projectfullcircle.com

July 29, 2010

June 23, 2010

Few Nonprofits Receiving Donations Through Their Social Networking Efforts

Filed under: Social Media and Nonprofits — Tags: donations, facebook, non profit, nonprofit, NPO marketing, social media — richardsarles @ 3:25 am

A recent study of nonprofit organizations found that 86% of nonprofits maintain a presence on Facebook. Although this statistic is almost certainly inflated by the online methodology of the study (and thus not representative of the NPO industry as a whole), the findings from NPOs that utilize Facebook and other social media are likely representative of the NPO social networking population itself.

Among the noteworthy findings, 92% of NPOs that use social networking do so for marketing, and merely 46% cite fundraising. Furthermore, only 41% actually generated revenues, and of those more than three-quarters (78%) raised $1,000 or less in the past 12 months. Pretty underwhelming.

According to the study, NPOs cited an average of 2,440 followers on Facebook. That’s 2,440 people who’ve basically said to these organizations, I like what you’re doing, what you’re about—I support your cause. But too often the support goes no further. Sadly, within the majority of social networks utilized by NPOs it cannot go further, at least not in a simple, streamlined manner within the framework of the online community. Currently, most social networks are structured primarily for marketing and outreach—donations are handled through other channels. Now of course, finding, educating, and engaging supporters are all critical tasks for a NPO, but those alone won’t keep an organization running.

If NPOs are going to invest time and money in social networking, there needs to be a clear path for a return on that investment. An effective social media network for NPOs must provide marketing opportunities for organizations of all sizes and facilitate fundraising. To put it simply: Make it quick and easy for supporters and followers on these networks to donate, and they will.

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June 17, 2010

The Birth, Growth, and Success of a Nonprofit Organization

Filed under: NPO Spotlight — Tags: facebook, Give Your Sole, NPO marketing, twitter — richardsarles @ 1:36 am

Last year saw the creation of more than 50,000 new NPOs in the United States. Of those, some will succeed, but many will fail. As anyone starting an NPO will tell you, it’s a lot of work, and sometimes no matter how great your passion, success will allude you. So what are some of the keys to establishing and nurturing a successful NPO? Project Full Circle had the opportunity to speak with Brett Byrd, who founded Give Your Sole in May of 2009, and to learn about his experience.

Project Full Circle Tell us about your NPO, Give Your Sole.

Brett Byrd Give Your Sole seeks to provide less fortunate men, women, and children with moderately worn athletic shoes collected at race events held nationwide. We donate the shoes to a local rescue mission or shelter in the city where the race event is held. The shoes are then distributed to those less fortunate within the local community.

Project Full Circle Sounds like a very worthwhile cause. What inspired you to establish Give Your Sole?

Brett Byrd I started Give Your Sole for a couple reasons. The first and foremost reason is that I believe the most significant act is to love our neighbors. If everyone were to love their neighbor many of the world’s problems could be solved. Hopefully, by giving people a pair of shoes it will give them a sense of hope and relief from their current situation of being homeless. The second reason is that I’m a runner, and I saw a need for the runners to have a place to dispose of their shoes. A runner will put only 300 to 400 miles on a pair of shoes before disposing them, even though the pair of shoes still have plenty of wear ability to them. Give Your Sole was founded to give all those in athletics and running an outlet to donate their shoes for re-use.

Project Full Circle Inspiration indeed comes in many forms. It seems that a lot of people might find themselves inspired but unsure of how to begin. Once inspiration struck and you decided to move forward, what were your first steps, and how much did it cost?

Brett Byrd To start Give Your Sole, I hired an attorney to file for 501c3 tax-exempt status and form the bylaws for the nonprofit. Once that was in the works I bought marketing materials, such as Give Your Sole t-shirts and business cards. In retrospect, I should have sought an attorney who would consider doing the work at a reduced rate or even pro-bono—like a fellow runner or someone who might be particularly moved by Give Your Sole’s mission. A rough estimate to start everything is about $7,000, and more than two-thirds of that was for the attorney.

Project Full Circle Once you got the basics taken care of, what was your first memorable activity or connection that was a success for Give Your Sole?

Brett Byrd We Launched Give Your Sole at the 2009 San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. Our very first donors were two girls all the way from New York City. They took the time to pack their shoes and bring them across the country to donate them. On a more famous note, I have given Give Your Sole t-shirts to Ryan Hall and Josh Cox (elite marathoners and Olympic athletes), and they both have been seen wearing Give Your Sole shirts at race events. It’s nice to have their support.

Project Full Circle What’s the average number of hours you spend per week or month on Give Your Sole?

Brett Byrd I put in 30 to 40 hours a week.

Project Full Circle Wow, and that’s on top of your full time job. Aside from all the hours, what have been your biggest challenges?

