The question is: how are Canadian charities using social media? To answer this, Stephen Thomas collaborated with Montréal-based firm Ajah to examine the Canadian charitable sector and identify which organizations are proactively and effectively utilizing social media. There are over 85,000 charities registered with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA); of these, roughly 22,000 have registered their website with the CRA. Our research involves examining the home pages of these 22,000 websites and detecting those with an obvious social media presence.

The complete results of our research study will be released later this year. In the meantime, Digital Leap attendees were treated to a sneak peek at data from the top 1,000 revenue-earning charities (with CRA-registered websites). Here are some of the highlights:

• Approximately 54% of the top 1,000 charities are using social media in some form.
• The most commonly used social media site is Facebook (49%)
• Twitter is a close 2nd at 45% and YouTube is 3rd at 30%
• Flickr and LinkedIn usage is relatively low, at 10% and 6% respectively
• The median number of Facebook likes is 821 and median number of Twitter followers is 888
• David Suzuki Foundation leads the pack with the highest number of Facebook likes (185,000) and Twitter followers (41,330)

Click here to view the presentation from Digital Leap.
For exclusive access to the complete social media research report this fall, sign up for our e-newsletter The STrategist today.

There is no such thing as a local conference anymore. With social media, content is packaged and shipped from the podium to the planet within moments of it leaving the presenter’s mouth.

Digital Leap has been built from the ground up to be a social conference. To spread the knowledge further, we’re giving away 2 free tickets to the best of the best at social media!

You can be a Digital Dignitary at Digital Leap 2012

What’s in it for a Digital Dignitary?

• Free registration to Digital Leap 2012 (value: $210).
• VIP Access to the full day conference, and to the Digital Leap after-party.
• Recognition on the Digital Leap website and social media channels to boost your following.

What will a Digital Dignitary do?

• Be awesome at sharing text, photo, and video updates on Digital Leap’s Twitter account.
• Listen for and share info that will interest the nonprofit and marketing community.
• Have a sense of humour!

How to Apply:

1. Tweet your application publicly to @DigitalLeapCDA and include the hashtag #DD. (if you’re too shy, or don’t know what a hashtag is, don’t bother.)
2. Once you’ve tweeted, our expert research team will creep all your other social media profiles and select the best candidate. So, they better be up to date!
3. Deadline for applications is 5:00pm on Thursday April 19th
4. Winners will be announced Friday April 20th

Fine print: Must be available for the full day on May 3rd. Travel and accommodations not included. Digital dignitaries will have to provide and use their own smartphone/laptop, but Digital Leap will provide Wi-Fi access and a recharging station. Digital Dignitaries will need to meet with the Digital Leap team prior to the event for a pre-conference briefing.

About Digital Leap:

What: Third annual digital conference for non-profit fundraisers and marketers.

Where: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

When: May 3, 2012 – 8:00am – 7:00pm

The keynote speaker, Paul Nazareth, was a big hit. His message was simple – don’t fake it ’til you make it, be it until you are it, and find success doing work that fulfills your purpose. Here is the entire presentation for your viewing pleasure:

If you enjoyed the talk as much as we did, please share it with a young non-profit professional in your network.

If you want to stay in the loop about YNP events, please add your name to our mailing list.

You can also join our LinkedIn group.

It was a few years ago, when voice broadcast was relatively new on the scene. The provider came to my client to get them to try supplementing an upcoming direct mail campaign with a voice broadcast to their donors. The provider had lots of data to show that the segments of their clients’ files that received a broadcast telephone message always did better than the segments that did not receive such a message. I wouldn’t say I was sceptical, only that I am careful when it comes to testing out new ideas.

After discussing how the provider had done their testing with their previous clients, I recommended that my client test their service on their next mailing—but with one small change in the test design. I proposed that we split the mailing as follows: 1) no voice broadcast to donors with no phone numbers (of course, this was a no brainer); 2) voice broadcast to one half of the donors with phone numbers; and 3) no voice broadcast to the other half of the donors with phone numbers.

What do you suppose was the result of the test? You guessed it! Segments 2 and 3 both had a better response rate to the mailing than Segment 1, but the response for 2 and 3 was equal: the voice broadcast had no measureable effect on the response of Segment 2.

The voice broadcast provider was very surprised. They had always sent their broadcasts to all of the donors with telephone numbers on file and then compared the response to that of all the donors without phone numbers. They had honestly never thought that the presence or absence of a telephone number might itself be a confounding variable.

What do I think was happening in this test? I believe that, all other things being equal, donors who have provided their telephone number to a charity probably have a greater affinity than donors who haven’t. They may even tend to have been on the file longer and have been asked for their telephone number many more times, and thus have had many more opportunities to provide their number. Their tenure alone might be enough to account for the difference in response.

