• They don’t replace all the good fundraising practices we’ve learned over the decades.
• “Social” media is just that, social. These facilitate and require dialogue, not merely broadcasting announcements.
• These tools take time: both to get familiar with and to keep going.

It’s been an intriguing experience. The attendees seem to get really excited about the potential of these tools. But I could see the shine fading as they remembered all the work already piling up on their desks.

I could easily see local nonprofits easily these tools off. After all, what good is it for our local homeless shelter if it garnered fans from Australia? How will they help me serve the people in my community?

Here are three reasons it might still be worth your while, even if your mission and donor base are very localized:

1. People have a tendency to equate large social media numbers with credibility.

   Though incredibly inaccurate, most people still think bigger is better. So building up a large base of Twitter followers or Facebook fans may make your nonprofit may seem even more credible in the eyes of your local donors.

2. We live in a highly mobile society.

   Here in Maine, we sometimes seem obsessed with the number of people moving away, especially young people. But often, people that move away, hold their old community near to their heart. And, in the case of Maine, people that move out of state probably have more disposable income to donate to causes they favor. Social media tools can help you cultivate new donors without expanding your travel budget.

3. Most importantly: people in your community are already on these tools!

   So what if people in Timbuktu are joining your fan page? Your board members are already on Facebook. And the lady you’ve been trying to get interested in your cause, the one that owns the business on the corner of Wabash & Lake is on Twitter. Why wouldn’t you seek people out where they already are?

Twitter, Facebook, Qik, and all the other websites with funky names aren’t the “silver bullet” to fix all your fundraising woes. But they are great tools helping us do what we’re supposed to be doing any way: building relationships!

If you’re haven’t chosen a tool, why not pick one today? If you choose Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn, let me know. I’m at:
http://twitter.com/marcapitman
http://facebook.com/marcapitman
http://linkedin.com/in/marcapitman

And the FB fan pages are at
http://www.facebook.com/AskWithoutFear
http://www.facebook.com/FundraisingCoach.com

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Or Helene Whitlock Alley, the $100 donor that bequethed $7.3 million to a diabetes group.

Well here’s another entry in the never underestimate anyone category: Richard Walters.

Perhaps you’ve heard his name on NPR:

“Support for NPR comes from the estate of Richard Leroy Walters, whose life was enriched by NPR, and whose bequest seeks to encourage others to discover public radio.”

To most of the people that knew him at the end of his life, Richard was just a nice homeless man. He didn’t even own a car. But when he died, he’d amassed an estate of about $4 million and gave NPR and many other nonprofits $400,000 each.

You see, this homeless man had retired from a successful career. And, according to the article on the NPR site, he was making stock trades from a telephone at a senior center.

Back in Fundraising Secret #17, I encouraged you to ask everyone for planned gifts.

I’ll bet there are possible Jeans, Helenes, and Richards in your organization’s universe. What will you do this week to help get to know the next one a little better?

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Since then, I’ve been reminded how much time this takes!

It’s not just the visit time, that time is wonderful. But it’s time to set up the visits and then, more importantly, the time to record the visit in a database and to write follow-up thank yous.

In a previous position, my job description included 50% travel. I was impressed that the organization “got” the importance of me making connections. When I shared this with a more seasoned fundraising veteran, they said it was a nice goal but would be impossible to hit. Slightly taken aback, I asked why. Very matter-of-factly, he said, “For every hour of a visit, it takes one hour of preparation and at least an hour of follow up.”

2 hours of adminstration for every 1 hour of visit! That math is more or less what I’ve experienced in over a decade of donor visits. Even if you’re more efficient, I bet you’d agree on the principle: the visit is always more than just the time spent face-to-face with a donor or prospect.

The preparation is important, knowing where you’ll meet and knowing why you’re making the visit. Don’t waste their time or yours. Have a specific objective.

The follow up is vital. Notes are refreshingly novel because so few send them. Even more importantly, record the visit in some form of database. This helps improve donor relations because you (and your organization) will remember what they told you. Face it, for most of us, the database will be there a lot longer than we will. Do your organization a favor and record the information.

Probably not the most uplifting fundraising secret of the series, but don’t neglect it. Change your schedule to fit your visiting focus. It could be as simple as blocking an hour or two every Monday or Friday to record the interactions you had.

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Today is the final installment: What are hashtags? (And why should I care?)

What are “hashtags”?

“Hashtags” are labels created with the # symbol. For example, #redsox or #pysch. You see, hashtags were developed by early Twitter users to simply organize related tweets.

