Tag Archives: fundraising

Net Tuesday February 1: Should your nonprofit be selling merchandise?

Net Tuesday - Should your nonprofit be selling merchandise?

Did your favorite nonprofit group send you an email over the holiday campaign season inviting you to buy a calendar, a t-shirt, or baby onesie?

As nonprofits struggle to adapt to changing donation patterns organizations like CPAWS, WWF and Pivot Legal are diversifying their revenue streams by selling merchandise to their supporters. But merchandise programs bring with them a host of new challenges, including inventory management, distraction from the core mission, and the potential to divert donors to a gift stream with lower net revenue.

But merchandise sales also bring lots of potential benefits. Join a panel of experts at Net Tuesday February and learn if selling merchandise is right for your organization.

Issues tackled:

What makes for a successful sales program?
How do you determine your program’s goals?
How do you setup a program that will meet your goals?
Will merchandise clash with your organization’s values?
Can merchandise sales support other organizational goals besides fundraising? How can it be used as an employment creation program?

It’s gonna be an awesome evening, so please RSVP.

Date: Tuesday, February 1
Doors: 5:30pm
Duration: 6:00 – 7:30pm
Venue: W2 Storyeum, 151 W Cordova

RSVP on Meetup or Facebook.

PANELISTS

Denise Taschereau, Fairware Promotional Products
Akua Schatz, David Suzuki Foundation
Paul Ryan, Hope in Shadows

September’s Net Tuesday Vancouver has panelists

Meet your panelists:

BEN JOHNSON, Union Gospel Mission

Ben is an online marketing and research specialist. He’s raised over $1MM in donations online, currently works in the development department at Union Gospel Mission, and thinks email is the next big fundraising tool.

blog: http://979s.com.
email: [email protected]
linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/mrbenjohnson/

SHANNON DAUD, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Shannon Daub is the CCPA-BC’s communications director and co-lead for the organization’s national online communications team.

email: [email protected]

facebook: facebook.com/shannon.daub

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is a research institute focused on social, economic and environmental justice. The CCPA works closely with social movement groups to support education and mobilization efforts by bringing providing information, analysis and solutions in areas like climate justice, economic policy, health care, education, human rights and more. www.policyalternatives.ca • www.policynote.ca

DUNCAN OWEN, David Suzuki Foundation
Duncan has been with the David Suzuki Foundation for 1 ½ years focusing on fundraising campaigns (direct mail, telemarketing, email), supervising day to day operations of the donor relations team and looking to find innovation and efficiencies.

He’s got book learning too, including a Bachelor of Multimedia (Business Marketing) and a Graduate certificate of digital and direct marketing.

Born and raised in Melbourne, Duncan has been in Vancouver for 3 years.

linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/duncan-owen/23/a4/527

Net Tuesday event notes: Event-based fundraising

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Yahoo!

Last week’s Net Tuesday event was everything I could have hoped for. It’s been almost a year since I took over Vancouver’s Net Tuesday meetup from Joe Solomon and I’m thrilled with the evolution of the event. There’s now a strong presence from local nonprofits every month, and because the events have become less technical we’re getting questions from people outside Vancouver’s Technorati.

Image via CrunchBase

As always it’s the folks who volunteer to be speakers that make Net Tuesday work. Mad props to Sarah Hall for sharing her fundraising wisdom, love to Rob from Mobio for the smooth introduction to their iPhone app, and most especially to everyone who came out. You ask good, hard questions and the presenters love how engaged you are.

Twitter:

The group decided that we’d all use the hashtag #ntvan because it’s short and clear. So if you’re commenting on Net Tuesday Vancouver on Twitter please append a “#ntvan” to your tweet.

And why should you bother using hashtags? Because you can do cool things like the automated event summary on http://hummingbird604.com/

So, what did we learn this month? That there’s clearly no clear answers when it comes to friends-asking-friends fundraising platforms. There’s a TON of tools and there’s no obvious winner among the bunch. Based on your particular needs you’ll have to do some laborious research to find what’s best for you.

But Sarah’s best practices for fundraising apply to ALL of the online fundraising platforms, so give her slides another look (see below).

Notes from the Canadian Cancer Society’s Sarah Hall: (with annotations by Eli)

[slideshare id=2518828&doc=bbuc2009ifesevent360final-091117073408-phpapp01]

Facebook causes – stops working in Canada as of May 31, 2010
Give Meaning – Vancouver-based
Artez – Toronto-based
Blackbaud Sphere/Kintera – not cheap!
Convio / Get Active -also not cheap!
Democracy in Action – A nonprofit Company
Salesforce.com – free licenses to the to the core product for charitable nonprofits.
Raisin
Chip In – a widget for accepting Paypal donations. You don’t need to be a nonprofit
Pinc Giving – based in Delta, BC
Canada Helps – if you’re a registered Canadian charity you’ve already got a page here. Includes giving pages that anyone can setup. (thanks Ben for the correction)
Paypal – love ’em, hate ’em… they’re ubiquitous and easy to use.
Gift Tool – Vancouver-based.
Civicrm.org – opensource software… the sandbox demo they offer is quite impressive.

Also recommended – checking out NTEN and Techsoup to read more.
And checking out Beth Kanter’s blog.

