Event Fundraising Blog

The last day of summer camp was always bittersweet for me. The excitement of going home was tempered by the sadness of saying goodbye to new friends and inside jokes and shared experiences. As I sit here at San Francisco International Airport on my way home from the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference I feel that same last-day-of-summer-camp feeling, but without the sadness.

I will be the first to admit that I’m not a very tech-savvy person and I’m sure there are people reading this who know me well and are thinking, “YOU attended a technology conference?” But even I realize how far technology has come since my summer camp days and NTC 2012 provided me with an important reminder: technology doesn’t make us more isolated from other people, it increases our ability to connect.               

Confession: I just started watching “Mad Men.” Season 1. I don’t know what took me so long. But, so far it’s living up to the hype. The creative element of the show is particularly fascinating to me as a mission-focused marketer, and has fueled some interesting opinions in the blogosphere. Check out this post from Gordon Plutsky (photo right) at King Fish Media about Don Draper as a content marketer. What does it mean for us in event fundraising? Think about the story you’re telling. Are you building an emotional connection? Don’t just ask people to participate in your event, inspire them to help you make the world a better place. — Therese Grohman

"Mad Men" returns this week for a fifth season after a 17-month hiatus. Like many marketers I love watching Don Draper in action on the job. On the surface the type of broad based advertising he produces seems very old school – the kind of stuff that filled magazines and TV shows. If you look a little deeper, you see Don instinctively understands what makes content marketing successful. His work always contains elements of storytelling to build an emotional connection with the customer. He tells stories through the one-dimensional ads to get into the hearts and minds of the prospect. Don puts himself in the customer’s shoes and thinks about their desires, motivation and even fears.  What drives them, what do they want? What makes Don so successful is that he realizes the client also wants to be told a story about their brand. They want to feel the love, not be pitched. 

Despite what you may think, higher unsubscribe rates for your email lists can actually be a good thing. In fact, higher unsubscribe rates directly correlate with increased fundraising: those who are uninterested in your cause unsubscribe, and those who continue to receive your messages are interested in your cause and are more likely to donate. Either way, both groups have been exposed to your message.

Clean, safe drinking water for everyone on the planet -- that’s the goal of mycharity: water. The nonprofit has a clear, but extremely ambitious goal: to bring safe drinking water to people in developing nations. So how have they raised funds for their mission? They've used inbound marketing. Inbound marketing allows your organization to generate inbound leads by enabling potential donors to find you through search.

Last month, we attended the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington, D.C. and sat in on a presentation titled “What Donors Really Do Online: Nine Years of Data from 1.9 Million Donors” by Katya Andresen. Some highlights from her talk are featured below.

Want to make connections, gain insight, and create change in the community? The Nonprofit Technology Conference 2011, which will be held March 17-19 in Washington, D.C., is a three-day gathering of nonprofit professionals from around the world. Event 360's own Jeff Shuck will lead a session called “A Scientist in Your Event Fundraising Department: Segmenting messages, customizing content and delivering results.”

Voting is now open for the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference session proposals! NTEN received more than 400 ideas this year -- a 75% increase over last year -- and they need your help to narrow those down to the 100 or so that will make the 2011 NTC the best one yet.

Myth: "If you build it, they will come." With everyone competing for the attention of your audience, how can you ensure that you are creating a website that appeals to your target audience?

Daily Dish blogger Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic kicked off NTEN's 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference this morning in Atlanta with a keynote session filled with pointed observations from his 10+ years at the intersection of blogging, journalism and online communications. As one of the first mainstream journalists to experiment with blogging, Andrew knows first-hand "the narcotic appeal of blogging and the occupational hazards of thinking quickly."

Each year NTEN gathers nonprofit technology experts and learners from around the world for their annual conference, the NTC.