Brett Byrd For the most part many of my struggles are due in large part to me launching an NPO while holding down a demanding day job. When one begins to do well the other starts to suffer—it’s hard to keep a balance. Give Your Sole requires two components to be successful: shoes and monetary donations. As of yet, the public seems to focus on the shoes, resulting in the lack of funds to keep the organization alive. So I have to shift my messaging and outreach to communicate the needs of Give Your Sole as an organization. It turns out that finding shoe donors is fairly easy. Finding monetary donors is more of a challenge. Most of the partners I come across want to donate in-kind gifts. Those are great but don’t keep the NPO going. I would hold more fundraisers if I had the time and the team to promote them. The lack of both makes it a struggle. The majority of our monetary donations (approximately $4,200 to date) has come from private donors. I have looked into working with a couple of websites to set up a fundraising page for volunteers to run on our behalf. Unfortunately, the sites I’ve checked with charge a significant monthly fee and/or a transaction percentage, which could result in being upside down at the end of any month. Marketing plays a huge role just like any other business, but of course to market it you need money.

Project Full Circle What have you done to market yourself and spread the word about your NPO and your cause?

Brett Byrd Partnerships with solid organizations have been huge. Currently, I largely rely on the benefit of a great relationship with the Rock ‘n’ Roll organization. For the races we work on together they add us to their site and newsletter for their runners. We also use the social media avenues of Facebook and Twitter to promote ourselves and announce upcoming events.

Project Full Circle Considering the entire experience to date, what are you most proud of?

Brett Byrd Two things come to mind: First, receiving our tax exempt letter from the IRS stating that Give Your Sole was officially a 501c3 public charity—I filed the paperwork in June or July of 2009 and finally received the letter in December, which seemed like forever. Second, after a shoe collection at a race in Los Angeles we drove downtown and handed out shoes from the back of my truck to people on Skid Row. We collected shoes in the morning, and that afternoon people on the street were wearing them. Pretty moving.

Project Full Circle Obviously there is a lot more to measuring the success of a nonprofit than numbers, but can you provide some stats on your accomplishments with Give Your Sole?

Brett Byrd 1,254 Facebook fans, 560 Twitter followers, 7 cities visited, 8 events attended, 10 shelters partnered, and 3,500 homeless people now with shoes on their feet equals 1 Incredible Year!

Project Full Circle Thanks for all the great information, Brett. Last question for you: what advice would you have for someone who’s thinking about starting a nonprofit?

Brett Byrd Have financial support behind you to whatever extent possible. And be ready to wait for the tax exempt status, because it can take a long time. Find a way to generate income through your NPO that will help feed the organization. For example, I’m trying to set up some apparel sales, but… the site for marketing and selling apparel requires a monthly fee like any other site, making it difficult—the chicken and the egg syndrome. The biggest thing about starting an NPO is that you really have to BELIEVE in what you’re doing to the point that you’re willing to invest your own money (and time) into it. The trick is figuring out how long you are willing to do that. At some point it has to be the responsibility of your supporters, unless you happen to have an endless supply of cash on hand. Of course that can be a difficult threshold to determine, especially when your heart is in it. Lastly, try to surround yourself with people who know the NPO game before trying to tackle it all on your own. Like anything else in life, it’s a learning process, and the more support you have the better.

You can visit Brett Byrd and Give Your Sole at www.giveyoursole.com, and on Facebook and Twitter.

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June 12, 2010

How Many Nonprofits Made Google’s Top 1,000 Most-Visited Websites?

Filed under: Social Media and Nonprofits — Tags: facebook, google, nonprofit, NPO, social media, twitter — richardsarles @ 2:20 am

If you answered one, then you’re correct. Coming in at 854^th, Causes.com shows up as the highest ranked nonprofit website dedicated to the social good (although technically, Wikipedia in 4^th position is a nonprofit organization) according to Google. These findings may not come as a complete surprise if you’re familiar with lists of web activity, as the majority of the most-visited websites are typically web portals, email servers, search engines, and other sites with limited or user-supplied content. What also may not come as a surprise is that Social Networks fill 35 of the top 1,000 positions, with 7 in the top 100, and Facebook sitting comfortably at the very top with 540 million unique visitors. So what do these numbers mean if you’re a nonprofit organization?

First, another big number. As of April of 2010, the National Center for Charitable Statistics cites 1,593,982 NPOs in the United States. That’s a lot of organizations reaching out for their share of the pool of donors, sponsors, and volunteers. Thus, one can expect that visitors will be spread more thinly across the web for individual NPOs rather than gathering around a handful of primary websites that service the largest NPOs or even the nonprofit sector as a whole. And the largest nonprofits, such as American Red Cross, typically maintain a primary website plus a variety of smaller sites for specific causes and chapters, and thus will not appear on the radar for most-visited website lists. Furthermore, smaller nonprofits that rely on a local or regional focus for outreach and volunteer efforts will of course limit their audience on the web. So the bottom line is that you shouldn’t expect to see a nonprofit organization shooting up the charts anytime soon. But this doesn’t mean that your NPO can’t take advantage of the current situation.