Facebook Causes donations no longer accepted in Canada

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Update: June 27

Causes offers some back-story on the situation:

CanadaHelps’ donation processor, Chase Payment Tech, contacted Causes and insisted that we drastically alter our security standards as they relate to the processing of donations. We are working to find a way to meet these standards without adversely affecting users’ experience or undermining Causes’ ability to provide its donation platform to Canadian nonprofits for free.

So as of May 31 Causes will no longer accept donations for Canadian charities.

===================

Most of my lies are unintentional.

Like when I suggested at the last Net Tuesday that Facebook Causes was a good introductory way to experiment with friends-asking-friends donations. That particular lie was unintentional.

Thankfully Darian Kovacs of Venus Marketing set me straight by letting Net Tuesday know that as of May 31 Causes and Canada Helps (who processes the donations for Causes) are splitting up. This isn’t going to affect the American charities on Facebook Causes, but it means you won’t be able to donate to your favorite Canadian charity on Facebook. Which would be a shame, because Causes’s Birthday feature actually works at raising money.

Damn. I hate it when Mom and Dad fight.

Anyone know the full story?

Here’s the message Canada Helps sent out:

Dear charity,

As of May 31st, 2010, Causes on Facebook will no longer support donations to Canadian charities. Charities and donors will be unable to fundraise using the Causes on Facebook application after this date.

While CanadaHelps has attempted to work with Causes for a different outcome, Causes on Facebook has chosen not to meet the security standards that are required to process credit cards and work with CanadaHelps in the Canadian market.

CanadaHelps puts the safety and security of your donors first. As part of our mandate as a charitable foundation, we provide charities with cost-effective online fundraising solutions that are safe, secure, and trustworthy. We thank you for your continued use of CanadaHelps. We continue to look for alternatives for charities and donors to use Facebook as a fundraising platform.

If you have questions or comments about the decision to stop supporting Canadian fundraising on Facebook, please direct them to Causes on Facebook at [email protected], (510) 981-0790 or
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about. If you have questions for CanadaHelps, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with our Director of Program Development, Zenia Wadhwani ([email protected]).

Sincerely,
Owen Charters
Executive Director

Causes sent this to Canadian charities on May 12, 2010

We are writing to let you know you that after May 31, 2010 it may no longer be possible for users to make donations to Canadian charities on the Causes platform.

Recently, CanadaHelps’ donation processor, Chase Payment Tech, contacted Causes and insisted that we drastically alter our security standards as they relate to the processing of donations. We are working to find a way to meet these standards without adversely affecting users’ experience or undermining Causes’ ability to provide its donation platform to Canadian nonprofits for free.

We will keep you updated as these discussions progress. Moreover, the Causes Team will continue to support your work and answer any questions you may have. Whatever the outcome, all other cause functionality will remain operational after May. Do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected]

Sincerely,

The Causes Team
[email protected]

Causes sent this to Canadian charities on May 14, 2010

Dear THE DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION (Canada),

We are writing to let you know you that after May 31, 2010 it may no longer be possible for users to make donations to Canadian charities on the Causes platform.

Recently, CanadaHelps’ donation processor, Chase Payment Tech, contacted Causes and insisted that we drastically alter our security standards as they relate to the processing of donations. We are working to find a way to meet these standards without adversely affecting users’ experience or undermining Causes’ ability to provide its donation platform to Canadian nonprofits for free.

We will keep you updated as these discussions progress. Moreover, the Causes Team will continue to support your work and answer any questions you may have. Whatever the outcome, all other cause functionality will remain operational after May. Do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected]

Sincerely,

The Causes Team

[email protected]

Our mailing address is:

Causes

2105 Martin Luther King Jr Way

Berkeley, CA 94704

Causes sent this to Canadian charities June 1, 2010

Last month, you should have received an email from Causes about our donation services in Canada. We regret to inform you that we have been unable to reach an agreement with our transaction-processing provider that would allow us to continue processing donations in Canada without introducing substantial fees. As a result, Causes has temporarily suspended donation collection for Canadian charities. We will continue to look for ways to re-open this functionality in the near future.

The good news is that while Canadian charities will not be able to collect donations on Causes, they will be able to use the other tools on the platform to build communities, spread awareness, and run advocacy campaigns. We very much value each of our Canadian partners and hope that Causes remains a core part of their online strategy.

We apologize for the inconvenience and welcome your feedback at [email protected]

It has always been our goal to provide nonprofits and activists with online fundraising tools that are both easy to use and affordable. This vision will continue to guide our work and we look forward to helping you achieve your mission.
Sincerely,

The Causes Team
[email protected]

Net Tuesday May 4: Event-based fundraising

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May’s Net Tuesday has been scheduled, with a focus on event-based and friend-asking-friend fundraising.

RSVP now

The event will be anchored by Sarah Hall, Online Giving Specialist at the Canadian Cancer Society. She’ll share some case studies and best practices.

But wait, there’s more:

a quick survey of entry-level online tools for friend-asking-friend fundraising
http://fundrazr.com/ – a Facebook application that helps you manage events
Mobio, maker of an iPhone application that uses bar codes for payment (download the application ahead of time to play along)
and maybe even a Twestival postmortem.

Haven’t whet your appetite enough yet?

Then check out an earlier version of Sarah Hall’s slide deck and RSVP for the event.

[slideshare id=2518828&doc=bbuc2009ifesevent360final-091117073408-phpapp01]