Hashtags draw attention to a tweeted conversation. Conferences and seminars use them to both help organize tweets that happen during the event and to market their event to people who aren’t even there. For example, Blackbaud uses #bbcon for all their conferences.

This is invaluable. Apps like HootSuite’s search on a hashtag or word and make a continuously updated column of tweets. You can learn alot from these conferences without ever leaving your desk.

That’s why I love Tweetgrid. This is a wonderful, simple, clean website you can use to follow multiple hashtags at the same time. If you choose a 1×2 grid, you can follow learn from the #bbcon and the #redsox game at the same time!

Some of the more common hashtags are #followfriday and #charitytuesday. But there are many more.

In truth, hashtags aren’t really needed anymore. Twitter Search and other tools make it really easy to find words and topics without needing the #. Now when I search, I search on the term and the hashtag, like “#redsox OR Red Sox.”

Listen in on conversations in real-time

And this is one of the most powerful uses of Twitter. It allows you to listen in on what other people are saying about things important to you. Check out the official Skittles website. The “chatter” button goes directly to the page that shows all the Tweets about Skittles.

Nonprofits and businesses can use this to find out what people are really saying about them, their products, or the problems their products solve. They can see the real frustrations and the real joys. One very creative Comcast employee, Frank Eliason, seized on this and created @comcastcares. Now a team of people, this Twitter account monitors comments about Comcast and tries to help sort out problems as quickly as possible.

How could your organization use this? Today?

There, you have the answers to all three Twitter questions I’ve been getting most recently. I hope they prove helpful for you!

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How do I find people to follow on Twitter?

Following interesting people is the key to a satisfying experience with Twitter. The only tweets you see on Twitter are those of the people you follow.

First, you follow the folks most seem to follow in the beginning, for me those were @chrisbrogan, @robhatch, @jnswanson, and @newmediajim.

Then you find new people by looking at who the people you follow, follow. As the people you follow reply to a Twitter user, you can click through on their name to see if their bio and tweets are interesting enough for you to follow. (This is one reason to make sure you have an interesting bio.)

But that will only get you so far.

Searches

To really find cool people to follow, try some of these tools:

• Twitter Search is a great way to find people. Just type words that interest you, topics, locations, anything.
• My favorite directory of Twitter users is Twellow. I find this even more helpful than Twitter search.

  I’ve used it to do searches on things like “fundraising” and “nonprofit.” But I also do fun searches on things like “homebrewing.” Can you see why it’s important to fill in your bio with keywords? I also recommend getting a picture on your profile too. You don’t really look serious without one.

  People even use it before moving to a new city. They search for Twitter users in the area they’re interested in. They look for people that can help them find a job and help them have a social network when they get there.

• Another tool is Mr.Tweet. This site promises to suggest “identify relevant followers” and it comes up with interesting people. It also provides interesting stats on your tweeting habits.
• I’m also liking NearbyTweets. This site shows you who’s tweeting in your community. Living in a rural area, I’m amazed to see how many people here are tweeting!

These will go a long way in helping you find fun people to follow. Mashable has some great articles with more ideas including:

• 10 Ways to Find People on Twitter
• 9 Ways to Find People in Your Own Town

Autofollowing

Another way to “find” good people to follow is to “autofollow.” After all, those that are following you must have good taste, right?

Services like SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater) allow you to “autofollow” people that have followed you. If you do a Google search on autofollowing, you’ll find some pretty heated blog posts for and against the practice.

I autofollowed for over a year and found it helpful. I don’t have time to constantly look over the new people following me to see who’s interesting. But as time went on, I was finding myself “autofollowing” lots of spammers and others that had less than desirable content. If you follow only people that promise ways to get more followers or make money at home or only tweet quotes, you’ll quickly get bored.

The good news is that if you unfollow them, you don’t see their spam anymore!

Grouping Followers

When I started out, I followed people in my career: fundraisers. (And people that would hopefully buy my fundraising book!) Then I started following media folks (so I could learn how to promote my book). But as I got into it, I started following others: people that homebrewed beer like I do, people that cheer for the Red Sox, people that live in Maine.

Pretty soon, my twitter stream was a swirling with lots of unrelated content.

Fortunately, services like HootSuite allow you to create “groups.” This allows you to group people in any way you see fit. So recently I’ve been experimenting with:

• a group of nonprofit folks (my “professional” group),
• a Maine group (my “local” group),
• a group of family members (my “saving face” group–it’s really embarassing to miss your wife’s tweets!)
• a group of “first follows” (in many ways my “favorites” group–thanks to @robhatch for giving me this suggestion)

The great thing is that none of these people need to know they’re in a group. Their tweets still show up in the regular tweet stream, but they also show up in a group column so you’re far less likely to miss them.

