Frog Loop

We’ve talked about the importance of storytelling on Frogloop before. Sarah Massey reminded us earlier this summer that we can all be our own reporter and we included effective story telling as of our favorite Five Tips to Enaging New Online Activists. Today I want to highlight some recent nonprofit campaigns telling great stories with the end-goal of building a movement.

Put Video in your Storytelling Tool-Belt
Video is one of the most effective means of storytelling and its a must have for online activists trying to foster movements. The Courage Campaign’s recent volunteer-led campaign “The Wedding Matters” is a great example. In one weekend, the team produced and edited 38 videos from start to finish. The finished videos featured wedding stories from couples who were married in 2008 before Prop 8 passed. They are emotional, human, and deeply personal. The Wedding Matters Campaign leveraged the skills of dozens of volunteers and involved the team in meaningful work. The captured stories shared the experience with the Courage Campaign community when supporters were asked vote on their favorites.

Another exemplar of effective video storytelling is Mark Horvath, who’s InvisiblePeople.tv project has involved a broad community in understanding the reality of what homelessness looks like in the community and inspired the establishment of new programs and community solutions.

Are you stuck in a fundraising rut and looking to try some creative fundraising tactics to engage your supporters? Check out Network for Good’s “How to Raise A lot More Money Now” which lists 50 fundraising strategies by some of the best fundraising experts including Jocelyn Harmon of Care2, Mark Rovner of Sea Change Strategies and Sarah Durham of Big Duck.

Here’s the cliff notes version just in case.

1. Don't ask your donors to solve huge problems; ask them to solve solvable problems.

2. Overdo it. Be too dramatic. Too emotional. Too strong. It's a lot easier to tone it down than it is to pump up weak and underdone copy.

- Jeff Brooks, True Sense Marketing

 3. If you want my money, touch my heart. Learn what I struggle with and what makes me move. Walk a mile in my shoes.

4. Don’t crowd your e-mail with content. Send one email with one “ask.”

 - Jocelyn Harmon, Care2

5. Organize a volunteer online thank you corps. Donors get a simple training and are then assigned new donors to personally thank on behalf of the cause.

6. Organize a crowd-sourced appeal. Invite donors to participate in drafting the "perfect fundraising appeal."

7. Track lifetime giving and recognize donors who reach various thresholds, in terms of money and time. Someone who gives $1,000 over 5 years is still a $1,000 donor in my book.

- Mark Rovner, Sea Change Strategies

It's hard to believe but summer is coming to an end which means year-end fundraising is just around the corner. Are you prepared to ramp up your fundraising strategy this month? Wondering what the latest best practices are and what kind of fundraising results you can expect? Check out Care2's latest web presentation Hot or Not: What's Sizzling in Online Fundraising, featuring fundraising experts - Steve MacLaughlin, Director, Internet Solutions, Blackbaud, Donna Wilkins, President, Charity Dynamics, Jason Wood, Director of Internet Services, The Salvation Army National Headquarters and Eric Glader, Director of Nonprofit Services for Care2.

Hot or Not: What's Sizzling in Online Fundraising?

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Has the world gone mobile crazy? Apple’s app store just cracked a quarter million available mobile applications, Google’s Android is giving them a run for their money, and Microsoft is waiting in the wings with Windows 7 Mobile. Apps are central to mobile and, according to Allyson Kapin, Blogger-In-Chief for Care2's Frogloop and Partner at Rad Campaign, mobile web use is exploding. Does your organization have a mobile and app strategy?

Ensuring that your nonprofit website is mobile friendly and loads well from different mobile browsers should be your first priority when it comes to mobile. Beyond that, we’ve seen the potential for text-based mobile giving campaigns, which Frogloop has reported in the past year. While few nonprofits have developed mobile apps, the potential is huge if done strategically and of course executed well. We’ll likely see some great mission driven apps released in the coming years as more nonprofits decide to experiment and invest in mobile app development to further their missions.

