Development Blogs.com

[Taking a break from the mystery shopping - will return to it next week.] Search Engine Optimisation may seem like some obscure techno-witchcraft, but it deals with a serious question - can people find you when they go searching for you. More and more people rely on google (and occasionally, other serach engines) to find things for them online. But what do they find? Well this is what a search for ‘Irish third world charities’ throws up on google: In the crucial ‘above-the-fold’ area, only two overseas / development charities appear. And they’re not the big ones. Gorta and Fair Trade make 1 and 2, with the rest of the sector absent. Now, I know most progressive NGOs dislike the term ‘third world’. But that’s not important. Most of their...

Some seem to have cracked it, some have yet to figure it out… MarriagEquality Friends of the Earth Ireland and International Unicef Greenpeace International and their Light bulb campaign LGBT Noise Concern Worldwide Technorati Tags: facebook, social networking, non-profit, charity...

If you want to see email fundraising at its most effective, it’s worth taking a look at how the Democratic Party candidates are using it. Your first step should be to sign up to both Barack and Hilary’s websites. You’ll need a US zip code, but I’m sure you can think of one. Here’s a great example of good email fundraising from Obama: What does it do right? 1. Timing - it arrived the day after Super Tuesday 2. Subject line - this is possibly the most important collection of words you will right in an email. Here we have the intriguing ‘Startling News’ 3. Clear articulation of need - the Clinton’s have pumped in $5 million of their own money into the campaign so we need your help to keep up. But there’s still a long way to go before...

We’re going all new media here for the next while, thanks to a day’s inspiration from the Institute of Fundraising’s New Media Conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday (we go so you don’t have to). So to kick off, here’s 5 tips we picked up for better new media fundraising. 1. The best way to use SMS is ‘capture and convert’. Forget premium services - half the money is going to the network and service providers - and use capture and callback instead. Encourage people to send a text - a message of support, a text petition, whatever - and then call them back and ask them if they’ll consider a gift, or better still a direct debit. 2. Monitor social networks to see what people are saying about you You may not have a strategy to use youtube, facebook,...

Just came across an interesting report from Donor Digital and Target Analysis Group benchmarking internet giving amongst US non-profits. While the numbers are still small compared to those giving by ‘traditional’ methods, there are some interesting findings about the characteristics of online donors. Notably, they tend to be younger, richer and give much larger gifts (median gift of $57 against $33) than other donors. For 10 of the 12 non-profits participating in the survey, the revenue per donor from online donors was twice that from non-online donors. Time to start building that email database, eh? Technorati Tags: fundraising, charity, online giving, donors...

via Seth Godin. So what does postern* mean? An interesting, and probably quite addictive site. But, but, but…. … despite a pile of FAQ’s there’s a distinct lack of transparency. Is FreeRice a non-profit? Or is it a commercial venture? How much of the advertising revenue goes to the rice? It would be nice to know. Still, a good example of stickiness on a website. * back door, apparently. Technorati Tags: fundraising, charity, free rice, governance...

With all the focus on flying, renewables and hybrid cars, it’s easy to forget that deforestation is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Which means that if you’re serious about reducing your carbon footprint, you need to look at things like your paper usage. And traditionally, direct marketing uses a lot of paper. Think of all those envelopes, door drops and reply forms. So, as it’s Blog Action Day, here’s some ideas to minimise the climate impact of your direct marketing campaigns. 1. Use Recycled Paper. Simple isn’t it? Until you start delving into the meaning of ‘recycled’. (Post-consumer or pre-consumer? Bleached? Chlorine-free?) Or try sourcing recycled paper for that urgent appeal and discovering there’s a three week lead in....

Today (Oct 15) is blog action day. 15,000 blogs are talking about the environment today. Time permitting(!) this will be one of them. Technorati Tags: blog action day, environment...

A model piece of online advocacy from Friends of the Earth last week (declaration of interest: I sit on the board, but wasn’t responsible or involved in this action) Senator Ivana Bacik introduced the Climate Protection Bill into the Seanad last week. Essentially, if passed, this would mean there would be a binding obligation on the government to reduce carbon emissions by 3% each year. Friends of the Earth’s goal was to ensure that the government didn’t kill the bill and mobilised their 4,000+ supporters to put the pressure on. On the Monday before the debate they sent out this email: 24 hours and 15,000 emails to senators later, they followed it up with a gentle reminder: All well written, relevant and to the point. And the supporters responded brilliantly. And to...

Do you use your creativity to make the world a better place? Well, why not join the facebook group Creatives for Change that myself and Marc Van Gurp are running. Technorati Tags: facebook, creativity, change, nonprofit, campaigning, social network...

Aside from the networking, there’s a lot of people on there. Here’s an example of a tool that can be used to raise money using Facebook. One of the good things about Facebook is that it allows third parties to create applications which can be added to your profile - as has happened in this case. So someone puts together a fundraising application. Add in the peer-to-peer networking potential of Facebook and you have a possible outlet for recruiting new supporters and raising money. Technorati Tags: facebook, fundraising, social networking, charity, causes...

As you are no doubt aware, Facebook is the place to be seen these days.  Howard Lake has set up a UK Fundraising group, which is now up to 28 members. You don’t have to be in or from the UK to join. Are there any Irish fundraisers on Facebook? Maybe we could set up up an Irish Fundraisiers group to complement the work of Fundraising Ireland? In the meantime, here’s my Facebook page. Do pop in and say hello. There are a handful of Irish fundraising related groups on Facebook already - mainly centred around events like the Dublin City Marathon. Technorati Tags: facebook, uk fundraising, fundraising ireland...

