Submitted by Kerry Vineberg on 12 January, 2011 - 00:34
WE succeeded!! Thanks to everyone's generous support, coupled with a foundation match, we raised $50,577 for the WiserEarth endowment -- 102% of our goal! That's 53 months of support for WiserEarth, close to 5 years of sustainable resources and networking! We now want to take some time below to reflect and learn.
If you've ever been in nonprofit development, you know how hard and time-consuming it can be to fundraise. At the end of the year, you "compete" with so many other organizations that are just as worthy.
On Monday, January 3rd, at 9:16 pm, we found out that we had succeeded in our fundraising goal. We raised a total of $50,577: $25,577 on Crowdrise with a matching grant of $25,000 from a generous foundation. This is the biggest fundraiser we have done to date, and we still can't believe it happened!
Results of the campaign
We first started planning the campaign in mid-October when we were all together for our staff retreat. Our goal was to raise $25,000 as we had a matching grant offer from a foundation. The campaign was launched in the second week of November. Here are some interesting facts:
- We received 165 donations, of which 49% came from WiserEarth members
- 66% of the donors were new
- 7 donors donated more than once
- 32% of all the donations came on the last 4 days of the year (Dec 28th - 31st)
- The rate of receivers who opened our e-mails (we sent three of them) varied from 19% to 26%. The first announcement was read by the most people.
This morning, we had at conference call with the WiserEarth staff to celebrate but also to reflect on what happened, to share our learnings and to identify areas of improvements. We thought it would be valuable to share them!
What we did
When we first started talking about our campaign, we put a big white board in the office and just wrote lots of different ideas. There was no right or wrong answer. Our goal was to be creative and open-minded, and to have fun. From this process, we started a conversation about what we could realistically do. We then developed a specific project timeline with tasks for the 7 weeks we had.
- We took our goal of $25,000 and broke it down into concrete, reachable donation levels which made sense for our campaign - in this case, the cost of funding a day or more of WiserEarth infrastructure. We then determined specific fundraising goals for each staff member.
- We had a very specific work plan with dates and tasks for each week. We also had a weekly call to follow up on our timeline and ask questions.
- We had an endorsement letter signed by 25 leaders in the field of sustainability. This really enhanced the credibility of our work.
- We translated some communication materials into other languages to address active parts of our international community.
What Worked?
This was the first time we had planned a campaign so far ahead and in so much detail, and we think it really contributed to the eventual success.
- We created a group on WiserEarth, so at any point, any staff member could track progress and engage with others
- It was a true team effort where everyone participated
- We felt prepared, had a clear plan and could easily track donations as they came
- The endorsement letter and the Crowdrise site were valuable in enhancing visibility and credibility, and streamlining donations
- We were one of the top three charity fundraisers on Crowdrise during the holidays (this was listed for the day as Natural Capital Institute on its homepage), and won a contest funded by Judd Apatow for a $3,000 prize!
Our mistakes
There are always mistakes, and we often don't take the time to reflect on those.
- We got excited about making a video, spent lots of hours gathering photos and doing in-house editing. At the end, we decided not to use it as we thought it would not contribute positively to the campaign
- Lack of tracking: we used a lot of different media channels and did not track which ones were the most efficient. Was our banner on our homepage efficient? We do not know :(
- We set up both a Global Giving site and a Crowdrise site, ending up mostly using Crowdrise, but the multiple platforms could be a little confusing. We also set up a French Paypal account to have a French-language donation page but sent out a broken link
- We spent too much time trying to reach out to people we do not know on WiserEarth
Our "To Dos" for the 2011 end-of-year campaign
- Have all the staff and community helping on the last 4 days of the year, as this is where 1/3 of the donations can come in (in the US, due to tax write-offs)
- Enhance our "Thank You" materials as this is as important as the ask
- Rethink our branding strategy and avoid brand confusion. We had called this campaign WiserTogether and hardly used the name
- Put more creative thinking and time into "one-on-one" personal ask
- Re-evaluate platform campaigns early on for international and English language donations, and investigate platforms that can be embedded within our own website
- Engage more people from WiserEarth to help in the campaign
- Establish a clear path to donate non-electronically from outside of US
We are thrilled to start off 2011 with such a successful campaign. Thank you all for your tremendous support!