As I said before, I’ve been tweeting since mid-2007 and have typed over 11,000 tweets, but I still feel like a relative beginner. What tools have you found useful in finding new people to follow?

[This is the second in a series of 3 Twitter 101 blog posts. The next is about what hashtags are and why they're important.]

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I’ve already written on Twitter for Fundraising and Twitter for nonprofits. But these questions were much more “tactical,” how-to type questions so I thought I’d share with you what I’ve been telling folks.

The questions work into 3 basic categories:

1. What do you use to tweet?
2. How do I find people to follow on Twitter?
3. What are “hashtags”? And should I care?

Today, I’ll tackle the first question.

What do you use to tweet?

One of the neatest things about Twitter is that there are so many ways to use it. From basic text messages to websites to full-blown desktop programs, you can experience the full benefits of Twitter without ever going to the site.

I’m currently using a web-based app called HootSuite. HootSuite lets me easily switch between my multiple Twitter accounts (@marcapitman, @inlandfound, @twestivalmaine). It allows me to see my tweet stream (the updates from the people I follow), my “mentions” (tweets that are addressed to me or mention me), and my direct messages (private tweets) all on one screen.

A very popular desktop program I’ve experimented with is TweetDeck. This allows you to do all the same things but from a program on your computer. I’m working from a couple computers every day so a web-based app like HootSuite is much more convenient.

When I’m using my phone, I love Dabr. This site is accessible right from your phone’s web browser, so it doesn’t need to install on your phone like PockeTwit or TinyTwitter.

Dabr allows you a quite robust list of features. On every tweet you are easily able to reply, favorite, retweet, or direct message. And it’s optimized for your phone so rather than having to hit the tiny “replies” link, you can just press the “1″ on your phone.

Another great thing about Dabr is that it can be used from your desktop web browser too. I often find myself having Dabr open even when I’m using HootSuite. The nicely linear format of Dabr allows many more tweets to fit on the screen than anything I’ve seen yet, and makes them easy to read.

When Dabr is down due to Twitter having technical issues, I’ve found Slandr to be helpful when tweeting from my phone. It’s not as robust as Dabr but it does get the job done.

And finally, there’s the actual Twitter site. I’m quite impressed with the enhancements they continue to make over time. I find myself using this every once in a while. It’s also one of the only places you can actually delete DMs (direct messages). But now that HootSuite allows for deleting DMs, I am frequenting the Twitter site less.

I’ve been tweeting since mid-2007 and have typed over 11,000 tweets, but I still feel like a relative beginner. If you’re already on Twitter, please use the comments here to share with everyone what tools you’re finding helpful to tweet from.

[This is the first in a series of 3 Twitter 101 blog posts. The next is about how to find interesting people to follow on Twitter.

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Isn’t it amazing how seldom we do it?

I’ve been doing this for years but I’m still amazed at how easily we get caught up in writing case statements, designing fundraising letters, refining development strategies…all things we can do from our desk. So we keep pushing “visit so-and-so” off our list. Either we convince ourselves that the other things are more pressing. Or we’re in a slump and are actually afraid to make calls so are looking for ways to put them off!

Social media assists in fundraising but doesn’t replace face-to-face meetings

To further complicate things, we have great having social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. These do help us interact with donors and prospects. But social media only adds to our face-to-face fundraising efforts, it doesn’t replace them.

Here’s a concept that may help us get back out the door: rounding on your donors.

Rounding for outcomes

The hospital I work for uses alot of the teaching of Quint Studer. One of his “must haves” for strong hospitals is a practice called “rounding.” In this case, managers do rounds on their employees like physicians do rounds on their patients. For Studer, rounding involves talking with employes, making sure they have the tools they need to do their job and publically recognizing exemplary behavior.

One of the keys to do rounding successfully is doing it regularly. Put it on your calendar each week. (Isn’t it great that tools like Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar make it very easy to set up a recurring appointment?)

Visiting donors in their natural habitat

The concept is powerful. And easily translates to fundraising. Rounding on donors could be as formal as setting up fixed appointments or as simple as frequenting their businesses. (Shouldn’t we be buying locally anyway?)

I like to think of rounding as visiting donors in their “natural habitat.” I’m always amazed at how much more we can pick up when we see people doing what they do best. And people seem more primed for giving a “real” opinion when they’re in their own space. While I know it’s important to get people to come to us, now is a great time for us to go to people.