Paul Browne at the Technology in Plain English blog is running a little competition for readers of other blogs (such as this one). Feedburner, who provide subscription services for blogs, podcasts and the like (see those orange boxes on the right? That’s feedburner) have given Paul some goodies to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment today (Tues 27 Feb) on this post on Paul’s site. You need to fill in your name, email address (which will be hidden) and which website sent you. This last bit is important, as only readers of other blogs (not Paul’s) can win stuff. Three winners, picked at random, will win t-shirts badges and the like. Technorati Tags: feedburner, blogs...

After coming across it on some other blog posts, I’ve been poking around LinkedIn for a while. For the unintiated, LinkedIn is a social netweok site, geared towards business networking. You set up a profile, create networks, make/get recommendations, and (if all goes according to plan) you then gets loads of new business / a better job. Kinda like a grown-up, serious version of Bebo or MySpace, I suppose. But without the madness, mayhem and fun If you’re LinkedIn yourself, you can view my profile here. But that’s by way of background. Aside from coming across a few old college friends, what’s struck me as I’ve wandered through LinkedIn is the thought that this could have a powerful application in the world of fundraising. Now I’m not talking about...

It seems the development sector is going social network crazy. First up, Oxfam Ireland, who are trying out some interesting things with blogs and social networking and a character called Aoiphe O’Really. I should start by explaining Aoiphe’s lineage. Oxfam have been running a campaign called Clearurgear for the last couple of months to encourage people to donate unwanted items to their shops. Ask Direct developed the radio ads (which I’d upload here if I could figure out how to do it - tips welcome) featuring a series of characters based on the campaign posters designed by McCabrey Design. One of these characters was Aoiphe - like, an oh-my-gawd kind of female counterpart to Ross O’Carroll Kelly. Rather than leave Aoiphe to languish in a radio ad, Oxfam decided...

OK then. Everyone back at their desks and back into the groove? Refreshed and raring to go? Good. Well I reckon it’s time to kick this blog back into gear. So here’s ten things you might want to think about for 2007 to make your organisation more effective; your donors more engaged; and the world a better place. 1. When are we going to see chief executives of Irish charities blogging? Clarissa Baldwin, the chief executive of the Dogs Trust has a blog. The CEO of Sun Microsystems has a blog. As do other corporate CEOs. Why not Justin Kilcullen or Fergus Finlay? (to be fair, Justin has dabbled. But why not make it a regular feature?) 2. Reduce your organisation’s carbon footprint. We’re fast running out of time to make the changes that have to be made to stop climate...

Fighting the Front National. Anti-fascist protests in Second Life. Things get a little bit out of hand. Seth Godin and friends select their 59 smartest online non-profits. Chosen for their excellence in online storytelling and collaboration with their donors. The Power 150. The best marketing blogs around. Don’t know when I’ll find the time to read all of them The cleaner, greener iPhone is launched. If only. Cancer Research UK is the most valuable charity brand in the UK - worth £209 million. Technorati Tags: blogging, second life, anti-fascist, marketing, iPhone, greenmyapple, greenpeace, branding, Cancer Research UK...

Here’s some fun (via the intelligent giving blog). An online game in which you have to go and collect coffee for your office colleagues while avoiding the bib-wearing, clipboard-waving chuggers. There’s even magic headphones you can pick up that make you immune to the chuggers charms. Technorati Tags: chuggers, fundraising, viral marketing...

Houtlust have some great photos of Greenpeace’s event outside the Apple Store in New York calling for Apple to ‘go Green’. Currently Apple are lagging way behind other electronics companies in terms of their environmental practices. And then there’s the Greenpeace Green Apple website which is a parody of Apple’s own website. It even has a ProCreate section, where you’re encouraged to design your own campaign t-shirt or TV ad (well, plenty of creatives are Apple users). And there’s plenty of online activism tools - from standardised blog tags to pre-prepared emails to Steve Jobs. Technorati Tags: eMarketing, online activism, greenmyapple, greenpeace, environment...

Here’s our latest fundraising campaign for Women’s Aid. Run to co-incide with the international 16 Days of Action Campaign, we’ve produced a newspaper insert, direct mail appeal and a dedicated fundraising website. If you’d like to show your support, please visit HelplineAppeal.org Technorati Tags: fundraising, charity, womens aid, violence against women, 16days...

A comment I left on the Irish Blog Awards site (about a charity/non-profit category for next year’s awards) got me thinking about which charities in Ireland are using blogs. Oxfam had been doing a bit during the war in Lebanon but don’t seem to be doing anything now. Concern have a blog running from the Democratic Republic of Congo - but disappointingly they don’t allow any commenting, for some reason. Trócaire have an impressive set of blogs running on their site. Most are either the blogs of staff based in places like Nicaragua, Lebanon and Palestine, or reports from Irish-based staff on trips overseas. Some of them are very good indeed and really capture a sense of what life is like in each of the very different countries Trócaire s working in. As I’ve...

I know I’m probably being a little obsessive here, but please, bear with me. I use Flickr to upload photos and images for this site. It’s a nice, easy way to organise the images and means I don’t have to use FTP anytime I want to put up a picture. So far so good. But then, during October, I started getting referrals from Flickr. In fact, Flickr is now the second most common referral site after Google. Which means people are going to Flickr, clicking on a link, and landing on this site. What, you may ask, is the problem? Well, in the spirit of optimising my links and increasing traffic to the website and all that jazz, I went looking for the link. I assumed it would be somewhere on the askdirect Flickr account or in my profile. I searched, but couldn’t find...