Thinking about Developing Your Own Custom App? Check out these 7 Mission Centered Nonprofit Apps  

1. Montery Bay Aquarium - Seafood Watch - Helps diners make sustainable restaurant choices. Guides actions and informs about overfishing and health issues. (iPhone)
2. American Museum of Natural History - Dinosaurs - Information on fossils in the museum, different species of dinosaur, excavation stories, and more. (iPhone)
3. American Hiking Society - “HIKE” - Helps hikers find park maps, trail-heads, and campgrounds. The app lets you record “adventures” to track progress along a map with GPS. You can also take photos as you hike, share your experience with friends on social networks, review your journey in order along your mapped route after you’re done hiking, and see stats about the hikes you complete. (iPhone)
4. Humane Society of the United States - Humane TV - View HSUS produced videos, stories, and other content and share with friends on social networks from within the app (iPhone)
5. Sunlight Labs - Congress - Information on legislation coming up for a vote, contact information for legislators, and links to lawmakers’ social media profiles (Android)
6. People Against Violent Environment - Child Abuse and Sexual Assualt Awareness - April is an awareness month for these issues. The apps show different facts about child abuse or sexual assault each day of the month that users enter the app. (iPhone)
7. 350Mobile - The first release of the app was focused on coordinating 350’s Day of Action. Users can find actions near them, learn about climate science, and the policy solutions that 350 is advocating. (iPhone)

After scouring the web, two articles caught our attention this week. Check them out and feel free to share your own picks of the week.

The Death of Facebook
Geoff Livingston wrote a thought-provoking piece this week about the death of facebook.

"Who in their right mind would predict the death of Facebook given its ever increasing dominance? But this is a question everyone asks, 'What’s next?' said Livingston.

Frogloop readers also ask this question frequently. As nonprofit campaigners know, it's critical that we understand what's coming down the pipeline and be nimble enough to redirect some of our outreach resources. Also, don't place all of your eggs in one basket. Check out Frogloop's article "Is Your Nonprofit Too Social Media Dependent."

One of the reasons Facebook has continued to grow and dominate for so long is because it uses the McDonalds model. "That’s right, McDonalds," said Livingston.

"A good part of McDonalds relevancy lies in its ability to offer a cheap menu of foods and beverages that are popular in contemporary society. Facebook does the same with its social network functionality.

But trends come and go and eventually Facebook will fade out too. What's next? Livingston recommends keeping an eye in Ipad apps such as Flipboard which allows users to create their own magazine based on preferences and socially recommended content and ABC’s iPad app, a visual globe of news stories.

Click here to read the full article.

5 Reasons Why No One is Reading your Enewsletter

Is your organization struggling to get decent open and click-through rates on your enewsletter? You are not alone. While there are several things you can do improve your enewsletter and make it resonate with your supporters (check out Frogloop's article 10 Fast Tips to Boost Your Enewsletter Performance) Sean D'Souza over at the Copyblogger says that there are 5 common mistakes that you need to address ASAP.

Mistake # 1: Your newsletter isn’t helpful

If your content is NOT useful to your target audiences, guess what? They won't read it. Tailor the content to your audiences. Remember it's not about you. It's about your audiences and what resonates with them.

Mistake #2: Your voice isn’t particularly compelling

Do you enjoy talking to boring people? No. So why would you expect people to read a boring enewsletter. Find your writing voice. Tell stories. Paint a picture around the issues you are sharing with your supporters.

Mistake # 3: You’re not telling stories

See number 2 about telling a story and painting a picture for your readers

Mistake # 4: You have a half-hearted call to action

Do you want supporters to take an action? I sure hope so. Make sure you use directive language when you ask them to take an action. Be upfront and don't beat around the bush. Also, don't bury your action at the bottom of the enewsletter or rely on callout boxes off to the side all of the time. Mix it up and of course test it.

Mistake# 5: You don’t have a specific frequency

Stick to a regular publishing schedule so people know when to expect their enewsletters in their in-boxes.

Click here to read the full article.

 

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Facebook who now has over 500 million users, launched Facebook Places, a geo-location service to compete with location apps like FourSquare. In a nutshell, Facebook Places uses check-ins and allows you to see where your friends are and share your location.

Although Facebook did not copy FourSquare’s popular competition features such as the ability to earn mayorships and badges, this is clearly another move by Facebook to try and be the ultimate social network that wants to do everything.

The nonprofit world has been keeping a close eye on location apps like Foursquare and Gowalla for the past year. Some nonprofits like Big Love, Little Hearts who have invested time into using FourSquare have had some success raising money and using it to promote advocacy campaigns. However, now that Facebook Places is here, will Foursquare survive? It has taken FourSquare a couple of years to generate three million users. But Facebook, which also hosts thousands of nonprofit fanpages and has a built-in audience of over 500 million people, could easily dominate the geo-location market. Nonetheless, people are still quite supportive of FourSquare. The day that Facebook Places launched was the single biggest day for new Foursquare sign ups, said company representatives. It will be interesting to watch if that loyalty stays or fades.

