Archive for April, 2009

Over the month of March I ran an online fundraising campaign to benefit and organization I do some volunteer work with and really believe in (Wellspring Foundation). I was a little surprised at how hard it was to get people to give online.

I thought that because I was asking my friends to do something little it would be easy. But this was not the case. It takes a lot of work to teach your traditional networks to give and communicate online. The internet has created a lot of opportunities for nonprofits to reach a new audience but we are still learning how to maximize online fundraising.

As a blogger I’ve found that for every one hundred people that reads a post you get about a comment (sometimes more sometimes less). The rule is much the same with a new online direct mail campaign. You can train your donors and get better about segmenting your lists but your first campaign is not going to raise a lot of money.

When starting to promote your organization online be patient and persistent. Try and make your messages short and to the point, have a picture and personalize your communications. You can email more frequently if you are very concise and to the point.