Peggy Duvette
WiserEarth Executive Director
Crossposted from: http://blog.wiserearth.org/fundraising-reflections/ (January 6, 2011)
Comments
I personaly and on behalf of Hiwaar Organisation for human Rights Issues I congratualte you all for the apparent success in delivering you messge. I wish you a very successful 2011 year.
Hiwaar Organisation Panell
Hi Kerry - thanks for posting your lessons learned from this pastwhich I think
fundraising season. I really appreciate the openness and willingness to
share your experiences. That's one of the things that makes WiserEarth
great! I was glad to be asked to sign your public endorsement
letter
was a brilliant idea. Congratulations again on your success
and more grease to your elbow!
Kabissa also tried some new things to raise funds from stakeholders for our
core costs this year, but we were not quite as well organized as you were.
One lesson is that using social networking to raise funds is incredibly time
consuming hard work and you have to be prepared to ask for money again and
again, which can become uncomfortable and try the patience of people who
don't want to receive a lot of emails.
An alternative is to go back to writing proposals and requesting grants, or
focusing attention on specific people who might give more, but that has its
downsides as well - you have to do it again and again, it might not work,
and donors (in my experience) are not so interested in funding platforms but
rather want to fund projects.
In our case we were successful as well, in part because we set a low bar -
with no employees we have low fixed costs and only needed to raise $20,000.
If we are able to raise this every year we should have no problem keeping
the Kabissa network infrastructure core costs covered, which means that it
will remain available into the future for African changemakers to use to
connect for peer learning and information sharing.
We are still looking for solutions both for Kabissa and for the
organizations in our network who also share this perpetual fundraising
challenge - and welcome suggestions and ideas on what works and what
doesn't.
Cheers,
Tobias
ps - I made some formatting changes to your post to make it work better on
the Kabissa layout, primarily to remove the table.
- Show quoted text -
On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Kerry <***@***.***> wrote:
> [image: wisertogether]with a matching grant of $25,000 from a generous foundation. This is thesigned by 25 leaders!
>
> *WE succeeded!! Thanks to everyone's generous support, coupled with a
> foundation match, we raised $50,577 for the WiserEarth endowment -- 102% of
> our goal! That's 53 months of support for WiserEarth, close to 5 years of
> sustainable resources and networking! We now want to take some time below to
> reflect and learn.
> *
>
> If you've ever been in nonprofit development, you know how hard and
> time-consuming it can be to fundraise. At the end of the year, you "compete"
> with so many other organizations that are just as worthy.
>
> On Monday, January 3rd, at 9:16 pm, we found out that we had succeeded in
> our fundraising goal. We raised a total of *$50,577*: $25,577 on Crowdrise
> biggest fundraiser we have done to date, and we still can't believe it
> happened!
>
> *Results of the campaign*
> We first started planning the campaign in mid-October when we were all
> together for our staff retreat. Our goal was to raise $25,000 as we had a
> matching grant offer from a foundation. The campaign was launched in the
> second week of November. Here are some interesting facts:
>
> - We received *165 donations*, of which 49% came from WiserEarth
> members
>
>
> - *66% of the donors were new
> *
>
>
> - 7 donors donated more than once
>
>
> - *32% of all the donations* came on the last 4 days of the year (Dec
> 28th - 31st)
>
>
> - The rate of receivers who opened our e-mails (we sent three of them)
> varied from 19% to 26%. The first announcement was read by the most people.
>
> This morning, we had at conference call with the WiserEarth staff to
> celebrate but also to reflect on what happened, to share our learnings and
> to identify areas of improvements. We thought it would be valuable to share
> them!
>
> *What we did*
> When we first started talking about our campaign, we put a big white board
> in the office and just wrote lots of different ideas. There was no right or
> wrong answer. Our goal was to be creative and open-minded, and to have fun.