Interested in taking Facebook Places for a test run? Try these tips.

1. First, search for your organization in Facebook Places. If your organization has been created, you will need to go through the process of claiming ownership. If you don’t see your organization listed in Facebook Places, create it. This would be useful for organizations like museums, animal shelters, food banks, hospitals, schools and universities, etc.

2. According to Facebook’s blog you'll need the most recent version of the Facebook application for iPhone. You also can access Facebook Places from touch.facebook.com if your mobile browser supports HTML 5 and geo-location.

Savvy fundraisers know that every time a donor interacts with their nonprofit, the bond strengthens.  The donor becomes a touch more loyal and connected to the charity.  Mobile is a rapidly emerging platform for engaging donors in new and powerful ways.

This single extremely versatile channel of mobile allows you to . . .

• talk to people (one-on-one or broadcast recorded messages)
• send and receive text messages (SMS), including mobile alerts
• send media files (MMS) such as pictures, video and audio that the donor can enjoy on their mobile device at that instant
• receive donations
• invite people to view info on your website anywhere, anytime. Mobile users also access social sites while on-the-go such as Facebook and Twitter.
• use generic applications (apps) to enhance donors/prospects interaction with you; plus you can create custom apps that do anything you want
• send and receive email; this is done by business people of all ages
• make any media interactive including direct mail, print ads, billboards, TV, etc.

Sharing relevant content that your donors, prospects, members and advocates value is paramount.  And offering them engaging activities follows close behind.  Mobile gives you unlimited ways to do both.  It’s only limited by your imagination.

The American Red Cross hosted the Emergency Crisis Social Data Summit last week, which brought together over 100 influentials (including Robert Scoble) and practitioners from the tech, social media, and emergency response communities to brainstorm how we can use social media to respond better to emergencies and disasters.

During the event, the American Red Cross released a white paper based on a recent survey to over 1000 people that revealed interesting data about their use of social media in emergency situations. The survey found that if people needed help and couldn’t reach 911, one in five would try to contact responders through a digital means such as e-mail, website or social media. If web users knew of someone else who needed help, 44% would ask other people in their social network to contact authorities, 35% would post a request for help directly on a response agency’s Facebook page and 28% would send a direct Twitter message to responders.

The survey also noted that:

• Nearly three out of four people participate in an online community or social network with Facebook being the most popular;
• 89% of of people ages 18 to 34 use social networks verses 65% age 35 and older;
• One in 6 people (16%) have used social media to get information about an emergency;
• About 50% of respondents said that they would sign up to receive emergency related information such as evacuation routes, road closures and shelter locations  via email, text alerts, or applications;

Jocelyn Harmon, Director of Nonprofit Services for Care2, presented questions and feedback from the roundtable discussions to Scoble. Check out their discussion on C-SPAN.

 

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Your nonprofit could be raising a lot more money online if you were using the right mix of strategies to deepen your donor engagement. Join us on August 31 at 2PM EDT for "Hot or Not: What's Sizzling in Online Fundraising?" a not to be missed Care2 webinar on the latest trends in online fundraising with an all-star panel of fundraising experts - Steve MacLaughlin, Director, Internet Solutions, Blackbaud, Donna Wilkins, President, Charity Dynamics, Jason Wood, Director of Internet Services, The Salvation Army National Headquarters and Eric Glader, Director of Nonprofit Services for Care2.

What You’ll learn:

• The latest online fundraising growth statistics from 1,700 nonprofits
• Best tactics for end of year and 2011 fundraising planningHow mobile, social media, and other channels help online giving
• How performance varies by size of organization and sector
• Statistics around multichannel fundraising vs. single channel

Hot or Not: What's Sizzling in Online Fundraising?

Direct mail is dead. Email is dead. TV and radio are dead. Face to face is dead. Telegraph is dead. Social media is dead. There are so many obituaries being written these days that it's hard to tell what's still alive. Is everyone just trying to be clever or are they auditioning for a role on CSI?

None of these channels are dead. Ok, telegraph is still dead despite rumors of a comeback. And there is a continual evolution within each of these communication options. Nonprofits are still improving their use of direct marketing, phone, email, and other channels.

