Inside ASI-AP

Liza and I went to a seminar this afternoon hosted by Xponential where we heard Ted Hart talk about having success in online fundraising.  I hadn't heard of Ted before and I'm not sure what makes you a guru (he didn't talk at all about his success or history) but the content was good.

The presentation was about 4 hours long and was broken into two sections, a review of Web 2.0 and why this is important and then in the second half he did a live review of just about everyone's website in the room.

Some take-aways that I got:

• He said something that resonated with me a lot, we are all using these technologies (to take fundraising online) so that we can get back to basics.  This is so true, without a doubt I realise that people give to people, no matter what technology comes along it's the relationship that I have with someone that will instigate my gift or continued giving.  There's an interesting contradiction to this that I saw recently however... wikipedia asked their users for donations and ran a campaign from Oct 2007 to Jan 2008.  If you used wikipedia in this time you would have seen a small bar graph at the top of the screen showing how much was raised.  They raised US2.1 Million!
• He has 7 basic things that every charity should do:
1. Have an informative website.
2. Collect emails addresses and get permission to use them, at every opportunity.
3. Communicate to the above list, minimum every 6 weeks by email.  Of course if you have nothing to say then don't say anything at all.
4. Have an donate function on your site.
5. Recruit and manage volunteers online.
6. Comply with all regulations.
7. Understand Privacy and Security, by clear to your donors about what is collect, who sees it and what it's used for
• People who give online generally give more than off line donors.  Another charity in the room indicated the same result, however no-one's really sure why.
• Email as a communication medium needs to be more than just the 'electronic' version of direct mail.  I think some of our customers fall into this trap, the beauty of email is that the medium is easy to forward on.  It's a couple of clicks!  When's the last time you got such a great direct piece in your mailbox at home, made 20 copies, addressed 20 envelopes and stuck on 20 stamps, then walked to the post box and sent them?  Never... but with email this can happen straight away.  If you get inspired by the message then you can quickly sent it on.
• His general approach appears to be: Inspire -> Give.   Meaning inspire your donor then give then a way to give.  Simple.
• A charity website should have the following:
1. Pictures of people, faces, things in action.  Not buildings.
2. Audio/Visual content.  This is easy to do, youtube.com let's you do this with a webcam.  It doesn't have to be hollywood produced, just inspirational.
3. Teach and provide answers.  Let your donors know about your charity and cause and then answer their questions through FAQ style information.  This was cool, the best way to get an FAQ for your website is to get the people who answer the phones to log every call for 2 weeks.  Then distil that into concise information onto your site.
4. Links.  Add links to places to get people to learn more, this could mean to your competitors also.
5. Feedback and comments.  Let people communicate with you and make it easy.
6. Define.  Provide a dictionary or definitions for the terminology used in the industry or organisation.  People, places, research, acronyms, etc.
7. Genuine copy.  Work hard to make your copy original and genuine, write it like your talking to your best friend about why they should give.
8. Make it relevant.  Give stories and case studies to resonate with your different audience types.

In the second part of the seminar he started reviewing some of the participants sites.  This is his general checklist:

1. Make it easy to see the Name of the organisation, their logo and their mission.
2. Have great visuals, people not buildings.
3. Use SSL security, although he consistently called 'encryption technology' which just sounded odd.
4. Make sure you have a way for people to get involved off line as well as online.  Advertise a print & fax donate or a 1800 number to call in addition to the donate online process.
5. Have a good privacy policy, and make it available.  Typically look for this sort of thing at the bottom of every web page.
6. Eliminate the scroll.  For your home page try to make sure everything fits without having to scroll down the page.  Easier said than done.
7. Provide a way for people to 'sign up' for a newsletter or some regular communication.
8. Ensure you have information on how donations are used to support the mission.

The one thing that I realised again is that people are still struggling to get the basics right on their website.  Of all the charities in the room their only seemed to be one that appeared to by doing well online, but I guess that's why the audience was their.  If you were successful online then you might not have thought to attend this in the first place.

If you've come across a great experience on a charity website i'd love to know about it, comment with the URL.  Similarly if there's something you think everyone's missing then let me know too.  I'm slowly compiling a list of what I think is 'best practice' for charity websites, your input is appreciated.