> From this process, we started a conversation about what we could
> realistically do. We then developed a specific project timeline with tasks
> for the 7 weeks we had.
>
> - We took our goal of $25,000 and broke it down into concrete,
> reachable donation levels which made sense for our campaign - in this case,
> the cost of funding a day or more of WiserEarth infrastructure. We then
> determined specific fundraising goals for each staff member.
>
>
> - We had a very specific work plan with dates and tasks for each week.
> We also had a weekly call to follow up on our timeline and ask questions.
>
>
> - We had an endorsement letter
>
> in the field of sustainability. This really enhanced the credibility of our
> work.
>
>
> - We translated some communication materials into other languages to
> address active parts of our international community.
>
>
> *What Worked?*
> This was the first time we had planned a campaign so far ahead and in so
> much detail, and we think it really contributed to the eventual success.
>
> - We created a group on WiserEarth, so at any point, any staff member
> could track progress and engage with others
>
>
> - It was a true team effort where everyone participated
>
>
> - We felt prepared, had a clear plan and could easily track donations
> as they came
>
>
> - The endorsement letter and the Crowdrise site were valuable in
> enhancing visibility and credibility, and streamlining donations
>
>
> - We were one of the top three charity fundraisers on Crowdrise during
> the holidays (this was listed for the day as Natural Capital Institute on
> its homepage), and won a contest funded by Judd Apatow for a $3,000
> prize
>
> *Our mistakes*
> There are always mistakes, and we often don't take the time to reflect on
> those.
>
> - We got excited about making a video, spent lots of hours gathering
> photos and doing in-house editing. At the end, we decided not to use it as
> we thought it would not contribute positively to the campaign
>
>
> - Lack of tracking: we used a lot of different media channels and did
> not track which ones were the most efficient. Was our banner on our homepage
> efficient? We do not know :(
>
>
> - We set up both a Global Giving site and a Crowdrise site, ending up
> mostly using Crowdrise, but the multiple platforms could be a little
> confusing. We also set up a French Paypal account to have a French-language
> donation page but sent out a broken link
>
>
> - We spent too much time trying to reach out to people we do not know
> on WiserEarth
>
> *Our "To Dos" for the 2011 end-of-year campaign
> *
>
> - Have all the staff and community helping on the last 4 days of the
> year, as this is where 1/3 of the donations can come in (in the US, due to
> tax write-offs)
>
>
> - Enhance our "Thank You" materials as this is as important as the ask
>
>
> - Rethink our branding strategy and avoid brand confusion. We had
> called this campaign WiserTogether and hardly used the name
>
>
> - Put more creative thinking and time into "one-on-one" personal ask
>
>
> - Re-evaluate platform campaigns early on for international and English
> language donations, and investigate platforms that can be embedded within
> our own website
>
>
> - Engage more people from WiserEarth to help in the campaign
>
>
> - Establish a clear path to donate non-electronically from outside of
> US
>
> We are thrilled to start off 2011 with such a successful campaign. Thank
> you all for your tremendous support!
>
> Peggy Duvette
>
> WiserEarth Executive Director
>
> *
> *
>
> Crossposted from: http://blog.wiserearth.org/fundraising-reflections/(January 6, 2011)
> --
> Full post:
> http://www.kabissa.org/blog/wiserearth-blog-1611-did-we-really-do-it-ref...
> Manage my subscriptions:
> http://www.kabissa.org/og_mailinglist/subscriptions
> Stop emails for this post:
> http://www.kabissa.org/og_mailinglist/unsubscribe/5040
>
Dear Kerry,
Thank you so much for this summary. Though you talk abotu lack of tracking
as a delta to your work I have really benefited from the work you did
record. I will put this into play with the team at BTCKE and hope to see
some of the results you did!
