Tuesday, May 13, 2008
One More Look: Making the Case Online for Scholarship Donations
A follow-up to my post from last week, Offline Fundraising Priorities Online:
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal, ”Colleges Turn to Donors to Meet Aid Pledge,” opens by mentioning a $300 million scholarship fundraising endeavor that’s underway at the University of Chicago. Scholarship support is one of three “Human Capital” priorities in ”The Chicago Initiative,” a $2 billion campaign.
Chicago’s campaign page outlining student aid goals is rather dry and ordinary. The content looks it could have been pulled directly from printed resources.
However, if you follow the link on the campaign homepage that directs you to the Odyssey Scholarship Challenge (which oddly isn’t a link on the scholarship priority page), you’ll find a micro-site with some really good content, including a video where a student explains the challenge. He does a great job of making the case for why more funds are needed even after Chicago received the $100 million Odyssey contribution.
Speaking of missing links ... I didn’t find a link on the Odyssey site back to the main campaign site. As Michael says, links are free. It’d be nice to see more of them here.
On the whole, the Odyssey site makes a compelling argument for investing in scholarships, as well as gathering and presenting quite a bit of information about the Odyssey program. Beginning this fall, more than 1,200 UC students will benefit from these scholarships. Over the next few years, it’ll be interesting to see how the Odyssey site shares those students’ stories and evolves as it seeks to engage alumni, donors, and would-be donors in support of the Odyssey challenge.
Dartmouth had a similar opportunity about four years ago with a Kresge challenge grant that supported Kemeny Hall. Check out that micro-site to see all the content Dartmouth ended up posting, including a full honor roll.
Posted by Hilery Livengood on 05/13 at 02:42 PM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Monday, May 12, 2008
Interesting New Publisher and Business Model for 02138
Today’s New York Times reveals that a small publisher in New York, Manhattan Media, has acquired a magazine for Harvard alumni and hopes to make it a controlled circulation print/web/social network/events property. And then, if the model works, roll it out to the rest of the Ivies.
They’re acquiring 02138 [that’s the zip code for Cambridge, MA., in case you didn’t recognize it], a magazine for Harvard alumni currently owned by Atlantic Media, which owns The Atlantic and National Journal. 02138 is independent of Harvard University. It
first appeared in 2006, offering articles on alumni and staff, and campus goings-on. It publishes an annual Harvard 100, a ranking of the university’s most influential alumni: last year, its top five, in order, were Al Gore, President Bush, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Senator Barack Obama and Bill Gates.
I don’t know much about Manhattan Media; according to their website, they concentrate on community newspapers in (guess where?)--Manhattan. But the business model for this endeavor is mighty interesting--one I’ll pay attention to, even though I’m not a Harvard alumnus.
Posted by Michael Stoner on 05/12 at 11:05 AM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Campaigns, presidential and otherwise
As you may have noted, Doug Gapinski, our astute director of design, recently commented on the typography of the US presidential campaign sites. In doing so, he motivated me to take a look at the tools and tactics those sites are using to communicate with their key constituencies.
In particular, I was curious to see how the candidates are using social networking, and other web 2.0 tools, to build awareness and engage audiences. The thought driving this investigation was that most campaigns (presidential, philanthropic, capital) share common goals that include:
1. Helping visitors get the information they need to decide whether to support a cause.
2. Facilitating and amplifying a visitor’s ability to follow-through on the decision to give their support.
In looking at the presidential campaign sites, virtually every element on the page supports those two objectives. Each component is designed to help visitors move fluidly from the information gathering process (via news, blogs, video), toward their key engagement options (volunteering, donating, brainstorming, viral marketing).
To achieve these ends, each of these sites relies heavily on an well-integrated suite of web 2.0 communications and social networking tools. If you’ve ever asked yourself how to best draw together existing and emerging web 2.0 technologies, I think these sites provide some interesting ideas.
Click on the image above to see a that breaks out the functionality for the one of these sites - I selected Obama’s for my analysis, but each candidate’s site provides a good model.
Take a look and see what you think. These tactics just might help inform your next campaign.
Links to the presidential campaign sites:
Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/
Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/home/
Posted by Chris Sherrill on 05/12 at 07:00 AM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Offline Fundraising Priorities Online
An article in the May 2 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Colleges Step Up Fund-Raising Efforts to Support Student Aid,” focuses on scholarship fundraising initiatives at six institutions.
Three--Franklin & Marshall College, St. Olaf College, and Loyola University Chicago--are in the planning stages for campaigns that will have significant student aid components.