What is dead is the use of one channel at a time to engage people. What is dead is operating in silos of data and systems that don't play well together. What is dead is mindset that multichannel communication doesn't apply to your organization. The old ways of planning and managing constituent communication are dead.

Single Channel is Dead
There, I said it. In fact, it's been dead for a while now. Most savvy companies and organizations recognized this years ago and have diversified their engagement streams. The reality is that you can only get so far riding one horse. The channels aren't dead — using them by themselves is dead. 

Using a single communication channel to engage with constituents is a dead on arrival strategy. This isn't just theoretical pontificating. An analysis of trends and data support this fact. And basic biology does too.

How does your nonprofit typically engage with your supporters? Is your ongoing online communications mainly comprised of action alerts to sign petitions or donation appeals pleading for money? If you answered yes, then your nonprofit is missing out on major opportunities on engaging and developing deeper relationships with your supporters. Here are ten engagement strategies to add to the mix of your online communications starting Monday morning.

1. Connect with Us: Make your presence on social networks easy to find on your website. Don’t bury it. Also make your social networking presence is branded with your organizational identity so your members immediately recognize you.
   
   
2. Be Generous: Share a relevant article around your mission with your members. Remember everything you share doesn’t always have to be about YOU. Chances are your organization is part of a larger movement.
   
   
3. Recognize Volunteers and Active Members: Share a story. The story can be about a volunteer who did something extra special for your organization or a member who benefited from a program by your organization.
   
   
4. Make Supporters Opinions Count: People join your organization or take action because they care about your mission and want to help you make a difference. They also want to voice their opinions. (Who doesn’t, right? ) Offer polls on your website or social network like Twtpoll. Launching a voting contest on new slogans and program priorities are great engagement tactics too. Bottom line - get supporters involved in some decision-making processes. Make them feel valued and that their opinions matter.
   
   
5. Share Successes and Failures: As much as your supporters want to celebrate your wins and successes, they also want to be in the loop when the organization suffers from a loss such as not passing a legislative bill that they helped fight for. Sharing losses can also help to mobilize your list and can fire people up for future campaigns and volunteer opportunities.

I have always been a firm believer in surveying your online adovacy and donor list every six months or at the very least once a year. But a couple of weeks ago, Kelly O'Neal, an online marketing consultant, asked me "Why should nonprofits survey their list? What value will they truly get out of the results?" I rattled off some answers and reflected on my answers as she raised some great points. Here's some questions that nonprofits should ask themselves that Kelly and I have been discussing ever since.

1. What are your goals in surveying your nonprofit's list?

2. What do you hope to learn about your list, that you don't already know - after looking at your list's response rates to action alerts and donation appeals?

3. If you gain new insight, what are you going to do differently? How will it shape the future of your online program? Be very honest in answering these two questions and think about your organization's:

• staff capacity;
• structure and work silos;
• competing program priorities.

4. Will you have time to assess, learn, and implement change? I personally know very few groups who survey their lists and take the time to do all three steps outlined above due to staff resources.

5. Who typically responds to your online surveys? Is it a tiny sample of your list and therefore stastically insignificant? Are the segments that respond your super activists or deeply committed donors who are already big fans of your organization? If so, that's not a great sample unless the survey was specifically aimed at this segment.

Issue campaigns have a lot in common with startups, especially when it comes to marketing. For example, a non-profit will often come up with a campaign idea, invest significant resources in building the relevant tools, and then market it to the public.  Sometimes the campaign is successful and even goes "viral", but too often it doesn't. This is very similar to startups that invest millions in developing a cool idea only to have it fail. Webvan --  which raised more than $800 million in venture funding only to go bankrupt -- is a classic example. 

To avoid these tragic stories, a new methodology is gaining popularity in Silicon Valley.  Called "Customer Development", it focuses on intelligently assessing the opportunity for an idea before developing it. More than simply asking a couple friends or colleagues if it's a "good idea", customer development asks hard questions early on so that uncomfortable facts aren't discovered too late.

In its simplest form, customer development could be summarized as: 

• Customer discovery:  What need is your initiative going to fulfill for the user?  Is that really important to them (or is it simply wishful thinking)? Do you offer a credible solution or are other alternatives more compelling?     
• Customer validation: Are users willing to take the desired step, whether it is to donate, volunteer or write a letter to Congress?
• Customer creation: How are you going to reach out to new users and build your audience base?   What are the costs and metrics for each of your activities?
• Company building:  Do you have the resources and processes to achieve the desired goal? Is there a reasonable return on your organization's investment of time and resources?

