Building Participation through
Social Networking
Minnesota Council of Nonprofits
Annual Conference
www.mncn.org
October 3, 2008
Jono Smith
Network for Good
www.networkforgood.org

About Network for Good
• Network for Good is a 501(c)3 nonprofit,
founded in 2001 by AOL, Yahoo! & Cisco
• Our mission is to make it easier for nonprofits to
raise money online, and for people to give online
• Network for Good has processed over $200
million in donations for over 30,000 nonprofits.
• We manage all of the online fundraising on
Facebook and MySpace

Agenda: What I Will Cover
“Attendees can expect to leave this session armed with
practical strategies and tactics about how to start using
social networking tools...”
• The “Web 1.0” Stuff
– Basic Internet Marketing Strategy for Nonprofits
• The “Web 2.0” World
– What is it?
– What can I achieve?
– Selecting and implementing the right strategy & tools
• The Case Studies
– How TNC engaged a new audience on Flickr
– How Kevin Bacon Flipped the Funnel for Nonprofits
– What’s the deal with Causes on Facebook?

Reality Check
Social networks are
not a silver bullet for
online fundraising.

First things first
• Who has a website?
– Can you collect email addresses on your website?
– Can you accept online donations on your website?
• How does your website engage your audience?
– Do you use website design strategically?
– Do you provide relevant content?
– Do you tell your story through pictures, videos, or podcasts?
– Do you have a blog?
• How do people find your website?
– Do you use email marketing to drive traffic back to your website?
– Can people find your website in search engines?
– Do your publish your URL on every communication,
both online and offline?

Why Online Giving is the Great Equalizer
• At Network for Good, 50% the donations
go to 1% of charities (excluding crisis
giving)
• The rest – 25,000 nonprofits – are spread
out along the long tail
• Small to medium-sized nonprofits account
for 70% of giving via Network for Good

The Long Tail of Online Fundraising
• Because any nonprofit of any size can do it
• Because it’s drastically less expensive and more
efficient than conventional fundraising

Who Is Giving Online?*
• Online givers are young (38-39 years old)
• They are generous -- ($163)
• Men and women give online in equal
numbers
• Virtually all (96%) have given to charity
before, but 38% haven’t given online
before
*Network for Good Study, “The Young and Generous”

Online Fundraising in a Web 2.0 World

Definition
Web 2.0 is about people using
technologies to get the things they
need from each other, rather than
from traditional institutions like
corporations (or nonprofits!)
Adapted from Groundswell by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff

The 3-step approach to Web 2.0
People
• Focus on where people are
Objectives
• Decide what you want to accomplish (hint:
community first, fundraising second)
Strategy, Tactics, & Technology
• Avoid “random acts of marketing.”
• Don’t be just another fool with a tool
Adapted from Groundswell by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff

4 Strategic Goals for Web 2.0
1. Find people who are passionate about your
cause
2. Grow people’s awareness & familiarity with
your organization
3. Amplify word-of-mouth & grow your email list
4. Inspire people to visit your website and engage
with you

Tools to find supporters and monitor them

Tools to engage a new or existing audience
Online photo management & sharing
application—has two main goals:
1. We want to help people make their
content available to the people who
matter to them.
2. We want to enable new ways of
organizing photos and video.

The Nature Conservancy Flickr Campaign
• Launched an annual digital photography contest on Flickr
• Promised winners of contest placement for their photos in the
annual member calendar and nature.org web site
• Ran integrated campaign with e-mail cultivations, search
engine ads and social networks to draw in both members and
new leads
• Allowed entrants to participate solely on Flickr, but also by
sending photos directly (w/ opt-out registration for our list)
• TNC picked the finalists, but let the public vote on the winners
• Never asked for money, only for engagement
Source: Jonathon D. Colman: Associate Director, Digital Marketing at The Nature Conservancy

Outcomes
• Over 8,500 members of TNC’s photo group on Flickr who
have shared nearly 94,000 photos (~11 photos per member)
• One of the largest nonprofit groups on Flickr to date
• Great, positive feedback from members and new prospects
• Coverage for (and many links to) our photo contest in
numerous photography and nature picture blogs, discussion
boards
• Over 10% click-through rate on ads promoting the contest
• Over 7,200 new e-members registered
• Over 5,000 votes for 2006 contest; over 17,000 votes for 2007
Source: Jonathon D. Colman: Associate Director, Digital Marketing at The Nature Conservancy

Strategy: Person-to-Person Fundraising
The process of gathering money and other gifts in kind,
by empowering individuals to solicit from and
communicate with prospective donors of their own
choosing through the use of Web 2.0 (i.e., blogs,
widgets, images, video, face-to-face interactions and
other social media).
Synonyms: group fundraising, personal fundraising, viral
fundraising, grassroots fundraising, peer-to-peer fundraising.
Source: Peter Deitz, Social Actions, Founder

Fundraising Widgets
A person-to-person
fundraising widget is an
online tool that permits a
portion of one webpage to
appear on other webpages.
These multiple appearances
look exactly the same and
can be updated from a
single source.