Whatever was happening, the testing of the voice broadcast without controlling for this extra variable was bound to produce untrustworthy results. In direct response fundraising, one must try to control for as many variables as possible, and then randomize one’s data selection so that every donor has an equal chance to be selected for the test cell. And, of course, the test should be repeatable and there should be a reasonable expectation that the results will be similar on subsequent tests—if not, what would be the point of testing at all.

In the end, my client didn’t bother to repeat the test. I wish they had because I wish I could be confident that voice broadcast would work to enhance response. It would be one more arrow in the quiver for direct response. Has anyone out there done the careful testing necessary to prove that voice broadcast will work in this way?

I’m not new to the non-profit world, having worked with well-known organizations like the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and The Hospital for Sick Children. I spent the last several years in the commercial sector to check out how life is on the ‘other side’ and now I feel like I’m back where I belong. I’m happy to see that philanthropy is very much alive and well in Canada; charitable donations in 2010 were just under $8.3 billion – a 6.5% increase from 2009.¹

On the digital side, to say the landscape has changed dramatically in the past 5 years would be an understatement…here are just a few interesting tidbits:
Canadians spend more time online than other Internet users around the world. The average Canadian spends 43.5 hours a month on the Web – almost twice the worldwide average of 23.1 hours.

• Growth in social media has been nothing short of astounding: there are now more than 800 million active users on Facebook, 106 million accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn has 64 million users in North America alone.²
• According to a recent study conducted by Google, the number of people with an internet-capable mobile device has surpassed that of desktop or laptop computer owners.³
• 8 million people in Canada own smartphones, which represents 40% of the mobile market here. This is an increase of 7% from just 6 months ago.⁴
• More than 1 million tablets have been sold in Canada so far, and that number is expected to more than double to 2.5 million in 2012.⁵

As I slip into Taslim’s difficult-to-fill shoes as ST’s Director, Digital Marketing, the challenge at hand for me personally, as well as for the non-profit industry as a whole, is to leverage the digital ecosystem in a way that truly engages donors and achieves the highest return on investment. All this while recognizing that technology is a tool, not a solution. The key is we have to be willing to try new things and do things differently to attract new donor audiences.

I’m looking forward to what 2012 will bring – what about you?

¹ The Daily, Statistics Canada, December 5, 2011
² comScore 2010 Canada Digital Year in Review
³ Google Mobile Internet & Smartphone Adoption
⁴ comScore MobiLens November 30, 2011
⁵ Solutions Research Group

How much do you know about the worldview of your mother or your grandmother? How much do they know about yours?

Your mother, and almost certainly your grandmother, probably make charitable donations by direct mail. You probably don’t. But in your job, you may well be making decisions about direct mail creative.

Would you go to your grandmother for advice on your next social media campaign? I don’t think so. So when making decisions about direct mail creative proceed with caution.

You could try consulting your grandmother, mother or another older person. But be careful. For example, they will almost certainly say they hate premiums – address labels, book marks, note cards etc. Almost every direct mail donor says that. But when you actually test premiums in a mailing, they almost always net more funds for you.

When trying to evaluate direct mail creative, first and foremost you should listen to the advice of your agency. They will have decades of experience in marketing to older folks.

If you really don’t like your agency’s creative ideas, but their drafts don’t violate your organization’s brand or mission, then agree to a test. More often than not, I predict, their approach will win, net you more money, and bind your older donors closer to you. And if not, you will now have real evidence to back up your opinion.

And yes, I have a bias. I’m an older person myself now. That’s why I won’t be writing any advice blogs on social media!

I’ve started eyeing other people’s iPhones. With hundreds of cool apps, the ability to take amazing photos, it’s like my BlackBerry Torch, only infinitely cooler.

So what happened to the Blackberry and its makers Research in Motion (RIM)? Co-founders and CEOs, Mike Lazaradis and Jim Balsillie recently jumped ship. Many would suggest that the appointment of Thorsten Heins, the new CEO and President (previously responsible for the BlackBerry portfolio worldwide, as COO, product engineering) is a step backward for RIM at a time when they need to be looking forward.

Heins contends “If we continue doing well at what we’re doing, I see no problems with us being in the top three players worldwide in the next years of wireless.” However, RIM and their products seem to have lost their edge, their cool factor.

Steve Jobs knew that if you don’t swim fast enough you die. Admittedly, he may not have been the nicest guy to work for, but in Apple he built a shining example of a company that could very successfully build and market great products.

Jobs built a team and a culture of forward-thinking innovation.

Is Your Non-Profit settling for being a BlackBerry, or is it aspiring to be an iPhone?
Have you stopped swimming?

As an agency, Stephen Thomas has successfully convinced at least one of our clients to adopt an “Innovation budget”. This is a line item meant to allow them to take a little risk, to innovate.

Needless to say, this is one of our most admired clients. They’ll take a risk. They’ll be ahead of the pack. In the short term, this has paid off. They’ve raised more money which in turn has allowed them to make great strides toward accomplishing their mission.

