancy has some suggestions for us in her Nonprofit Marketing Wake-Up Call — 3 Right-Now Website Revisions.
Rebecca Leaman, of Wild Apricot, has the cure for writer’s block in her A Year’s Worth of Blog Topics Ideas. Do you have an editorial calendar?
Social Media
Shel Israel, author of Twitterville, tells us on his blog Why I don’t like Facebook ‘Likes’. The recent changes at Facebook don’t sit well with a lot of users.
BL Ochman, from whatsnextblog.com, writes about privacy issues at Facebook in Facebook Privacy Changes – Opportunity or Threat for Brands?
Are you following Dan Zarrella’s work? He dissects actual social media data to come up with an array of suggestions about how to best use these tools. He also has a new book out. On his blog, Dan recently said, Simple Language Gets Shared More on Facebook. Check out the related articles at the end of his post and you may be reading for a while.
Beth Kanter also goes deeply into social media strategy on her always compelling blog. Recently she exercised my brain with, Spreadsheet Aerobics: Actionable Measurement for Social Media.
Grants
Pamela Grow provided some excellent advice to grant writers in her recent Grow Report. Not all funders are worth approaching, Pamela says, and sometimes, “…a major funder has so many hurdles and is thus a ’7-foot bar’ – making you more likely to trip up and, even if you are successful through a herculean effort, more than likely you can garner the same rewards with less effort.”
Giving
Brit Bravo, of Have Fun, Do Good, provides many Do-Good Mother’s Day Gift and Donation Ideas. Flowers to e-cards, it’s all here.
Food for Thought
Lucy Bernholz, of Philanthropy 2173, writes eloquently about how best to marry technology and social good in Considering Assumptions. She says, “Thinking about how global + connected changes our assumptions is key. Cell phone access and connectivity by themselves solve nothing…. And good intentions are not enough.”
Webinars You Don’t Want to Miss
The Stanford Social Innovation Review is sponsoring a webinar titled “The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle” on May 12. Find out more and register.
Blackbaud is offering “Wealth and Philanthropy in America: Target Affluent Prospects to Sustain Your Annual and Major Gift Programs” on May 11. Do you know the difference between wealthy donors and affluent donors? Register here for this free webinar.
Photo by Getty Images
Best Links: Writer’s Block to NPO Starvation Cycle originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 at 06:00:42.
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Facebook is more popular than ever among nonprofits, says a recent report by NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network.
A survey was done earlier this year of more than 1,000 nonprofits about how the organizations use online social networks. The survey asked about the use of commercial social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, for example, and about building their own “house social networks.”
Nonprofits use…More…
Photo: Getty Images
Facebook Still Growing as #1 Social Networking Site for Nonprofits originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 06:00:51.
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Serving on a volunteer board of directors can be a study in frustration or one of the great pleasures of your life.
If you and the organization are not well matched, you may well be bored at best and appalled at worst. But when both volunteer board member and organization are in tune with one another, each giving what they should to the other, the experience can be both personally and professionally rewarding.
Doreen Pendgracs, a veteran board member and a skillful writer, has written a friendly guide that everyone should read before they decide to serve on a board. Before You Say Yes…A Guide to the Pleasures and Pitfalls of Volunteer Boards (Dundurn Press, 2010) answers all those questions you have and even those you haven’t yet thought of. The book is useful whether you serve on your homeowner’s association board, a nonprofit board, your church board, or a business and professionally oriented board…More…
Frustration or Pleasure? A Guide to Volunteer Board Service originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 06:00:55.
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Today is World Malaria Day and there is a great campaign going on to raise money for long lasting insecticide treated nets that will prevent deaths in Africa.
Kari Dunn Saratovsky, of the Social Citizens Blog, has a wonderful summary of all the activity, from the campaign by The Case Foundation, Twitter, and Malaria No More, to the 50 Social Media Envoys who responded to the UN Envoy for Malaria call for an online campaign, to the World Bank’s move to cover half of the 50 million “bed net gap.”
Here is what you can do right now to help by Tweeting, texting, or both to “End Malaria”:
- Tweet this message to make a $10 donation to Malaria No More: RT: Malaria kills a child every 30 secs. Nets #endmalaria. So do RTs. RT2Give $10 http://rt2give.com/t/425 Or visit Twitter’s RT for Malaria page where you can simply click to send the message. If you already have an account through Twitpay, you’ll receive a direct message from @Twitpay asking for confirmation. If you don’t have an account, @Twitpay will send you an @reply message with simple instructions on how to enroll.
- Text ‘NET’ to 85944 to make a $10 donation to Malaria No More. (A $10 donation will be charged to your mobile phone bill. Messaging and data rates may apply)
- Add hashtag(s) #endmalaria, #malaria, #malariaday and/or #worldmalariaday to your tweets and the hastags will trigger the addition of clickable mosquito icons to the tweet that will take you to Hope140.org/EndMalaria
Get busy. The Case Foundation is matching every Twitter $10 donation through April 27th, up to $25,000.
