YouTube and you

By now as a successful nonprofit you are probably getting very well acquainted with social media. But have you thought about YouTube? A recent article on Mashable, the social media website, details the success nonprofits have had in using YouTube and its nonprofit friendly tools to raise friends and funds.

The key is to make a compelling video. Whether you handle in-house or ask a volunteer to supply, the message has to grab people. YouTube will allow you to annotate your media message with key information as well as a call to action. Don’t forget to link to your donation page on your website and be aware of the importance of using keywords with regard to search.

Finally, use YouTube Insight, a version of Google Analytics, to measure how well you are doing and to tweak your product.

More on social media

The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project is a great snapshot of the use of social media by young adults. This is particularly important for nonprofits seeking to reach this population.

The study shows a decline in blogging among teens and young adults but a small rise in adults 30+. This decline was related to the growth of social media network sites with 72% of young adults using them.

Though the Idealware survey talks about Twitter, be aware that teens and young adults are not big users of the site. Facebook is the king of social networks for adults.

Cause to Communicate loves reading these market research studies. There are gems in there if you look hard enough that will make your fundraising efforts more successful.

New Year/New Decade/New Approach

Though I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, I do find that after the holiday vacation it’s the perfect time to come back to work with some new approaches to liven up the year. So, I challenge you to come up with some ideas for how you would freshen your fund development and nonprofit marketing efforts for the year.

Some things to consider:
• Have you been using your board of directors effectively as advocates and fundraisers?

• Have you told your donors “thanks” and kept them informed about new plans?

• 2010 may be the perfect time to reach out to a new market. Do you have a plan to communicate with a younger generation?

• 2010 is also the year to become more digital in your approach. If you are not on Facebook and Twitter, are you planning to include in your marketing efforts?

• Have you considered partnering with another nonprofit to achieve results?

• Have you developed an annual plan for your marketing and communications efforts? Being proactive is more efficient and more effective than being reactive.

Whatever you do this year – whether it’s making board meetings more engaging or your website more interactive – have fun!

Barack Obama shouldn’t be the only one

Nine months into President Obama’s term, some of us may have forgotten how his campaign raised record-setting amounts of money over the internet. Does your nonprofit have the capability of raising funds over your website?  Don’t think it’s important?  Think again.

Website donations are a great way to attract the younger demographic to your organization.  Most members of the Millennial generation (they are just hitting the workforce now and include my two 20 something year old kids) don’t even own a checkbook. They pay their bills online. They may not make a lot of money but now is the time to engage them with your cause.

Besides, the internet is a great way to capture emails, create a database and then use that database for fundraising queries of an immediate nature (“We’ll have to turn kids away from our camp,” “We don’t have enough shelter beds for the homeless,” “We will have to euthanize our dogs” without your help).  One nonprofit that C2C works with raised over $43,000 with their immediate need request!

So no matter your party affiliation, follow the President’s lead on this one and develop a robust internet fundraising capability.