Okay, so you’ve done a great job amassing a list of your constituents. For a camp, this means alumni, parents, grandparents, donors, staff, etc. You have updated contact information – including email address – and want to reconnect with all of these people who have a history with and/or interest in your organization. What’s next? Communication.

Nonprofit organizations have a story to tell. Camps can talk about the incredible programs they offer, the lifelong friendships (and even marriages) they have developed, and the memories of campers since the beginning of the camp. They can also share information about the personal stories about current campers. Of course, it is also important to let your constituents know how you are utilizing the time and wealth they have given in the past to help the organization continue to offer memorable, important services.

Most camps and organizations probably already use a standard Newsletter to communicate. I’ve talked about using blogs as well. Wild Apricot’s Non-Profit Technology blog has recently posted some great information about using email newsletter services (like Constant Contact) to send email, including eNewsletters out to your constituents.

We use Constant Contact for our eNewsletter. The most important features of tools like this for us include:

• Ensuring the message gets through. If you bcc your entire email list through Outlook or Yahoo or other email system, there is a good chance your recipients will never see the emails; their email provider will mark the message as spam. Email newsletter services work hard to ensure your message reaches its target.
• Tracking. Tools like Constant Contact let you track who opens your emails, what they clicked on in the email, who opted out, and which email addresses are no longer active. This information will help you keep your contact lists up to date and also ensure you are providing the information most helpful to your constituents…and not bombarding people who ask not to receive the eNewsletters with extra emails.
• Branding. These tools allow you to set up templates with your nonprofit’s branding and a variety of color schemes. They also allow easy inclusion of pictures to draw the recipients in to your message.
• Automatic signup. These tools also offer simple code that you can add to your website or blog for new people to sign up for future eNewsletters and emails.

Are you using an email newsletter service? Which one? Any tips or comments about your service? What works best/what doesn’t work?

This video was produced by DonorPerfectOnline, the fundraising software many of the camps in the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy utilize. The video talks in general about the advantages of using a fundraising/donor management software rather than simply excel spreadsheets or other generic technologies to manage fundraising and contact management efforts.

These systems allow for easy reporting on campaign and solicitation efforts, maintaining constitutent contact in one centralized place, and automating important functions like creating pledge reminders and acknowledgements. There are many systems out there – the key is to find the system that works best within each organization’s business processes, staff resources, and data needs. And remember that the greatest system in the world won’t work effectively unless the processes and resources to implement it are in place.

Are you using fundraising software? If so, what system are you using? What works well? What is currently lacking?

There are more and more tools available for nonprofits to engage their alumni and prospective donors online. As an added bonus, some of these tools offer a nonprofit’s constituents the opportunity to raise money without much extra effort at all.

The most obvious example of this type of tool is Goodsearch. Goodsearch is simply a search engine like Google or Yahoo! (in fact, it is powered by Yahoo!). However, while Google and Yahoo! keep the ad revenue they collect each time you search on their websites, Goodsearch donates 50% of its ad revenue to the nonprofit designated by the user. It simply requires that users select the nonprofit of their choice and then use Goodsearch for all of their search requests. Goodsearch has also added GoodShop, an online shopping mall, which donates a specific percentage of every purchase to the user’s designated charity. This percentage averages approximately 3%, but can be as high as 20%.

The success of Goodsearch for nonprofit fundraising has been mixed. The ASPCA has raised over $16,000 using this technology. Of course, they have a widespread national constituency. Camp Ramah in New England has managed to raise over $60, which is probably a more reasonable goal. But remember that the amount of money is not the only goal. Getting alumni thinking of your nonprofit is another benefit of service like these.

How can a nonprofit take advantage of this service? First, make sure your nonprofit is listed as an option at GoodSearch by searching here. If it’s not listed, you can request to have your nonprofit added. Once your nonprofit is listed, tell your constituents about it! Camp Ramah in New England uses a sidebar ad on their eNewsletter that links directly to GoodSearch. Be creative…and please comment below to let me know how it goes.

Squidoo is another tool that allows a nonprofit to raise awareness and engage their constituents. Squidoo helps people to quickly and easily make a webpage (they call them “lenses”) on any subject in which they are interested. For example, I have created lenses about Using Technology for Effective Alumni Outreach, my local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm, and the Siena College Men’s Basketball team. Creating a lens requires no computer programming skills and takes as little as 10 minutes to complete.

A nonprofit can quickly create a lens about their cause. Like GoodSearch, the creator of a lens gets a portion of the ad revenue from the lens. And, if you add links to products on eBay, Amazon, or Cafe Press (like a Camp T-shirt, for example), the creator gets a portion of the proceeds from sales as well. And, like GoodSearch, a creator can donate their revenue to charity. However, unlike GoodSearch, Squidoo only donates to 65 nonprofits that they have hand-selected. So, your nonprofit likely can’t ask its constituents to create pages and donate the revenue to its cause. But it can still use Squidoo to easily add content about the cause. For example, Squidoo can be a central location to link to YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and blog posts about the nonprofit. And they can be set to automatically update when new content is available.

Has anyone used GoodSearch or Squidoo? Have you received feedback from your alumni? Any lessons learned from your experience? Please leave a comment with details.