We are seeing the next generation of online giving campaigns worked out one by one as this new tool evolves and expands.

GiveMN, sponsored by several Minnesota foundations, held a one-day "give to the max" campaign on November 17 that raised $14-million, exceeding its most ambitious expectations.

Based on a similar campaign in Dallas, TX, in May, that raised more than $4-million, the campaign featured a website that listed 3,434 nonprofits across Minnesota. Nearly 40,000 Donors picked one or more charities for their donations.

Like the recent America's Giving Challenge, sponsored by The CASE Foundation, Facebook Causes, and Parade Magazine, the charities that got the highest number of donations received bonus grants. In the GiveMN campaign, participating organizations received partial matching funds as well.

Characteristics of this successful campaign:

• It was localized. The MN campaign raised $14 million. The Dallas, Texas campaign, even more localized, raised $3.8 million. The national America's Giving Challenge raised $2.1 million. A state-wide appeal might work best. Donors may feel more connected at a local level, while the state-wide size provided important scale.

• It was extremely time limited. America's Giving Challenge ran for 30 days, whereas the MN and TX appeals were only 24 hours long. The shorter the better? Maybe it focuses the mind, and it's easier for volunteers to concentrate their energy. It's also possible that donors gave larger amounts to make up for the short time span.

• It was leveraged. The sponsoring foundations provided more than $1-million toward covering transaction costs, prizes to the nonprofits who raised the greatest number of unique donors, and to match a portion of each donation.

• It was designed to be magnified by social media, tapping the viral power of online, instant communications. Costs were controlled by the tight time frame and by the heavy use of low-cost or free online tools.

• It was collaborative, involving many organizations and several sponsors, as were America's Giving Challenge and the Dallas effort. On the other hand, it was also competitive, rewarding those organizations who were well organized and enthusiastic. Collaborative competition might become the new fundraising standard.

• It was in Minnesota. Is it the weather? Garrison Keillor? Or just the historically high interest of its residents in their community that makes Minnesota one of the most volunteering and generous states?

Questions Worth Considering:

• Are competitions the future of online fundraising? Is it worthwhile for charities to "chase" competitions? Or does it fragment their efforts and divert them from more effective fundraising?

• How worthwhile to an individual charity are these campaigns? In the case of America's Giving Challenge, the organization with the most individual donations won a prize of $50,000, with smaller, but still substantial, prizes going to other campaign leaders. The Minnesota campaign provided small bonuses for leaders, but matched a portion of the donations to each nonprofit. Is it worthwhile for those charities who are "non-winners"?

What do you think? Have you been involved in an online fundraising event such as GiveMN as a donor, fundraiser, or organization? What are the advantages and/or drawbacks of such collaborative competitions?

More:

• Beth's Blog provides an excellent summary of the MN campaign as well as pertinent background.
• Chronicle of Philanthropy article about GiveMN.
• Read a summary of America's Giving Challenge and the story of one of the top nonprofits in a recent Causes Newsletter.
• Article in the Dallas News about the Dallas Campaign.
• "With creative online giving campaigns, everyone's a philanthropist." Blog post at The Case Foundation detailing the GiveMN campaign and the current Chase Bank crowd-directed corporate giving campaign on Facebook.
• "Clicking for a Cause," recent NYTimes article about social media and giving.

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There have been dire warnings about the death of email recently because of the increasing use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

But it is way too early to declare the demise of our most effective online communication. After all, everyone with a computer, or even a mobile phone, uses email, while adoption of social media, while impressive, is not yet universal. Don't get rid of your email to donors and supporters. Just make it as effective as possible...more...

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Are your fundraising, mission, and resources in separate silos? Do you have donors or investors? Is your strategic plan feasible in light of your resources? Is your board realistic about its responsibilities? Are your messages convincing?

These are key concerns for any nonprofit, but few deal with them in an integrated fashion. To help her clients do that, Nell Edgington has written a terrific whitepaper for her consulting company, Social Velocity: Resetting Fundraising: 5 Ways to Raise More Money

The paper raises some excellent questions for nonprofits, such as:

• Are your mission, core competencies and resources integrated?

  Mission must be supported by core competencies and financial support. Fundraising needs to be a part of every other function in a nonprofit. Edgington says, "It is particularly challenging when the revenue engine is misaligned. This is when an organization has a great mission and can produce great results, but they can't find a way to make the organization financially sustainable."

• Is your strategic plan integrated with your fundraising?

  A plan is only pie in the sky if you can't pay your way. As the whitepaper explains, "You cannot have a realistic strategic plan without a corresponding financial plan. The financial plan lays out the revenue and expenses over the period of the strategic plan. What is it going to cost to get to your goals (expenses) and how will you pay for them (revenue)?"

• Are you developing donors or investors? And what is the difference?

  Edgington suggests that, "A successful fundraiser looks for investors who share the organization's values and theory of change, and then demonstrates to them how their nonprofit creates that change in the community. The organization is merely a conduit for investing in change in the community."

It is more important than ever during these difficult times for nonprofits to rethink the fundamentals, from planning, to how the board thinks about fundraising, to the messages that you use. The goal, of course, is an organization that does good in a way that has real impact, and that has a sustainable future.

Social Velocity's whitepaper is a quick read and just might refocus your thoughts about fundraising. You can download the free whitepaper when you subscribe to the Social Velocity free newsletter.

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I read about the P.O.S.T. strategy in Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. That book is directed primarily at businesses, but the P.O.S.T. idea really stood out for its simplicity and applicability to all kinds of organizations, including nonprofits.

P.O.S.T. stands for People, Objectives, Strategies, and Technology, and should be executed in that order. Steve McLaughlin recently wrote a blog post about P.O.S.T. that does a good job of explaining this strategy.

Steve says that, "Social media and social networks are fundamentally a communications and relationship building channel. It's just on such a mass scale and full of plenty of sound, fury, and hype that we momentarily think the normal rules don't apply. They still do."

In addition to using P.O.S.T. to clarify your thinking about how you use social media, Steve suggests that you set up a "listening post," and provides links to some good resources that will get you started.

Even if you are already flailing around in social media, it would be wise to stop and start strategizing by thinking through your P.O.S.T. Read Steve's Creating a Social Networking Strategy (Part 1).

Related Resources:

• Can Small Nonprofits Reap Success With Social Media? Beth Kanter with several good examples.
• How Small Nonprofits Can Leverage Social Media - Armchair Founder offers a four-prong approach to social media for time-crunched nonprofits.

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