Nonprofit Website Best Practices

Nonprofits are always looking for better ways to improve their website, make their content more engaging and ultimately convert web visitors into supporters. Jocelyn Harmon of Care2 wrote a great blog post outlining nonprofit website best practices. Her tips include:

Rule #1:  Include LOTS of "white space" on your site.  It makes it easier to scan and pleasing to the eye.

Rule #2:  Don't make me scroll! 

Rule #3:  Turn your website into a list-building tool by putting an email sign-up box on EVERY page of your website. 

Rule #4:  In ALL of your marketing materials (this means your website too), use words and images that make your mission concrete.

Rule #5: Make your donate button BIG And BOLD so that people can find it!  And, put it on every page of your site.

Check out the rest of Jocelyn’s rules here!

Disaster Philanthropy

Why do people donate money to support certain disaster relief missions more then others? Joanne Fritz of About.com wondered this too and did a thoughtful write up about this very topic.

Case and point, nonprofits have struggled to raise money around the Gulf Oil Spill. Are donors just not rallying around the devastating Gulf Oil Spill because few human lives were lost? Because BP has publicly said that they will pay for everything and therefore the public feels that they don't need to donate money? These are all great questions that the community should be thinking about.

Does your nonprofit know how many of its supporters read action alerts and fundraising appeals on their smartphone? It’s probably a lot more then you think.

A new report by Nielsen shows that email is the number one activity people do on the mobile web. In the last year email activity on mobile devices increased from 37.4 percent to 41.6 percent. Despite some predictions, the rise of social networking hasn’t pushed email and instant messaging into obscurity, said the Nielsen report. Across online mediums, email is the third heaviest activity online.

More Useful Nielsen Stats

• Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent one year ago.

I’m facing a difficult challenge and would love to hear your ideas.

The challenge was seeded years ago, as soon as social media began to take the nonprofit world by storm. I treasured (and still do) the vitality and vibrancy of blogging to generate succinct, timely content and discussions. That’s why in 2005 I launched the GettingAttention.org blog to complement our long-form e-news articles.

But as we’ve been deluged by social media tools, I’m concerned to see nonprofit marketers forsake the basics to do all social media, all the time. 

I get it.

It’s hard to resist jumping on what’s hot. Social media is practically all you hear from marketing experts and nonprofit leaders alike. So much so that many nonprofit leaders have social media fever and pressure their teams to jump in, even if they don’t really understand what the “in” is.

This human services agency is using Facebook’s “safe space” to build awareness of its family violence prevention services. That international aid organization is bringing front-line stories of its far-away work to supporters back home via online video. An online organizing superstar dramatically increases email list counts and quality for his client organizations via social-media advocacy campaigns.

It’s incredibly seductive. Lots of success stories, lots of experimentation and lots of attention. Finally we communicators are on the leading edge! That’s why so many of you spend a huge percentage of their time learning and implementing social media tools.

Ever wanted to find out where your donors and activists are hanging out on social networks so you can continue deepening your relationsips with your supporters and foster more two-way conversations? Thanks to Care2's new Social Network Tracker that allows you to match your email lists across major social networks it's now super easy to do.

The Care2 Social Network Tracker tells you which of your donors and activists are on social networks, what social networks they are on and how many friends they have in aggregate. 

You can use this data to identify the "super-connectors" on your list so that you can reach out to these individuals and:

• Find out if they are talking about your issue in their social networking community.
• Engage them in discussions and generate feedback.
• Cross promote your most important actions, volunteer, and donation opportunities. (Be strategic on this one - no one likes to be treated like an ATM machine).
• Give them helpful resources and answer questions they have about your issue or organization.
• Share campaign successes.

Here is the short list of the social media sites that are included:

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Flickr
• LinkedIn
• StumbleUpon
• LiveJournal

 

Match Rate:

The anticipated match rate for Social Network Tracker data append is 70% to 80%.  However, results may vary for your file.

As Frogloop discusses on this blog often, one of the keys in building a strong engagement and outreach proram is to connect with donors and activists across multiple channels. Social media is a key space to deepen those relationships. The Social Network Tracker is one tool that can help you quickly connect with your base.

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The CitizenGulf project was just unfolded last week. A national event on August 25 with would-be meet-ups throughout the country designed to create awareness for the Citizen Effect project, seeks to raise funds and awareness for fishing families. The effort also fits the nonprofit's citizen empowering philanthropy philosophy, which is identifying actionable problems and solutions amongst major problems, such as this one -- the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. How does one go from an oil spill to a national meet-up event? What strategies and tools will be deployed? Here's an inside look on how we scaled from a nonexistent program to a national effort in just three months.

Strategy Begins with Research

We began our effort with a very visible citizen reporting trip featuring Citizen Effect's Dan Morrison and May Yu, Jill Foster, and myself that informed our strategy. Specifically, though it raised awareness via successful CNN iReports, photos, video, podcasts, blog posts, and social network outreach, the effort provided critical insights:

• Defined the problem facing fishing families, an identifiable and actionable issue within the larger oil spill context. Stories were a critical component of social media to make any cause relatable.
• Indentified a local 501c3 (Catholic Charities of New Orleans) that has relationships with the fishing families as well as a possible solution, educating their children.
• Found local partners to work with, namely cause promoter Sloane Berrent and her existing network of national Gulf Coast supporters like Andy Sternberg via Gulf Coast Benefit

Like crime, procrastination doesn’t pay. Literally.

For many organizations nearly half of online fundraising revenue comes in during the month of December. But in actuality it takes months of preparation – building and stewarding an online community, inspiring donors, cultivating them, testing in advance of year-end and analyzing your metrics -- to really make the most of your year-end fundraising opportunities.

The good news is you’ve got several months – four to be exact – to get your fundraising house in order.  That’s why Eric Rardin and I co-wrote this Overachiever’s Guide and presented a Care2 webinar on this very topic last Thursday – so we could share nine steps you can implement now to help you raise more money in December.

For instance:

Your Mother gave you sage advice that holds doubly true with your donors: Always say your hellos and thank-yous.

While welcoming new donors and thanking them seems obvious, in my reviews across non-profit organizations, a majority do not welcome and thank their donors enough. And an un-thanked donor won’t be a donor for long.

• Does your auto responder donation thank you look like a tax receipt? If so, you are missing an opportunity to re-inspire a donor who just gave to you.
• Do you send your donors non-ask updates on your work including success stories they made possible? If not, you are missing a stewardship opportunity that is relatively cheap and easy to do online.
• When you get a large online gift do you ever pick up the phone or send a handwritten note to thank the donor? This is a huge opportunity to bond that high-dollar donor to your cause for the long run.
• When was the last time you made a gift to your organization? I highly recommend you find out first-hand how you are treating your donors in advance of year-end. What would you want to change about the experience? Most likely, your donors want to change that too.

For more tips for getting your thank on, download the Guide or view the webinar.

In the good old Web 1.0 days cause marketing campaigns got a bad rap. Some criticized corporations and said their cause marketing efforts were PR stunts designed to score brownie points with the public. In the Web 2.0 world, cause marketing contests such as Pepsi Refresh and Chase Community Giving have caused a different kind of ruckus. It's called digital litter. Why? Because in cause marketing contests, charities and ordinary citizens are encouraged to reach out to their online networks and ask people to vote for their favorite charities. The charity with the most votes receives cash grants ranging from $10K to $250K+ to help fulfill their mission. Critics say that the obsession with voting is not only cluttering up their email, but their social networking space too.

"The problems with using social channels heavily for things like vote-raising events like this is that it floods one’s channel with that kind of promotion. That’s problem 1. The secondary problem is that if you’re someone with a larger following, you have to manage how many of these competitions you’re going to promote, because one begets another begets misgivings about which charities one supports and which charities one doesn’t," said Chris Brogan, who was irked enough to write about this recently on his personal blog.

Others in the debate feel that it’s an organization's actual work on the ground that should speak louder than their talent for garnering "votes". What about small nonprofits who just don't have the large email lists or staff time and resources to spend all day on social networks asking people to vote for them? How can they take advantage of opportunities like this?

"I think that nonprofits really need to think about the ROI before entering these contests. Organizations need to hit the pause button and ask if they should participate in the contest in the first place," said Beth Kanter who developed an ROI checklist as result of her research through the American Giving Challenge.

What do you think? Are online fundraising contests effective or are they turning into digital litter campaigns?

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