We love it when the non-profit organizations we work with are eager for new ideas: how to integrate; how to utilize multi-channel efforts in their fundraising and marketing for example. These are the questions the smart charities are asking.

It’s a new year, time for a temperature check, time for resolutions. Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you think about the year (and the years) ahead:

• Does your charity have an innovation budget?
• If a staff person makes a pitch for a great and innovative idea, do they get asked if it’s worked before? Or are they encouraged to go for it?
• Are you allowed to take risks?
• Does your organization support or squash new ideas?
• Does your charity aspire to be a RIM or an Apple?

The holidays are a busy time of year for giving, both online and offline. Did you know that about 40% of all donations made online are made in December?

Why? Because we’re in the mood for giving. All that time by the fireplace, hot cocoa in hand and family around us is not for nothing. It reminds many of us of how lucky we are to have all that we have.

On the one hand, the commercial sector is promoting material gifts for the ones we love. But what are charities and non-profits doing? Hopefully, you’re reminding your donors how important this time of year is to those in need and how important it is to give. And, hopefully, you’re telling compelling beneficiary or donor stories that capitalize on the emotion of the season and extend an impossible-to-refuse ask.

At this extremely busy time of year, why not make it as easy as possible for your donors to give? Ramping up your online initiatives with the right revenue-driving strategy is a great place to start.

Have you thought about how you’re going to make that final year-end appeal? Go digital this holiday by customizing your donate page. Setup a mini-campaign on Facebook and Twitter. Email your donors and ask them to make an online donation before December 31st.

You might think it’s too late to ask, but if the cause is relevant and the need is great, then now – during the holidays – is the best possible time.

Digital isn’t just the quick fix, one-off answer to your year-end fundraising. It can be a sustainable model for raising money now and well into the New Year. If you want to learn more, then let’s chat.

‘Tis the season for Digital. Happy Holiday Fundraising!

Below is an excerpt of my chapter in Guy’s book. Comments welcome!

Direct response fundraising is a subset of direct marketing. Direct marketing differs from above-the-line advertising in that it is completely measurable. I spent x, I received y and (hopefully) I netted z. In other words, we make an offer to a group of people and we do (or don’t) receive a response in the form of a donation.

Using the mail to ask for money has been around since at least Confederation. Canadian churches sent letters to adherents asking for money. In the 1920s, the Canadian Tuberculosis Society began to mail unaddressed householders with Christmas seals. In the 1940s, Easter Seals, the organization created to fight polio, began mailing unaddressed householders at Easter. After the Second World War, War Amps mailed their car key fobs to Canadians. It wasn’t until the early 1980s though that some Canadian charities, notably Oxfam and Amnesty International, began scientific direct mail programs modeled on what was happening south of the border.

In this chapter we will deal with eleven channels or media that can carry our offers to a group of people plus campaigns that integrate two or more of these channels. As some of the channels I’ll discuss didn’t exist 20 years ago, we can predict with confidence that new channels will likely emerge in the future to enrich our direct response fundraising.

In direct response fundraising we have a number of offers. The oldest offer is a one-off gift. But we also offer recurrent, committed or monthly giving, planned gifts or a special event sponsorship. Creative fundraisers the world over are constantly trying to find yet more offers.

If you’d like to read more about direct response, or hear what other great fundraisers have to say about other aspects of fundraising, you can order Guy’s book here.

So how do you get their attention and how do you move them from awareness and participation to commitment, loyalty and donation?

Based on research conducted by Stephen Thomas and youth marketing expert Max Valiquette, here are FIVE THINGS you need to think about before you start:

1. When it comes to health charities, this younger demographic does not respond to the long-term consequences of disease. They are still young enough to believe “it’s not going to happen” to them.
2. As they mature, they are able to understand their values better and how a cause supports, connects and reinforces those values. Those at the younger end of the demographic (18 year olds) are obviously less engaged in the world beyond their friends and family. Those at the older end (27 year olds) have a broader perspective on the needs of the world and their role in addressing them.
3. The causes that get their attention first are the ones they have proximity to (e.g. a relative with an illness). If they don’t have proximity, they are more likely to engage when the cause involves something they think is right, or wrong, or needs fixing.
4. They receive personal gratification from involvement and participation in causes. So they’re more likely to connect to a cause by participating in a fun event than by making a donation initially. It’s about what’s in it for them.
5. For a young person, connecting means participating with a group, meeting a physical or financial goal (as a fundraiser rather than as a donor initially), or influencing change.

We ignore the younger demographic at our own peril. Eventually, they are the ones who will become our donors. But will your cause be the non-profit that gets their attention when they are first becoming aware of their power to help? Or will you let your competitor start the conversation with them first? It’s not too late to begin making your case with them.

Come to the Stephen Thomas booth at AFP Congress 2011 (Nov. 28 – 29) and join the youth marketing conversation.