Let me repeat: Social Networks account for 7 of the top 100 websites. Facebook is the number one most frequently visited website with 540 million unique visitors, which accounts for roughly one-third of all web users. The good news is that NPOs can take part in this ever-expanding realm with little or no cost beyond an investment of time. Is social media the best avenue for every cause and reaching every audience? Of course not. Should you abandon traditional efforts such as direct mail, print advertising, and partnering with local businesses? Absolutely not. But if you’re not dedicating at least some of your resources to social media efforts, such as Facebook, Twitter, or a blog, you’re missing out.

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May 14, 2010

Impulse Giving and the Need for a Deeper Connection

Filed under: Social Media and Nonprofits — Tags: Haiti, nonprofit, philanthropy, Red Cross, text message donation — richardsarles @ 9:36 pm

A recent article published by Reuters discusses changes in the way that people are donating their money to charitable causes. Innovations in online and mobile giving make it easy to donate almost anytime, anywhere. And this can be a good thing. Estimates put total text message donations to the Red Cross Haiti Campaign at over five million dollars. But this growing trend in impulse giving isn’t necessarily all good.

For mega campaigns with television coverage and celebrity spokespersons, it’s a no-brainer: Present the problem (disaster), present the need (money), and present the call to action (pull the phone out of your pocket and press a couple of buttons). Done. Millions of dollars are raised for a great cause. However, smaller organizations and campaigns with little or no resources face the same issues they currently struggle with: gaining exposure and competing for donors’ ears in an increasingly noisy world.

And what about the donors? How do these ever-present opportunities to contribute affect their role in, perception of, and experience with the giving process? For that text donor who pressed SEND and delivered $10 across the world, he or she likely experienced a few minutes of satisfaction, and then maybe again when the cell phone bill arrived (or maybe not). For some people, the ability to give with so little time, effort, or connection is a blessing—such opportunities motivate charitable contributions that otherwise would not exist.

For others, our ever-expanding world of ubiquitous charities is at times overwhelming, and the desired gratification in giving is reduced to a fleeting moment, diluting the experience and leaving the donor unfulfilled. For these individuals, the charitable process should include the ability to see the results of one’s efforts, to share with others the fulfillment of a particular objective, to correspond with those sharing common needs, hopes, and dreams.

The philanthropic world is made up of both types of people, and an ideal charitable system would support and encourage those who want simply to press a few buttons to help others, as well as those who crave deeper involvement.

Impulse giving is on the rise, and that can be a good thing, but we cannot neglect the need for human connection.

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May 12, 2010

Simplify Your Facebook URL

Filed under: Social Media and Nonprofits — Tags: facebook, nonprofit, social media — richardsarles @ 4:37 am

Whether you’re a nonprofit, a private company, or just another one of the 400 million Facebook users, why not make it easier for people to find your profile and connect with you?

Think back to when you got your first email address, five, ten, or fifteen years ago. If you had a choice back then, what username did you pick? Something simple like your first and last name, or did you get “creative” with a nickname or an abbreviation or some convoluted combination of letters, numbers, and characters? Or maybe the username you wanted was already chosen. Either way, chances are that at some point down the road, unless you originally went with the more straightforward approach, you ditched that account and started over—with an email address that you could communicate quickly and easily to anyone who asked for it.

Well, if you have a Facebook account and haven’t yet chosen a username, act now or it’s going to be 1995 for you all over again real soon. Facebook’s default URL for its user profiles and the Pages they administer is something along the lines of www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= plus some random number, like 123456789. So if you want to direct a potential customer, sponsor, fan, or someone you’ve just met to your Facebook profile you’ll have to send them to www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789 (not easy), or tell them to do a search and find you (neither friendly nor easy).

The good news is that you can update your existing Facebook account in a few simple steps and choose a username that will be used to define your new, easy-to-remember Facebook URL.

Simply go to www.facebook.com/username/, and login to your account if you haven’t already. You can also access this page from within your Facebook profile, under Account, Account Settings, and then beside the Username heading, click Change. You’ll also have the opportunity to change the username for other Facebook Pages you administer, such as for your business.
Facebook will prompt you with several available options for your new username. If you don’t see what you want, click More, and you’ll get a few more suggestions plus the opportunity to enter a desired username. Usernames are unique, only one per profile and Page you administer. And they go on a first-come-first-serve basis, so the sooner you select yours the better. But think carefully about the username you choose. Once it’s been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it!
If you have any questions, check out Facebook’s Username FAQ.
Once you settle upon your username, you’ll be asked to confirm your selection. Click Accept, and you’re all set. The page will display your new, simplified Facebook URL.

