Turning Traditional Donors into Online Evangelists

Turning Your Traditionalists into an Empowered Digital Support

TeamJune 2013

#501Brite #501TechBOS

ABOUT SARA

Senior Boston Marketing Manager at Eventbrite

Focus on local NPO community

Event planner and attendee

Connector

Twitter: @BriteBoston

ABOUT DEBRA

Digital Engagement Strategist, Community Organizer 2.0

Goal-oriented, measurable digital strategy and social media

Co-organizer of the Boston 501 Tech Club, #501TechBOS

Twitter: @askdebra

CHALLENGE & OPPORTUNITY

Challenges:

Translating the value of social and digital platforms to your traditional donor base.

Traditionalists don’t use social media to support causes online, if they use social media at all. Mainstreeters are hesitant to use it to support their causes.

Opportunity:

Empower your traditional donors with the knowledge, tools, and resources to use social and digital platforms so they can learn first-hand the value in these mediums

BY THE NUMBERS: Nonprofits and social media

• 89% of charitable organizations use some sort of social media

• 45% say social media plays a “very important” role in fundraising

• % of money raised through social media has doubled in past five years

• Less expensive than traditional marketing

Image Source: http://mashable.com/2012/12/12/non-profits-social-media-infographic/

What is a Traditionalist?

Traditionalist: A loyal donor who is not on social media but may be interested

• Likely semi-retired or retired

• Moderate amount of free time

• Fastest growing community on social media

What Do You Think??

Why aren’t traditional donors already supporting causes through

social networks?

1.Donors aren’t on social networks

2.Donors haven’t thought about it

3.Donors don’t know how

4.Donors are not comfortable talking about our organization online

Seniors and social networks

Who’s online?

Seniors online;

53%

Seniors offline; 47%

34% of online seniors use

social networks

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/51523129#51523129

OPPORTUNITY

THE BIG QUESTION…

WHERE TO START?

Social Endorsements + Facebook Posts

Image Source: http://mashable.com/2012/12/12/non-profits-social-media-infographic/

Supporting a Cause on Facebook

Source: http://waggeneredstrom.com/what-we-do/social-innovation/report-digital-persuasion/

How Offline & Online Supporters First Hear

Source: http://waggeneredstrom.com/what-we-do/social-innovation/report-digital-persuasion/

Challenges and Opportunities: The Mainstreeter

Who is The Mainstreeter?

From Skepticism to… Further Engagement

Engaging Traditionalists and Mainstreeters

In summary:

1. Growing segment of online and social network users

2. Extremely people-driven; hear about causes from friends and family on and offline

3. Give them tools to use, help them show their impact, they want to influence others online

Traditionalist: An loyal donor who is not on social media but may be interested in learning more.

Mainstreeter: A loyal donor active on social media personally but has not yet advocated for a cause.

CRAWL

WALK

RUN

FLY

Borrowed with thanks from Beth Kanter

Traditional donors

Join Digital Support Squad

Help each other “crawl-run-walk”

Begin to look a lot like…

Online donors & evangelists

CREATE YOUR PLAN

1. Develop a Digital Support Squad of your most valued online stakeholders and evangelists. Prep them to welcome your traditionalist.

2. Identify your most influential and valued traditional donors.

3. Invite some to join your Digital Support Squad!

4. Empower development team to connect with them individually online and support them

5. Offer the squad suggestions for online + offline connecting

6. Recruit volunteers to run webinars and skill-building sessions

7. Find support for yourself in professional online groups

CRAWL

• Identify those Traditionalists and Mainstreeters with interest

• In-person support skill sessions to optimize social media use

• Facebook profile

• Linkedin or Twitter profile

• Google profile and using Gmail

• Using online fundraising

• Webinars and “open office hours”

• Encourage them to add volunteer information in LinkedIn and Google profiles

• Invite them into a private, secret online group.

• Give them what they want: to be able to connect with family and friends far away

WALK

• Build confidence

• Practice! • Offer sample posts, updates, and Tweets

for them to use

• Creating status update shares on Facebook

• Sharing a story onto Facebook, Linkedin

• Commenting on others’ stories

• Creating lists of people who want to know about your volunteer work

• Develop a personal fundraising page

• Encourage questions for the Digital Support Squad members!

RUN

• Execute!

• Set goals for yourself and a team

• Friendly competitions• Page visits

• Status update shares on Facebook

• Retweets on Twitter

• Visits to event page

• Tickets sold

• Hold a Google Hangout or Skype call to talk regularly.

FLY

• Refined skills based on successes and failures

• Lead webinars and in-person sessions to train others

• Recruit other members to join digital support team

• Expand online skill sets

• Brainstorm the next great idea with the squad

Digital + Events: Bringing It Home Again

26

Create Your Registration Page

Registration Twitter

Email

Facebook

LinkedIn

Pro Tip: Bit.ly is a great website to help you shorten links for posts across different social media channels

27

Drive Every “Touch” to Registration

DIGITAL DONOR SUPPORT TEAM

What’s the One Thing You’re Going to Do Next?

THANK YOU!

Sara Steele-RogersSenior Boston Marketing ManagerEventbriteSaraS@eventbrite.com@BriteBoston(617) 851-0735

Debra AskanaseDigital Engagement StrategistCommunity Organizer 2.0debra@communityorganizer20.com@askdebra(617) 682-2977