The article cites another trio--University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Purdue University, and Grinnell College--as schools that have significant endowments, but still “have pumped up their fund raising for student aid.”
The article made me wonder: How would this acknowledged fundraising priority be presented on the schools’ development websites? Would the sites reflect the institutional commitment to raising private support for scholarships? Here’s what I found.
The site that best “talked the talk” is University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. On the development homepage and throughout that site, Michigan staffers have added numerous references to two scholarship-related endeavors: the President’s Donor Challenge and M-PACT, a program to increase financial aid for in-state undergraduate students. On the giving site, “Need-Based Support for Undergraduates” is the second fund listed and two scholarship funds are available in the separate Schools and College Funds list. Michigan did such a good job of including the scholarship priorities throughout its development site, I wondered if the presidential challenge had made its way to the president’s website. Alas, I wasn’t able to find a link or mention there.
Notes on the other schools’ sites:
Scholarships are mentioned on the annual fund page and donors may earmark “Scholarships and Financial Aid” for any online gift made to the Franklin & Marshall Fund.
The Grinnell site focuses primarily on annual gifts to the Pioneer Fund. That page promotes class gifts and “Grinnell’s current green decisions,” but oddly does not include any mention of scholarships. The FAQ for the fund does explain that the fund helps pay for financial aid. The giving form accepts Pioneer Fund gifts, as well as “special” gifts, where the donor could write in a scholarship designation.
“Students and Faculty” is one of nine “Giving Opportunities” on the development homepage. On the actual ”Giving Opportunities” page, it’s the first priority mentioned. Once you’ve landed on the giving form, the “Magis Scholarship Program’ is the seventh designation option in the drop-down box, while “Student Scholarships” is the 19th.
From the University Development homepage, scholarships are included in the ”Where Your Gift is Needed” page. That includes a link to a 20 meg (20 meg!) case statement for “Student Scholarships and Fellowships” that’s from the comprehensive campaign that wrapped in mid 2007. The old campaign site did feature the ”President’s Scholarship Campaign,” although the content on that page is quite lean now. On the giving form, scholarships designations are available as the 19th, 20th, and 21st options on the drop-down menu. The Chronicle article mentions a $300 million campaign for student aid that was announced in April, but information about that hadn’t made its way to Purdue’s development site.
On the ”Giving to St. Olaf” homepage, “Endowed funds and scholarships” is the 26th link in the navigation bar. Also, the annual giving page explains that 22 cents of every dollar donated to the Annual Fund go toward financial aid and scholarships. The gift form doesn’t specifically mention scholarships, but they do provide an “other” field for gift designations.
The takeaway here? If you’re in the quiet or even active phase of raising funds for specific initiatives, especially something as broadly reaching as student scholarships, make sure your site is telling the stories of how private support for that endeavor would make a difference on campus. Even if you’re not ready to share specifics about the campaign’s aspirations, your site should pave the way for upcoming solicitations by making the case for how that support would change lives.
Here, Michigan’s done a good job of integrating that kind of message throughout its development site. Theirs is a site to watch and emulate.
Posted by Hilery Livengood on 05/08 at 10:30 AM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Friday, May 02, 2008
NUSL Photography
We’ve been working with Deborah Feldman (one of our current favorite clients!) on redesigning the Northeastern University School of Law website in conjunction with their 2008 viewbook. Our involvement with these projects led to a Boston photo shoot with Mark Ostow, a photographer who has done portraits for the likes of Matt Damon, David Lynch, Moby, John Kerry, and more. The thing I liked about working with Mark is that he mixes film and digital when he shoots. There’s still something about film that looks richer than digital. The shoot was hard work, but a lot of fun.
With Mark’s help, and students, alumni, and faculty that have been hand-picked by Deborah Feldman, we’re doing everything we can to produce award winning design on these two projects. I’ve posted some thumbnails for you to check out. Look for another post later in the year when these projects are finished.
Posted by Doug Gapinski on 05/02 at 10:25 AM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Sunday, April 27, 2008
The Thumbnail is the Medium
Ah, Sunday! If you missed the article about Flickr in the Times magazine, check it out now:
http://themedium.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/in-this-weeks-magazine-sepia-no-more/
If you’re too busy to following the link itself, here’s the two-second insight:
“People don’t upload to the Web words and images they had fashioned apart from the Web; they fashion their stuff specifically for online platforms and audiences.”