Meet the Wired Fundraiser
• A wired fundraiser is a word-of-
mouth maven who is highly
effective at fundraising for a cause
in an ever-widening personal
sphere of influence online. They
are naturals at connecting to
others.
• They are very good at what they
do for a simple reason: people are
most likely to give when someone
they know asks them (2006 Cone
Nonprofit Research).

Personal Motivation: Robin Maxwell
“I’m a runner and a tri-athlete, and the
mother of two small children, and girl scout
leader. I went from being totally normal
and healthy to facing a life of paralysis and
future disability, and those were really,
really dark days, those first two weeks.”
--Robin, MS Society Blue Ridge Chapter

Robin’s Story

Why P2P Widgets work
How to make it work: Why it works:
• Popular • Conversation
• Easy • Authentic
• Rewarding • Story
• Fun • Translates into Action
• Cultivate
• Tangible

Causes on Facebook
The Causes
application for
Facebook adds the
ability to solicit and
make donations
from within
Facebook.

Causes on Facebook
• Allows American and
Canadian 501(c)(3)s to
recruit supporters and
fundraise directly on
Facebook
• Raised $3.2MM for
25,000 charities since
June 2007
• 13MM total installs, 5MM
monthly active users

Facebook Cause: Love Without Boundaries
• Has raised over $150,000 from
4,115 donors.
• A small nonprofit with just 3%
overhead and an all-volunteer
staff, Love Without Boundaries
seeks to give medical care to
orphans in China in hopes of
readying them for adoption.
• Their staff, who are older, non-
traditional Facebook users, were
able to spread the cause through
their social network, bringing in
thousands of Facebook users
who had never before heard of
their small nonprofit.

Love Without Boundaries
“…every bit of the fundraising was done by
people like me, recruiting friends and
sending emails. The old model--wooing
big donors--requires considerable time
and expense, albeit with bigger payoffs.”

Lessons Learned
1. Focus on audience values not your own
2. Choose the right messenger
– Think like the Marine Corps: the few, the
proud
3. Have faith in your audience
4. Provide a sense of urgency
5. Plug your wired fundraisers into great
tools & resources
6. Trust leads to results

Facebook Resources
For tips and resources, visit:
• http://www.fundraising123.org/social-networking
Including:
• Starting a Cause on Facebook
• Everything You Need to Know About
Using Facebook as a Nonprofit Marketing
Tool

Measurement Ingredients
Engagement & Reach Earned Media
•Offline media mentions
•Page Impressions, Visits, Unique Visitors
•Online media mentions
•Time Spent, Pages per visitor
•Emails opened, click-throughs
•Videos viewed, audio plays
Search Visibility
•Higher search results
•Greater search results “share”
Word of Mouth •3rd party results
•Number of Mentions, Posts, Comments
•Recommendations Research
•Mentions-per-user
•Send This To A Friend •Customer/stakeholder feedback
•Inbound links •Product sampling
Source: Qui Diaz, Livingston Communications: www.livingstonbuzz.com

4 Rules for Fundraising & Marketing in a Web 2.0 World
• Don’t let your online presence be just a “brochure”
website
• Go to where people are, using the infinite variety of
the Internet
• Flip the funnel: Tap into user participation (person-
to-person fundraising, wired fundraisers, social
media)
• Don’t get carried away by the hype; you still need all
the offline stuff

Closing Thought…
Inspiration + Know
how + Tools =
Change the World

Contact
• Jono Smith, Director of Marketing
Network for Good
240.482.3211
jono.smith@networkforgood.org
• Website: www.networkforgood.org/npo
• Learning Center: www.fundraising123.org
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jonosmith

References
• Beth Kanter’s Blog: beth.typepad.com
• Nonprofit Marketing Blog: www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com
• The Nature Conservancy: www.nature.org
• Peter Dietz/Social Actions: blog.socialactions.com
• The Buzz Bin: www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog