When: Thursday, July 1, at 10:00 am PST / 1:00 pm EST

Cost: FREE

Register at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/237301601

Presented by:

• Dave Raley, director of new media, Masterworks
• Jacob Smith, new media strategist

Who should attend?

• Those interested and intrigued in the evolution of technology use in the nonprofit world.
• Those interested in using new strategies in their fundraising and marketing/communications programs.
• Those in roles responsible for fundraising and marketing/communications, as well as in general positions of leadership.

The world is changing. And micro-engagement techniques are gaining steam. This was especially evident during the Red Cross’s relief efforts in Haiti following their devastating earthquake earlier this year. To date, their text message-giving campaign has raised $32 million — nearly 8% of the total funds the Red Cross has raised for Haitian relief.

But micro-fundraising isn’t the only technique that’s gaining relevance. Four other micro-engagement strategies are also gaining popularity — micro-blogging, micro-advocacy, micro-volunteering and micro-connections. We’ll examine examples of each strategy to illuminate trends in the micro-engagement sphere.

At the end of this webinar, you’ll:

• Know the key trends in micro-engagement for 2010.
• Understand how you can tap into these trends to increase engagement in your organization.
• Act on practical recommendations to stay on the leading edge of micro-engagement in 2010.

At Masterworks, we’re committed to helping you maximize your Kingdom impact. That’s why we’ve put together this enlightening and practical webinar – for you!

Register HERE for Micro-Engagement Goes Mainstream

Please feel free to share this with your peers and colleagues who may be interested!

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

The PayPal deal represents another step for Facebook toward making purchases on the social network a normal part of our everyday lives. This is an important trend for fundraisers to watch.

Why should this be important to fundraisers?

IF Facebook succeeds in making the exchange of money via social networks a culturally normal thing to do, THIS would be a huge breakthrough for all commerce, including online fundraising. Facebook already plays a large role in many people’s social lives and consumes a large percentage of their time online – adding regular commerce to that is the next big thing.

Most fundraising on social networks has continually struggled to perform. The notable exception is event-based fundraising, which is seeing repeatable, predictable success when integrated with sites like Facebook.

So be on the lookout for how Facebook payments continue to evolve and be adopted – it should be a valuable indicator of how successful we can be in fundraising directly through Facebook.

But I’d like to call out two predictions in particular that nonprofit fundraisers should be on the lookout for:

Facebook Gets into…Payments
…Leveraging Facebook Connect, it’s conceivable that Facebook will launch a PayPal competitor, providing e-commerce sites with not just an easy way to accept payments, but also rich data about who their customers are based on their profiles and connections.

Facebook, with more than 350 million active users worldwide, has been a Siren to nonprofit fundraisers. The problem is that with the possible exception of events-based fundraising, it just hasn’t worked. But the closer Facebook integrates e-commerce to the Facebook experience, the more likely it will be that fundraisers will find success on the social network.

If Facebook does indeed launch a payments system, it will be something for fundraisers to watch very closely.

Now for that second prediction:

Live Video Goes Mainstream and Becomes Immensely Profitable
We’ve recently highlighted some of the huge numbers that live web video broadcasts are generating. Much of that has to do with live video evolving from people turning on a webcam in their bedroom to professionally produced programming with celebrity talent, as highlighted by the recent Ashton Kutcher Katalyst HQ broadcast. In 2010, I expect this narrative to move from “wow, huge numbers” to “wow, it’s a real business” as top live video broadcasters are able to turn their programming into mini-media outfits with the help of sponsors.

Online video continues to dominate in it’s importance as a relatively new channel to fundraisers and nonprofit marketers. But 2010 will be the year when livestreaming will become mainstream. Tools such as USTREAM, Livestream and Qik are making the process of web streaming live video very easy. How can you engage your constituents using livestreaming in 2010?

Mashable is one of the best social media/new media blogs out there. You should check it out if you’re at all interested in this space.

You can follow us at www.twitter.com/masterworks.

Happy Tweeting!

There are certain upsides to last-minute, new media communications planning. These include timeliness with current events and lower costs as a result of generally higher efficiency.

However, we advocate for a quarterly or annual planning model, where the primary direction of communications is set months in advance, and that plan is generally worked out accordingly. Exceptions would include emergencies or other breaking news elements that need to be responded to, as well as a subset of social media that simply cannot be planned ahead.

There are a number of advantages to planning on a quarterly or annual basis:

• Better integration with other channels. It takes time to integrate across channels, particularly since some channels like direct mail require lead time for production. By planning ahead, integration can be baked-in rather than bolted-on.
• Better discipline and strategy. Last minute communications planning can lead to diffused focus and inconsistent messaging. Often, in planning ahead, we find an increase in the ability to think through strategy before we execute.
• Enables “pounce” opportunities. By planning ahead for regular communications, both the organization and agency are able to free up capacity to pounce on urgent opportunities the moment they arrive.
• Better distribution of resources. Nonprofit communications staff is typically constant, while the communications themselves rise and fall with the seasons (for instance, communications in December tend to be much higher than those in January). By planning ahead, an organization can better accommodate spikes and lulls in communications.

Again, there are certain aspects that cannot be planned ahead, such as conversation taking place with constituents via social media, emergency response, etc. But the more that can be planned ahead, the greater the capacity to deal with the immediate and urgent.

Are you planning ahead? What do you think?

A few weeks ago, Cone released a new study illustrating an interesting paradox in new media.

While most Americans who use new media (89%) think that companies and organizations should use new media to raise money and awareness, only 18% have actually donated through new media.

So where’s the rub?

In a recent post about the study, Tom Belford explains that this disconnect primarily occurs because people still have trouble trusting new media.

In fact, 4 in 10 respondents (39%) questioned whether their money would actually end up in the hands of the cause they were giving to.

This is a huge issue that needs to be addressed as new media becomes more widely accepted as a viable fundraising channel.

In fact, there are more videos watched every day than searches performed, as attested to in this post excerpt:

According to comScore Video Metrix, 120.5 million Americans watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com in August 2009. That 82.6 videos per viewer a month.

According to comScore qSearch, Americans conducted 9.4 billion searches on Google in August 2009.

Yep, the numbers are right. There are more videos being watched on YouTube than there are searches being conducted on Google in the United States.

Are you using video? If not, you probably should be.

By the way, the NTC is a GREAT conference – if you want to know about the leading edge of what’s happening in new media for nonprofits, NTC 2010 is the place to be.

Here are the sessions:

Case Studies in Integrated Multi-channel Fundraising

VOTE FOR this session at http://nten.org/node/8415

Learn how Campus Crusade for Christ has collaborated to launch several of its most effective multi-channel fundraising campaigns ever, with particular success in the online space. Hear important lessons learned from one of the largest nonprofits in the world and receive practical tips for cultivating donors, both online and off.

Session Takeaways:

1. Learn best practices in driving successful integrated multi-channel fundraising.
2. Learn about specific examples of multi-channel fundraising in action.
3. Learn practical application regarding the cultivation of donors.

A fresh way of thinking for nonprofits, Donors for Life

VOTE FOR this session at http://nten.org/node/8416

What if we stopped treating donors like cash machines? What if we could have Donors for Life?

What we call Donors for Life is a Constituent Experience Management (CEM) strategy that focuses on helping nonprofit organizations deliver superior constituent experiences. The constituent experience is emerging as the single most important aspect in achieving success for nonprofit organizations. The goal of CEM is to move constituents from satisfied to loyal and then from loyal to advocate. Constituent experience is the new innovation frontier for nonprofits.

Session Takeaways:

1. Learn a new way of thinking about donor relationships.
2. Understand the basics of Constituent Experience Management (CEM).
3. Have practical and applicable next steps.

I’d also encourage you to check out and vote for the rest of the proposed NTC sessions.

And hopefully we’ll see you at NTC 2010!

Pretty good (if you can get over the incessant beat).

Last year a similar video came out — see that below. I actually like this one better, although it makes some different points.

So what do you think?

Specifically:

Facebook now accounts for 24 percent of all items being shared in contrast to email which now accounts for 11.1 percent. Not surprisingly, Twitter now accounts for 10.8 percent of all items shared. I reached out to the company to find out what sampling size the company has.

Is that consistent with your experience? How do you share things online?

One thing is for certain, we can’t just think about email when we’re trying to build content we want people to share.