Blue Sky Collaborative's Viral Fundraising Blog

The Most Important Factor in Having a Successful Pledge Event

Give your fundraisers at least 3 months to raise money.

This applies to walk-a-thons, bike-a-thons, marathons and any other type of athon or pledge event.

Let's face it.  The economy is a little scary and many nonprofits are scrambling to find new revenue sources.

Saddled with cash flow problems and reduced credit lines, orgs are looking for money quickly. 

But be careful.  Your need for speed might torpedo your chances for success.

I recently spoke with two organizations that organized pledge event walkathons.  Both were planned within a span of 1.5 months and one had online registration open for 10 days. 10 whole days.  Needless to say both events were failures.

If you are organizing a pledge event you need to give your participants at least 3 months to do their fundraising.

In a typical $100,000 pledge event, we've found the following trend.

Month 1:  15% of funds raised

Month 2:  32% of funds raised

Month 3:  49% of funds raised

Post event: 4% of funds raised

Almost half of the revenue, in this case $50,000, was raised in the third month.  And it's not just because it was the final month.  We've seen that if the second month was the last month, the fundraising totals were lower.

People who are voluntarily fundraising for you need time to craft their message and make the ask.  The people that are being asked need time to sit down and respond.

When you are asking volunteers to raise money for you, remember that it is not their job to do so.  They have real jobs and responsibilities that take precedence over your non-profit.  So give them time.

If you're going to spend the time and resources to organize a walkathon or other pledge event, you might as well give yourself a chance to succeed by giving your fundraisers at least 3 months to raise money for you.

Habitat For Humanity Build-a-thon Raises $100,000

 Habitat for Humanity Chapters in East King County and Seattle/South King County collaborated on a Build-a-thon that raised nearly $100,000 to build homes in 8 different location in King County, WA Habitat’s goal was to raise $100,000 – enough to build one house.  They are currently at $98,842 and should be able to surpass their goal very soon.  Fundraising in this a-thon was done exclusively online by volunteers who ALSO helped with the home building. 

Habitat’s build-a-thon was an extraordinary event for many reasons:

1.    Volunteers built the home and they ALSO raised the money that financed the building.  This is a powerful model that is tailor-made for the internet and for volunteer driven orgs like Habitat for Humanity.  I anticipate more of this type of activity at Habitat chapters around the country

2.    Multiple Habitat chapters collaborated and shared the website to reduce their costs.  Yet, money that was donated online went directly to the chapter that was the designated beneficiary automatically.  No middle men, no processing fees.  They were able to do this using SWEET Fundraising Software.

3.    Hundreds of volunteers were able to sign-up for dozens of volunteer shifts.  It was a significant amount of coordination.  All of it  was done online, leaving staff with more time to coordinate the event day activities and promote fundraising.

Habitat’s plans are to build on this year’s success to increase their fundraising and home-building goals in future years.  They also intend to expand the back office capabilities of their SWEET site to give administrators even more control over resource and volunteer allocation on the days of the event.  For more information visit, www.habitatbuildathon.org.

 

SBAWP Launches Viral Fundraising Campaign

The Spina Bifida Association of Western Pennsylvania (SBAWP) recently launched "Light up a Life,"  a viral fundraising campaign.  Participants in the campaign raise money online in order to meet their own fundraising goal.

"Light Up A Life" can be found here: http://lightupalife.sbawp.org

One participant, Libby Powers, has set her fundraising goal at $4000.    A lofty goal considering that the Theaverage amount raised by participants in viral fundraising campaigns is $250.  Libby’s online fundraising profile can be viewed here.  http://lightupalife.sbawp.org/sbawp/participantpage.asp?fundid=9&uid=12&fkroledescid=5

Many of the participants in SBAWP’s viral fundraising campaign are actually individuals with Spina Bifida who are beneficiaries of SBAWP’s services.  Libby, herself, has benefited directly from SBAWP’s work.  She states in her profile, "As a someone who personally attended these retreats and camps for over a decade, I can vouch for how incredibly important they are!"

We anticipate very high response rates on "asks" made in this campaign.  The early results are promising.  SBAWP has netted over $3000 , 48 donations, and 50 participants in 3 business days.  The early success has the organization thinking about loftier goals for the program in the future.