Natalie
director: be the change - keyna
www.bethechangekenya.org
- Show quoted text -
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Tobias Eigen <***@***.***> wrote:
> Hi Kerry - thanks for posting your lessons learned from this pastwhich I think was a brilliant idea. Congratulations again on your successwith a matching grant of $25,000 from a generous foundation. This is thesigned by 25 leaders!
> fundraising season. I really appreciate the openness and willingness to
> share your experiences. That's one of the things that makes WiserEarth
> great! I was glad to be asked to sign your public endorsement letter
> and more grease to your elbow!
>
> Kabissa also tried some new things to raise funds from stakeholders for our
> core costs this year, but we were not quite as well organized as you were.
> One lesson is that using social networking to raise funds is incredibly time
> consuming hard work and you have to be prepared to ask for money again and
> again, which can become uncomfortable and try the patience of people who
> don't want to receive a lot of emails.
>
> An alternative is to go back to writing proposals and requesting grants, or
> focusing attention on specific people who might give more, but that has its
> downsides as well - you have to do it again and again, it might not work,
> and donors (in my experience) are not so interested in funding platforms but
> rather want to fund projects.
>
> In our case we were successful as well, in part because we set a low bar -
> with no employees we have low fixed costs and only needed to raise $20,000.
> If we are able to raise this every year we should have no problem keeping
> the Kabissa network infrastructure core costs covered, which means that it
> will remain available into the future for African changemakers to use to
> connect for peer learning and information sharing.
>
> We are still looking for solutions both for Kabissa and for the
> organizations in our network who also share this perpetual fundraising
> challenge - and welcome suggestions and ideas on what works and what
> doesn't.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Tobias
>
> ps - I made some formatting changes to your post to make it work better on
> the Kabissa layout, primarily to remove the table.
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Kerry <***@***.***> wrote:
>
>> [image: wisertogether]
>>
>> *WE succeeded!! Thanks to everyone's generous support, coupled with a
>> foundation match, we raised $50,577 for the WiserEarth endowment -- 102% of
>> our goal! That's 53 months of support for WiserEarth, close to 5 years of
>> sustainable resources and networking! We now want to take some time below to
>> reflect and learn.
>> *
>>
>> If you've ever been in nonprofit development, you know how hard and
>> time-consuming it can be to fundraise. At the end of the year, you "compete"
>> with so many other organizations that are just as worthy.
>>
>> On Monday, January 3rd, at 9:16 pm, we found out that we had succeeded in
>> our fundraising goal. We raised a total of *$50,577*: $25,577 on
>> Crowdrise
>> biggest fundraiser we have done to date, and we still can't believe it
>> happened!
>>
>> *Results of the campaign*
>> We first started planning the campaign in mid-October when we were all
>> together for our staff retreat. Our goal was to raise $25,000 as we had a
>> matching grant offer from a foundation. The campaign was launched in the
>> second week of November. Here are some interesting facts:
>>
>> - We received *165 donations*, of which 49% came from WiserEarth
>> members
>>
>>
>> - *66% of the donors were new
>> *
>>
>>
>> - 7 donors donated more than once
>>
>>
>> - *32% of all the donations* came on the last 4 days of the year (Dec
>> 28th - 31st)
>>
>>
>> - The rate of receivers who opened our e-mails (we sent three of them)
>> varied from 19% to 26%. The first announcement was read by the most people.
>>
>> This morning, we had at conference call with the WiserEarth staff to
>> celebrate but also to reflect on what happened, to share our learnings and
>> to identify areas of improvements. We thought it would be valuable to share
>> them!
>>
>> *What we did*
>> When we first started talking about our campaign, we put a big white board
>> in the office and just wrote lots of different ideas. There was no right or
>> wrong answer. Our goal was to be creative and open-minded, and to have fun.
>> From this process, we started a conversation about what we could
>> realistically do. We then developed a specific project timeline with tasks
>> for the 7 weeks we had.
>>
>> - We took our goal of $25,000 and broke it down into concrete,
>> reachable donation levels which made sense for our campaign - in this case,
>> the cost of funding a day or more of WiserEarth infrastructure. We then
>> determined specific fundraising goals for each staff member.