Now, don’t forget to check out Project Full Circle at www.facebook.com/projectfullcircle. See, wasn’t that easy?

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May 11, 2010

May 10, 2010

Social Media and Nonprofits: The Future of Giving

Filed under: Social Media and Nonprofits — Tags: 501c3, charity, donations, facebook, non profit, nonprofit, social media — richardsarles @ 3:30 am

As part of its annual online fundraising survey, The Chronicle of Philanthropy asked 177 of the United State’s largest nonprofit groups how much money they raised through social media networks in 2009. The findings may surprise you.

Only 62% of nonprofits surveyed reported utilizing social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs as part of their fundraising efforts. Of those that did, approximately one-third used Facebook, but with underwhelming success—the median total raised per organization was just $1,000. So what do these results mean? Are nonprofits that choose not to pursue social media networks missing an opportunity? Are organizations that use social media not maximizing their potential outreach efforts? Does the structure of existing social media networks and online communities limit the effectiveness of fundraising? Or are members of such communities simply not interested in donating online?

An extensive study conducted by Convio, Edge Research, and Sea Change Strategies sheds some light the issue. The research report, released just two months ago, looks at giving habits of four generations: Matures, Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. As you might expect, Matures were the most likely group (79%) to have donated in the past 12 months, followed by Boomers (67%), and Generation X’ers (58%). What you might not expect is that Generation Y folks weren’t far behind, with 56% identified as givers. Considering the size of the populations and average amounts given, you’re looking at 36 million Gen X’ers and 29 million Gen Y’ers donating over $38 billion last year. That’s nearly one-third of all monetary donations identified in the study. Time for a reality check: Which generations do you think are the most likely to spend time participating in social media activities? Yes, these same individuals.

Need to hear more? Looking only at Gen Y’ers we see that 93% prefer to receive updates from their charities via email, 29% had donated online in the past two years, 69% consider social networks to be the most appropriate form of solicitation from a known charity, 19% say they actively promote their top charity online, and—how about this—37% joined a charity’s online social network in the past month.

The audience is present, and their desire and willingness to participate is almost palpable. But as the Chronicle of Philanthropy study highlighted, a relatively small percentage of nonprofits are using social media, and in general thus far the results, in terms of dollars raised, have been dismal. So if you’re among the 38% of nonprofits that do not utilize social media, it may be time to reconsider. In the coming years as online communities and social media networks get better at facilitating and encouraging charitable efforts, and as Generations X and Y, the social media generations, achieve their earning—and giving—potentials, you’ll be glad you did.

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April 21, 2010

Introducing Project Full Circle

Filed under: Project Full Circle — Tags: 501c3, charity, donations, facebook, non profit, nonprofit, volunteer — richardsarles @ 10:55 pm

Annually, United States citizens and corporations donate more than 300 billion dollars (USA Giving) and volunteer more than 3 billion hours of time to nonprofit organizations and charities (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). The recent dramatic increase in online giving, mobile giving by way of cell phones, and the expansion of social media suggests that electronic giving will become even more prevalent in coming years.

Yet with all this generosity, more and more people and charities are noticing a gap in the giving process, a disconnect between individual and organization. Too often are those who give and those who receive separated by geographic distance, lack of time, or simply by the structure of the charitable process itself. Such barriers hinder or prevent communication between the donor and the recipient, and limit the potential benefits for both. Without the ability to see the results of one’s efforts, or to share with others the fulfillment of a particular objective, or to correspond with others sharing common needs, the charitable circle is incomplete.

Born from the desire to close this gap and complete the circle of the charitable process, Project Full Circle aims to transform the world of giving. It’s an online community, like Facebook, but instead of simply exchanging messages with old friends, users can build meaningful relationships that facilitate and enhance all aspects of the charitable process.

Project Full Circle will help nonprofit organizations find new donors and sponsors, nurture existing relationships, and manage donations and volunteer hours. Corporations will use Project Full Circle to make tax-deductible donations and to establish and shape their brand identity by aligning with particular charities and causes. And if for those seeking assistance for themselves or a cause, through Project Full Circle’s network they will be able to find people and organizations that are willing to help.

In short, Project Full Circle’s proprietary features will make it easy to give, receive, sponsor, and support, no matter how big or small the cause. For users of all types, the site’s safe, secure online environment manages all transactions and provides free summaries and timely reports. And to close that gap in the giving process, Project Full Circle’s integrated social network encourages connection and interaction, enriching the philanthropic process for those receiving and those giving.

The official site will launch this fall, but you can take a sneak peek at http://www.projectfullcircle.com/. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for a chance to win $1,000 for the charity or nonprofit organization of your choice. You can also follow Project Full Circle on Facebook.

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