Related:
- Mobile Giving – How to Make it Work for Your Nonprofit
- Text-to-Give Fundraising Campaigns Take Off
- 5 Reasons You’ll Love Twitterville
Photo courtesy of Malaria No More
Tweeting and Texting for Malaria No More originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Sunday, April 25th, 2010 at 06:00:12.
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We often associate Parkinson’s Disease with older people, but the fact is that Parkinson’s can strike people of any age.
Brandi Roman, a nurse in Great Falls, Montana, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s just before her 26th birthday. That was three years ago. This summer, Brandi will climb Granite Peak, the highest mountain in Montana, in order to both prove herself and to symbolize the fight against this disease.
With no cure yet in sight, Parkinson’s affects one million people in the U.S. alone. That is why April is National Parkinson’s Awareness Month. Brandi and her friends (along with her dog, Rufus) are raising funds and spreading the word through their website, Summit 4 Parkinson’s.
Brandi says, “I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in April of 2006. For 3 years I kept my diagnosis to myself and learned about the disease. This year I’m ready to talk about it and tell people what I’ve learned.
“Our mission is simple: To give back to the Parkinson’s community and further research. Parkinson’s disease currently effects around a million people in the United States, roughly 1 in 272 people have the disease. It is also estimated that 1.10% of the U. S. population, or 1 in 90 people, have the disease and do not yet know it. These numbers show that Parkinson’s disease is becoming a common condition. Chances are you know someone who was or is affected by this condition. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 25.
“We believe in helping others. We are currently working to establish a “Help! Fund” that will provide resources to Parkinson’s patients who need assistance affording medications and treatment. We also believe in hard work and healthy living. As a person with Parkinson’s disease I rely on a healthy diet and an active life style to stay mobile longer. I want to inspire others to do the same. In August 2010 I will attempt to climb the highest mountain in Montana (Granite Peak, elevation 12,799), the climb will be dedicated to all those living and caring for people with Parkinson’s disease. My name is Brandi Roman I’m 28. “I have Parkinson’s disease, but Parkinson’s disease does NOT have me.”
What You Can Do
- Donate to Summit 4 Parkinson’s. You can read more about Brandi in this recent article in the Great Falls Tribune.
- Get involved through the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation
- Raise awareness through National Parkinson’s Awareness Month
Do you want to be our Cause of the Week? Tell us who you are and why you should be featured in our blog right here. We would love to hear from you.
Photo: Brandi and Rufus, Defying Parkinson’s by Climbing a Mountain
Cause of the Week: Summit 4 Parkinson’s originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Friday, April 23rd, 2010 at 06:00:14.
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Cause Marketing
Have you seen the pink buckets of chicken from KFC? Komen for the Cure and KFC have joined forces to raise money for breast cancer research. But have they gone too far? Joe Waters, of Selfish Giving, explores that question in Komen’s Cause Marketing Program Isn’t ‘Finger-Lickin’ Good Be sure to read all the comments on this one.
Nancy Schwartz, of Getting Attention, says in How a Nonprofit Brand Goes Bust that the KFC/Komen pink bucket campaign is like finding out that “your spouse has been having a long-term affair, while you and the rest of the family were carrying on with life based on the assumption that s/he was in. The person you thought you knew is really someone different, which kills your trust of him/her across the board.”
Fundraising
The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently released new stats about online giving. It found that Online Giving Continues to Grow but at a Slower Pace. You’ll need a subscription to read the entire article.
Jesse Feller, of the Event Fundraising Blog, provides an extensive overview of mobile giving, how it works, and tips for getting started in Mobile Fundraising for Nonprofits. Farra Trompeter, of Duck Call, also provides 10 ways to embrace mobile @ your nonprofit.
Marc Pitman, the Fundraising Coach, answers the question, Are there creative ways to publicly thank donors? Yep, and Marc has several suggestions.
Websites
Kivi Leroux Miller brought a collection of tips about website optimization back from the NTC. She posts them in Improve Your Nonprofit Website’s Search Results. SEO is so important and ever changing. This will help.
Social Media
Ah, Facebook is my Waterloo. Is it yours? Katya Andresen provides some interesting real-world, nonprofit stats and suggests questions you need to ask yourself about your Facebook presence. If you’re confused by the whole “like” versus “fan” business, Katya provides some clarification in My Facebook fans love me, they love me not…
Among nonprofits that are using social media to great effect, the American Red Cross is leading the pack. Debra Askanase, of Community Organizer 2.0, tells us how and Why the American Red Cross Listens Online.
If your organization isn’t as adept at social media as others, maybe you need to get your Executive Director more involved. Allison Fine has some suggestions for doing that in One First Step for EDs. Lots of good ideas in the comments here too.
Giving
I love creative lists of ways to do good for everyday givers who have little time and/or money. Mashable has put together a terrific list in 9 Ways to Do Good With 5 Minutes or $25. There are some things here that you might not have heard about.