Duh, you say? Well, perhaps. But as a novice Flickr contributor myself, I was surprised and impressed at the amount of thought, planning, and work that some people put into their Flickr presence. Whether it be creating images that will look fantastic as thumbnails, manipulating the heck out of a picture for dramatic results, developing photostreams, mastering the art of keywords and tags, working the comment thread, or policing copyright violations, the savviest of us are creating communications that make the most of online communications. Thumbnails up!
Posted by Voltaire Santos Miran on 04/27 at 09:37 AM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Friday, April 25, 2008
Benchmarking Nonprofit Sites
Two new studies provide industry benchmarks for nonprofit websites. For a number of key site metrics, the studies report very similar statistics, validating each other’s findings.
For example, there’s mixed news about email lists and e-solicitations.
Good news: Non-profits are gaining email addresses. The studies found that nonprofits’ email lists grew 32 percent (Convio) and 29 percent (M+R and NTN).
Bad news: Email open rates are down. Open rates dropped from 22 to 14 percent (Convio) and from 21 to 18 percent (M+R and NTN).
Both studies report double-digit increases in e-fundraising: Online donations are up 23 percent (Convio) and 19 percent (M+R and NTN).
Grab your own statistics and see how your site stacks up with other nonprofits. (Note: Only the Convio study includes results from higher-education institutions, which comprise 20 of the 419 participants).
Full reports are available online:
- Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study
A study by Convio - 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study: An Analysis of Online Messaging, Fundraising and Advocacy Metrics for Nonprofit Organizations
A study by M+R Strategic and the Nonprofit Technology Network
Posted by Hilery Livengood on 04/25 at 01:06 PM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
How Donors Use the Internet
Wondering how donors use websites when they give? Here are some key references that provide insights into their thinking and behavior:
“Every nonprofit must learn to regard the Internet as its most powerful direct marketing medium. Why? Because the Internet allows an organization to engage in a kind of dialog marketing that creates opportunities to develop conversations with prospects and donors. Engaging in conversations with people, over time, gives nonprofits the ability to make more and better friends, turn those friends into donors, and grow those donors into loyal donors.”
-- ”Nonprofit Websites: Cutting Through the Emaze,” Grizzard Communications Group, Inc., 2001 (emphasis added)
That early prognostication might have seemed a bit grandiose in 2001. The Internet? A nonprofit’s most powerful direct marketing medium? Back in 2001, the power of the web to engage donors hadn’t been proven nor experienced.
Research conducted during the intervening years, though, has validated that assessment.
Consider the following collection of research findings, all of which point to the power of engaging donors and would-be donors online.
2003:
58 percent of Internet users have engaged with nonprofits online. Three-quarters of those visiting charity-oriented sites take action.
39 percent – Donated offline
37 percent – Signed a petition online
37 percent – Referred friend
23 percent – Signed a petition offline
20 percent – Donated online
-- ”Toward E-engagement: Non-profits and Individuals Engaging Online,” Network for Good, The Bridgespan Group, and GuideStar
2004:
Online givers are better givers than regular givers. Median lifetime giving for online givers is 50 percent higher than regular givers.
-- “Getting to Know Your Online Donors Can Pay Off,” Peter B. Wylie
2005:
More than 75 percent of donors who go online before making a donation noted that their web visit had some impact on their decision whether or not to give, whether online or offline. More than 25 percent said the impact was significant.
-- Kintera/Luth Nonprofit Trend Report
2006:
Many fundraisers [from the 60 participating colleges and universities] cited ePhilanthropy as a factor causing higher revenue per donor. Average online gifts tend to be higher than those given in the mail or on the phone, and the economics of email and widespread web access facilitated more communication and cultivation with donors.
-- ”Index of University Fundraising Performance,” Target Analysis GroupTreat your online donors as your most valuable members. Your online donors, if they follow the pattern we see in the data, probably already make larger and more frequent contributions than your mail/phone donors, and they hold the most promise in terms of loyalty and retention.
-- ”Keep Your Postage Meter: The Status of Online Giving in America,” Craver, Matthews, Smith & Co. and The Prime Group
2007:
There is an untapped pool of donors who are influenced by a charity’s online presence, and charities could benefit by proactively reaching out to them.
-- American Express Charitable Gift Survey
2008:
The wired wealthy represent the future of middle and major donor giving. These donors, most of whom are in their early 50s, are comfortable online. Clearly there is a major shift from the mail to the web, and any major gifts program that fails to account for this transition has quite a bit of catching up to do.
-- “The Wired Wealthy: Using the Internet to Connect with Your Middle and Major Donors,” Convio, Sea Change Strategies, and Edge ResearchThe Digital Future Report found that the Internet is perceived by users to be a more important source of information for them—this over all other principal media, including television, radio, newspapers, and books.
