Photo by d70focus

As we’ve discussed before, it’s very important that all nonprofits offer an online giving option on their website. Simply put, many donors expect to be able to give online…and some may decide not to give if there isn’t a simple donation form available to quickly donate with a credit card online.

Now that you’ve agreed that you need online giving, the next question is “How do I implement it?” I received a really good breakdown of what nonprofits should consider when deciding how they want their online donations to work in my inbox the other day. This email was from Mission Research, the maker of GiftWorks Fundraising Software (full disclosure: GiftWorks offers their own online giving module that is integrated with the base donation management software). You can find this information on their eNewsletter here.

The key decisions they discuss include:

1) Integrated or standalone? Integration with your donor management system is preferred, as the donation information is automatically entered instead of requiring manual entry of the gift data into the system. However, some donor management systems do not have this option. And this type of solution is often more expensive to implement. Integrated online giving makes the most sense when the nonprofit’s donation management system offers the functionality and the nonprofit expects to receive a large number of online donations.

2) Merchant account or aggregator? Aggregrators (like NetworkforGood or Justgive) is easier to set up and often has no (or lower) monthly fees. However, aggregators may not allow you to customize your donation page, they often have higher per transaction costs, and you don’t get the money immediately. Probably most importantly, a donor can choose to give anonymously through an aggregator, so the nonprofit may not be able to adequately thank the donor and connect with them in the future. Merchant accounts often require more effort to set up, but can offer lower per transaction fees and more customization on the donation page.

These decisions will also require considering what giving options you want to offer (recurring gifts?), how much management time is available to process online gifts, and how many online gifts you expect to receive.

Are you offering online giving? If so, how have you implemented? What have you learned from your experience? Let us know in the comments!

Now that many camps are utilizing Facebook to reconnect with their alumni and other constituents, many are asking, “Should I create a Facebook Page or a Facebook Group…or both for my camp?” Lots of nonprofits are asking the same question, so you can find a lot of discussion on this topic online. In particular, I found this blog post on the Why Facebook blog to be useful. In this post, Mari Smith has broken down the pros and cons of Facebook Pages and Groups. In particular, I found these nuggets to be the most useful:

Facebook Groups:

The Good:
- All activity on a group goes into your constituents’ news feeds in Facebook. This is how you stay top of mind with your existing group members and also find new people to join the group. (Edit: Facebook Pages now offer status updates that go into Fans’ newsfeeds – this is much more viral than what the Groups offer.)
- Messages go to the constituents’ Facebook Inboxes

The Bad:
- You cannot add any of the great applications in Facebook to a Group (more on this below)
- If for some reason you don’t want the group any more, it can be tough to delete. Luckily, you can get help from Facebook in turning the group into a page. (Edit: This option is no longer available from Facebook)

Facebook Pages:

The Good:
- Pages are indexed, so search engines like Google can find the page
- You can add applications to your Page to offer additional functionality. For example, you can add the Causes application and show current fundraising campaigns. And Camp Gilboa added a Google Calendar application to show their calendar of events right in their Facebook Page.
- You can work on parts of the Page offline until they are ready to be published.

The Bad:
- Not much activity goes into your constituents’ news feeds; this limits the viral marketing of your Page. (Edit: Pages now offer status updates that go directly to Fans’ news feeds – this is no longer a “bad”.)
- Messages sent out to your “fans” are not found in their Facebook Inboxes (as they are in Groups). Instead, they show up in a less viewed area of Facebook.

The conclusion? Unfortunately, there is no right answer for everyone. Do a little research on both. Figure out what your goals are for the community on Facebook. And then, no matter which you choose, listen to your constituents and interact. That’s the power of these social media tools.

(Edit – with the recent changes on Facebook Pages, we recomend a Page for a nonprofits official presence on Facebook. However, if you have a thriving Group on Facebook, it may not be worth the effort to change. And don’t forget about those grass-roots created Facebook Groups out there – continue engaging those constituents!)

Have you created a Facebook Page, Group, or both? What have you found to work well? Not so well?

Photo by makelessnoise on Flickr.com

Regardless of your political leanings, you can learn a lot from the fundraising and outreach success of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign. They managed to raise millions of dollars and reach over three million individual (mostly small) donors. How did they do it? And what can we learn from them?

SofterWare (the company that offers the Donor Perfect Online donor management software service) has a Nonprofit Technology and Operational Advice Blog that recently posted about fundraising lessons from the Obama Campaign. I recommend checking it out. In many ways, the Obama Campaign utilized known best practices for constituent outreach and engagement. Any nonprofit can take advantage of these best practices, such as employing a compelling message, offering great online content, effectively building email lists, and leveraging supporters to reach out to additional prospects.

Do you think you can use any of the lessons from the Obama Campaign? Have you changed anything based on what you’ve seen this Presidential Campaign cycle?