Food for Thought
Why Would the Library of Congress want the Twitter archive? Let Shel Israel explain in Twitter’s Wormhole Week. Billions of tweets from the likes of you and me.
On my way back from the mailbox this morning, I talked to my next door neighbor about her upcoming jury duty. I then chatted, via Twitter, with a professional peer across the country. So what is community these days? Laurie Pringle, of Charity Chatter, ponders that question and provides some thoughtful suggestions for nonprofits in Redefining Community & Communitarians.
Photo by Getty Images
Best Links: Pink Buckets, Everyday Giving, SEO for NPOs originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 06:00:26.
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Free at Ning, the celebrated networking service, came crashing down recently, signalling the end of FREE on the Internet.
Now Ning will pamper its premium clients, who will pay an assortment of fees, depending on the services chosen. Some of those “add-ons” include service itself. Yes, to get someone to answer a question apparently, the basic rate is $10 per month. To stop being an advertising pawn and get a site that is Ning-ad-free will cost $25 per month. Additional bandwidth and storage will cost too, but then that seems only fair.
Was FREE an illusion all along? It reminds me of when my daughter went off to a fancy college with support that was almost a full ride, but then the second year, we ponied up at least half of that ride. Of course we wanted her there and would have mortgaged our lives to keep her there.
What is the lesson for nonprofits here? Well, don’t depend on FREE. Include suitable funding for social networking efforts and online fundraising. Also, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. All of these Internet services, from Facebook and Myspace to Twitter and GMail, can turn on a dime (no pun intended) and start nickeling and diming your budget to death, or, even worse, simply disappear. Yeah, lots of services make allowances for nonprofits, but don’t count on that dispensation. Heck, even the city where you exist might be reconsidering some of those tax breaks you’ve always counted on.
Start thinking more like a business in some ways. Build a decent budget and infrastructure, invest in excellent staff, and don’t wear those rose-colored glasses. Good intentions won’t substitute for realism.
This article at Mashable explores the Ning reversal and suggests some other, still free, services. Beth Kanter goes deep about the implications of the Ning decision in The Cost of Free Technology for Nonprofits: Thoughts On Ning.
Related:
- Making Nonprofits More Entrepreneurial
- Social Networking Is Investment in the Future
- Jump Start Your Nonprofit Social Media
Internet FREE Turns to Nickle & Diming Us to Death originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 06:00:00.
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Robert Cialdini, author and speaker, may remind you of one of PBS’s ubiquitous programs about motivation (think of Dr. Wayne W. Dyer) or a television evangelist such as Robert Schuller, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t spot on.
Cialdini combines the common sense of a Norman Vincent Peale with modern social psychology to distill the “six principles of persuasion” that pretty much exemplify the tenets of advertising, public relations, and fundraising in the world today.
I was reminded of these principles by Tim Ash in a terrific article in Website Magazine, driving me to revisit them at Cialdini’s website, InfluenceAtWork.com.
I suggest that if you are not familiar with Cialdini’s work, you visit the website and take the Influence Quotient Test. You’ll see how badly, or not, you need to review the basics of persuasion.
Those six tenets, according to Cialdini, are as follows:
- Reciprocation. People want to return favors. Giving small unsolicited gifts will often result in the recipient feeling an outsized obligation to return the favor.
- Scarcity. We want what we can’t have. Perceived scarcity generates more demand.
- Authority. It must be true if an expert says it is. We all tend to revere authority figures, or even just those with the trappings of authority.
- Consistency. If a person publicly takes a stand on a particular idea or goal, he or she is more likely to keep that commitment, putting into action the stated belief/goal.
- Consensus. People look for “social proof.” They want to know that other people took the same action they are contemplating and under similar circumstances.
- Liking. We are more easily persuaded by people we like and are attracted to.
Naturally, there are a jillion permutations of these principles, and Tim Ash, in his Website Magazine article, points out a few, ala Robert Cialdini.
For example, in regard to authority, Ash asks, how do you establish authority, credibility, and knowledge when you have just a short time to do it? The answer is to accentuate the negative first. Confess to the weaknesses and drawbacks of your product, service, or argument before presenting the compelling part of your pitch. This shows knowledge of the pros and cons and establishes trust because you are willing to reveal the negative.
As for consensus and social proof, we need to consider the Many others who agree and the Comparable others who do so. The Many implies that something is a “hit” in your community. This creates momentum that makes it hard for people to resist.
Comparability is about how similar someone else is to you. I will not be terribly influenced by actions of people with whom I do not identify. The closer your appeal is aligned with the customer’s (or donor’s) particular circumstances, the better. This is especially crucial for testimonials. They should not just come from experts, but also from peers.
In fundraising circles, these principles are very popular, as well they should be. They are simple and yet subtle, allowing for many ways of persuading volunteers to show up, donors to give, and supporters to act.
Related:
Photo by Andrew Ward/Life File/Getty Images
Robert’s Rules of Persuasion: Both Powerful and Subtle originally appeared on About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 06:00:07.