-- ”2008 Digital Future Project,” USC Center for the Digital Future
The takeaways from these research findings?
- The Internet has become a top source for information, and that extends to donors seeking information about nonprofits.
- Online gifts aren’t the best way to judge a website. After donors visit your site, they’re more likely to make an offline donation or contact a development officer than an online gift.
- The act of having made a gift online will help identify a donor as a future major gift prospect.
- Donors’ use of the Internet to make philanthropic decisions is significant and will continue to grow.
Request a copy of mStoner’s white paper, “Developing an Internet Strategy for Your Capital Campaign,” by contacting .
Posted by Hilery Livengood on 04/09 at 05:00 PM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Friday, April 04, 2008
Designating Donations
Every funding campaign for undesignated dollars seeks to explain (preferably with emotion, creativity, and a sense of urgency) to would-be donors what their gifts would help accomplish.
Nonprofits like Heifer International have built very successful online and offline giving programs around the idea of allowing donors to “purchase” items, like a cow, sheep, or llama. Those donations actually are just unrestricted gifts. The animal designation is a tool to help would-be donors make philanthropic decisions, along with better understanding the organization’s mission.
The Heifer fine print explains that the gift designation is merely symbolic:
Gifts made through this catalog represent a gift to the entire mission. To help the most number of families move toward self-reliance, Heifer does not use its limited resources to track gift animals from donation to distribution. We use your gifts where they can do the most good by pooling them with the gifts of others to help transform entire communities. And, because you are helping Heifer fight hunger and poverty, your gift is tax deductible.
Now the premise of donor designations has been embraced by the Hillary Clinton campaign. The campaign’s newest fundraising adventure, called MyPA, allows donors to select how their contributions will be spent for the upcoming Pennsylvania primary, with options for television airtime, online ads, radio airtime, signs, vans, or door hangers. As I pen this, you’re out of luck if you’re a van fan: that category, which had a $25,000 goal, is “sold out.”
I learned of this new tactic in an email from the campaign:
We need yard signs to show our campaign’s strength. We need vans to get Pennsylvania voters to the polls on April 22. We need ads on the air and online to compete against the Obama campaign. And starting today, you can decide just how your contributions will help us win Pennsylvania. MyPA, our new online effort dedicated to winning the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, allows you to designate exactly where you want your money to go.
Most college or university sites provide “by the numbers” type of information to explain how unrestricted dollars are spent. Here are examples from Dartmouth, Macalester, and Stanford. Oberlin does a great job of illustrating gifts in action and how your gift helps students.
While many colleges and universities allow donors to give to many different funds online via shopping carts or gift browsers--University of Washington, UC Berkeley, Ohio State, and the University of Iowa are all examples that come to mind--I’ve not seen any create a seemingly artificial designation interface like these for what I assume are indeed unrestricted gifts.
I’d guess that such designations could create problems with donor intent. Are you aware of schools that employ similar interfaces as Heifer International and HillaryClinton.com to jumpstart their unrestricted donations?
Posted by Hilery Livengood on 04/04 at 02:14 PM(0) Comments | Permalink |
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Political Type
My colleague Katie Jennings forwarded me an interesting New York Times article about the impact typography has on our perceptions of the ‘08 Presidential campaigns.
I liked this article because it demonstrates how something as simple as a font choice can be a vehicle for delivering a brand. The characterstics of typography can help make a positive statement about a person or institution, and can help distinguish us from our competitors. Typography alone isn’t going to deliver the full message, but along with design considerations like color and photography, we can begin to paint a picture about what makes an organization unique.
Interestingly, I visited the Hillary Clinton Campaign site today and noticed they had incorporated the Gotham face (the font of the Obama campaign which is praised in this article) heavily into the flash unit on their home page. Considering the circulation that the NY Times gets, this may not be a coincidence!
I also visited the McCain Campaign site and noticed it features heavy use of Optima. A bit more corporate than Gotham (partially because it’s an older font that’s been around since the 50s), Optima is still a nice, sophisticated face that takes the legibility of a sans serif face and dresses it up with some of the nice finishes that almost look like caligraphy. Thick and thin variation within characters without actual slabs or serifs give the font a unique appeal that looks formal, yet still approachable. Excellent choice, McCain Campaign designers.
On a side note, Gotham is a house favorite here at mStoner; you can see it in action for the design work we did on Kellogg School of Management’s Insight and Centennial site.
Posted by Doug Gapinski on 04/03 at 11:18 AM(1) Comments | Permalink |