For more information about SBAWP visit http://www.sbawp.org.  To learn more about the Light Up A Life campaign, please visit http://lightupalife.sbawp.org or contact SBAWP’s Development Director, Sue Powers @ spowers@sbawp.org.

Tips on Choosing Walkathon or Pledge Event Software

1. Beware of the do-it-yourself software vendors.  Essentially you pay them yet you end up doing all the work.  I can't tell you how many times people have called us to tell us about their awful experiences and countless hours spent to create a crappy fundraising site using an antiquated system.  They wished that those hours were spent on fundraising.  Remember, just because you pay less for something does not mean that you are getting the most for your money.
2. Avoid transaction fees.  Don't pay percentages on your online transactions to software companies.  They don't deserve a commission on the money that YOU and your supporters raised. 
3. Don't compromise your brand.  If you've spent hard earned money and time on your own web site, why would you send someone off to another site that does not look ar act anything like your own site?  Find a vendor who is interested in promoting your brand, not theirs.
4. Find software that fits your event not the other way around.  Since most walkathon software vendors offer inflexible systems, orgs are forced to change their events to fit the software.  Find a vendor that can accommodate the quirks and intricacies of your event without charging you an arm and a leg for it.  If you want to charge different registration fees based on age, gender, participation level or even lunar cycle, then you should be able to do it!
5. Take a long term approach.  Find a tool that you can use and re-use year after year.  Re-inventing the wheel every year is costly.
6. Get it over with.  Spend your time raising money!  Don't spend your time building or tinkering with a web site.  It's costly on many levels.

Online Fundraising Software Tip: Don't let software companies handle your money

If you're considering an online fundraising website for your viral fundraising campaign, walkathon, or any athon, you should avoid software vendors that take your donations before disbursing the funds to your organization.

If you already have a merchant account and credit card processing company, any software that you use should support your own merchant account vendor.  This ensures that the money goes from the donor to the credit card processor and then directly to you.

Avoid software vendors that take your money and then deliver it to you in batches for the following reasons.

1. Security.  The more people that have your hands on your money and data, the greater the risk for something going wrong.
2. Keep software vendors from skimming off the top of your donations.  Software vendors that get your donations first before sending them to you can easily deduct percentages from your donations for themselves.
3. Cash flow.  The more vendors that you put between your org and its donations, the longer that you will have to wait to get your money.

In this age of extensible platforms and APIs, online fundraising software should be able to support a number of payment processors.

SWEET online fundraising software, for example, works with:

• Paypal
• Google Checkout
• Linkpoint (now part of First Data)
• Authorize
• Cybersource
• Acceptiva
• Entango.

This means that you could fit an online fundraising software around any of these payment processors and you get your money faster and more securely, without losing a percentage of it to Blue Sky.

If you're looking for efficiencies, ways to cut costs, and improvements to cash flow, your online fundraising software is a great place to start.

Feeding 18000 Kids and Counting for a Month

The most rewarding aspect of our work at Blue Sky Collaborative is knowing that we played a small role in enabling work that leads to substantial social benefits.

Take City Harvest (www.cityharvest.org) for example.  Based in New York City, City Harvest will collect 23 million pounds of food this year and helps over 260,000 hungry New yorkers find their next meal.

Skip Lunch Fight Hunger (www.skiplunch.org) is City Harvest's unique fundraising campaign in which City Harvest asks teams of employees at New York's finest companies to donate the money they would use for lunch on one day (May 6 this year) every year.  They also ask these teams to solicit donations for City Harvest online.

You can learn more about Skip Lunch Fight Hunger at www.skiplunch.org or by viewing this video

Their are many factors that contribute to the success of this fundraising event.

1. Skip Lunch Fight Hunger is a pledge fundraiser or "a-thon."  It's a unique "a-thon" and highlights that fact that pledge fundraisers can come in many different form.  They don't have to just be walkathons or road races.  This type of a-thon has fewer costs and risks assoicated with it as well. 
2. Tangible results.  City Harvest tells the donors and participants what the impact of their involvement is.  Every $20 raised will feed 3 kids in New York City for month.  That's a powerful message that allows the people who are raising money to set a goal that is not merely a dollar amount.  Someone could literally say, "I want to raise enough money to feed 3 kids for a year so I'm going to raise $240!"