>>
>>
>> - We had a very specific work plan with dates and tasks for each week.
>> We also had a weekly call to follow up on our timeline and ask questions.
>>
>>
>> - We had an endorsement letter
>>
>> in the field of sustainability. This really enhanced the credibility of our
>> work.
>>
>>
>> - We translated some communication materials into other languages to
>> address active parts of our international community.
>>
>>
>> *What Worked?*
>> This was the first time we had planned a campaign so far ahead and in so
>> much detail, and we think it really contributed to the eventual success.
>>
>> - We created a group on WiserEarth, so at any point, any staff member
>> could track progress and engage with others
>>
>>
>> - It was a true team effort where everyone participated
>>
>>
>> - We felt prepared, had a clear plan and could easily track donations
>> as they came
>>
>>
>> - The endorsement letter and the Crowdrise site were valuable in
>> enhancing visibility and credibility, and streamlining donations
>>
>>
>> - We were one of the top three charity fundraisers on Crowdrise during
>> the holidays (this was listed for the day as Natural Capital Institute on
>> its homepage), and won a contest funded by Judd Apatow for a $3,000
>> prize
>>
>> *Our mistakes*
>> There are always mistakes, and we often don't take the time to reflect on
>> those.
>>
>> - We got excited about making a video, spent lots of hours gathering
>> photos and doing in-house editing. At the end, we decided not to use it as
>> we thought it would not contribute positively to the campaign
>>
>>
>> - Lack of tracking: we used a lot of different media channels and did
>> not track which ones were the most efficient. Was our banner on our homepage
>> efficient? We do not know :(
>>
>>
>> - We set up both a Global Giving site and a Crowdrise site, ending up
>> mostly using Crowdrise, but the multiple platforms could be a little
>> confusing. We also set up a French Paypal account to have a French-language
>> donation page but sent out a broken link
>>
>>
>> - We spent too much time trying to reach out to people we do not know
>> on WiserEarth
>>
>> *Our "To Dos" for the 2011 end-of-year campaign
>> *
>>
>> - Have all the staff and community helping on the last 4 days of the
>> year, as this is where 1/3 of the donations can come in (in the US, due to
>> tax write-offs)
>>
>>
>> - Enhance our "Thank You" materials as this is as important as the ask
>>
>>
>> - Rethink our branding strategy and avoid brand confusion. We had
>> called this campaign WiserTogether and hardly used the name
>>
>>
>> - Put more creative thinking and time into "one-on-one" personal ask
>>
>>
>> - Re-evaluate platform campaigns early on for international and
>> English language donations, and investigate platforms that can be embedded
>> within our own website
>>
>>
>> - Engage more people from WiserEarth to help in the campaign
>>
>>
>> - Establish a clear path to donate non-electronically from outside of
>> US
>>
>> We are thrilled to start off 2011 with such a successful campaign. Thank
>> you all for your tremendous support!
>>
>> Peggy Duvette
>>
>> WiserEarth Executive Director
>>
>> *
>> *
>>
>> Crossposted from: http://blog.wiserearth.org/fundraising-reflections/(January 6, 2011)
>> --
>> Full post:
>> http://www.kabissa.org/blog/wiserearth-blog-1611-did-we-really-do-it-ref...
>> Manage my subscriptions:
>> http://www.kabissa.org/og_mailinglist/subscriptions
>> Stop emails for this post:
>> http://www.kabissa.org/og_mailinglist/unsubscribe/5040
>>
>
>
> --
> Full post:
> http://www.kabissa.org/blog/wiserearth-blog-1611-did-we-really-do-it-ref...
> Manage my subscriptions:
> http://www.kabissa.org/og_mailinglist/subscriptions
> Stop emails for this post:
> http://www.kabissa.org/og_mailinglist/unsubscribe/5040
>
--
Natalie Finstad
Lead Organizer
Be the Change -- Kenya
Email: director.btcke@gmail.com
Mobile: +254716873101
Web: www.bethechangekenya.org
"You must *be the change* you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
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