So far City Harvest has raised enough to feed 18,000 children in new York City for a month.  If they reach their goal, the will have fed 90000!  Not bad for skipping one lunch, right?  Want to participate or contribute?  Please visit www.skiplunch.org.  You can hit Panera on Thursday.  It will still be there.

Sucessful online fundraising powered by young people

Kids these days...are awesome.  Take Students Helping Honduras (SHH), for example.  A few months ago, they began a campaign of pledge fundraisers - the type of fundraiser where you ask volunteers to raise money for you by reaching out to their friends and families.

In about 2 months, SHH raised over $80,000!  By relying on the power of peoples' networks and the internet, SHH was able to raise this money at a low cost.  Participants were asked to register online and set up their own fundraising pages on Blue Sky Collaborative's SWEET pledge fundraising platform. 

The fundraisers were volunteers.  Most of the donations were made online.   Most of the participants were college students who were comfortable with online solicitations and giving.  And they knocked it out of the park!

 

One participant raised nearly $7000 on her own by emailing letters to her network with a link to her fundraising page!  The fact is, if motivated, young people make excellent fundraisers.  They are used to doing everything online and have a sense of social responsibility engrained in them.

Congrats SHH!

More Proof that "a-thons" are Recession Proof

Every single one of our clients has reported their highest fundraising revenue ever in their walkathons, bike rides, road races, and a-thons in 2008. 

Many of them also report 40-60% decreases in their sponsorships and major donations.   I noticed the trend a while ago.  I'm starting to come to the conclusion that the "a-thon" model is not affected by the poor economy.  Even pledge events that were being held during the height of the financial meltdown raised more than ever.

Recently, I found more proof of the stability of the "a-thon" model.  The Pan Mass Challenge raised $35 million this year.  $2 million MORE than last year.  Congrats to the PMC and their fearless leader Billy Starr.

This is not to say that anyone who organizes a fundraising bike ride will make $35 million.  But organizations that commit to a pledge based event, whether it is a walk, bike ride, or road race can surely expect revenue increases from year to year if they organize their event properly and use a great online fundraising site like SWEET. 

I'm seeing more and more evidence everyday that a properly done "a-thon" will grow every year regardless of the economic environment.  Isn't it nice to know that there is something that you can count on?

Increasing your donations and fundraising revenue in a troubled economy

I have some very good news for nonprofit managers.  I spoke to 2 more nonprofit exceutives today who reported that their 2008 fundraising walk/pledge event reveune will be their highest ever.

This is the third such report from our clients in the last few weeks. 

What's even more interesting is that all 3 organizations reported drastic (over 50%) declines in sponsorship revenue and major donations in 2008.

It's becoming more and more obvious that organizations should expect to see fewer large donations.  But the great news is that ordinary people - the fundraisers and $50 donors - are taking up the slack in support of their organizations.  They are participating in events like walks and marathons, asking for money, and donating their own money.

People still care and are willing to give especially if they are asked by someone they care about and giving is simple and fast.  Make the giving easy with a software like SWEET.  Give your supporters opportunities to ask their friends for money through events like walkathons and other athons. 

Apparently, "a-thons" are not subject to the same fluctutations that sponsorships and majors donations are in these crazy times!!  So, do what the American banking system has done.  Lean on the American people to help your organization.   

The case for long tail fundraising in a tough economy

I spoke with an Executive Director of a nonprofit in Pennsylvania a few hours ago.  He lamented that the major donations he has recieved this year were roughly 40% lower than the amounts pledged.  In essence, a major donor that pledged to give $10,000 ended up giving only $6,000.

That hurts.  Especially if he was planning with $10K in mind.  These are uncertain times and i suppose its not so surprising.

Interestingly enough, the same organization set records this year with it's fundraising "a-thon."  People raised more money than ever.  Taken together it amounted to several major donations.  A long tail effect for sure and further proof that volunteer fundraising programs in your capital campaign will help protect your org in times of economic uncertainty.