People seem to have more time

If you have been rounding in the last few months, have you noticed that people seem to have more time than they used to? Even when I make appointments, people seem comfortable talking way past the time they committed to. People are telling me they’re trying to give more time between appointments just in case they have the opportunity to stay longer.

As I’ve been saying for years, one of the most important things about fundraising in a recession is to keep doing the basics. Face-to-face visits are one of those basics. This is a very important way we build relationships. Please remember, these visits don’t need to be solely “asks.” Cultivation visits and stewardship visits are just as important.

So, how many visits will you decide to make this week?

More importantly, what time (or times) are you going to block out in your calendar to do these visits each week?

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Well it’s back! This time it’s Twestival Local. Hundreds of teams around the world will be raising money for hundreds of local charities.

Even if you’re not one of these fortunate charities, I’d encourage you to get involved. This type of event will help you experience what it’s like to work with social media savvy people that are passionate about nonprofits. Since these are organized with a mix of Twitter and face-to-face meetings (called “tweetups”), you’ll also get a crash course in effectively using Twitter!

To find out if there’s a Twestival near you, go to http://twestival.com/.

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Except when it comes to professional development.

I’ve spoken to too many colleagues that aren’t allowed to go to professional conferences…even when they were willing to pay their own way!

Talk about short sighted! It’s awful. I’m moved at the level of professionalism and commitment of these colleagues: they know how important it is to have ongoing education and professional development.

But I’m equally shocked by organizations that are so worried about “keeping up appearances” that they won’t let people get educated on their own dime.

If you work for such an organization, don’t give up! As professionals, we’re quite a friendly crew, usually quite ready to help each other. I’ve already recommended reading blogs as a free learning opportunity. Here are a few more ideas on how to connect with colleagues develop professionally, at low- or no-cost:

• Keep current with your memberships in professional development groups current

  I know this involves a cost. But groups like the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy and the Association of Fundraising Professionals are great investments–in yourself and in your profession. They offer lots of benefits for a relatively low price and many have state or local chapters. And some of them are doing incredibly important lobbying on our behalf.

  Be sure to look for independent state or local groups look as well. Groups like the New England Association for Healthcare Philanthropy or the Utah Society of Fund Raisers offer most of the benefits of the national organizations at tremendously low, budget-friendly costs.

• Participate in email lists and subscribe to newsletters

  Many of the aforementioned groups offer great email lists that allow you to reach out to colleagues and get their opinions. These are great because you don’t have to leave your des! Groups like NEAHP are using places like Facebook and LinkedIn to extend the networking. You can often join these forums for free.

  Here’s a list of email services and listservs to check out:

  • The Chronicle of Philanthropy offers several emails, including a great daily news email.
  • ForImpact.org offers wonderfully small but incredibly inspiring emails they call “nuggets.”
  • The Extreme Fundraising Ezine is the email I put out every two weeks based on the principle that the basics of fundraising are extreme!
  • Sandra Sims at StepByStepFundraising.com, blogger Sandy Rees, Kivi Leroux Miller’s Nonprofit Marketing Guide, and many others have have helpful email newsletters and/or email subscriptions to their blogs.
  • Network for Good has an informative newsletter for nonprofits.
  • CharityChannel.com is, in my mind, the granddaddy of email listservs for nonprofits. For a very nominal fee of $37/year, you have access to many of the top bloggers, authors, and philanthropy officers in the world. For me, being a member with CharityChannel is just a given. (Can you tell I’m a fan?)

  As with so much of life, you’ll only get out of listservs as much as you put in. After you join, read the rules about posting (most professional lists don’t allow advertisements or pitches) and start asking your questions. And be sure to reply to those of others too.

• Try free webinars

  Many companies like HubSpot and Network for Good offer incredibly informative webinars for free. Now, these folks need to eat too, so don’t be bent out of shape when they pitch a product or service. But after attending a few of these, you’ll get good at weeding out the hucksters from those offering real content.

• Listen to free podcasts

  Podcasts are basically recorded conversations. Anyone with a microphone can create a podcast, so each has a different style. Here are a few that center on fundraising.

  • The Ask Without Fear! Radio Show
    One day, looking at the stack of unread books growing on my desk, I realized I could either beat myself up for not reading them, or I could call up the authors and learn directly from the source. Of course, no sane author will talk to everyone that calls them and asks them to tell them what their book says. There needed to be something in it for them. So I used BlogTalkRadio to give people I found interesting a platform to share their book or service with whoever wanted to listen. And I offer guests the recording for free to use as they please.

    I still read books, but from time-to-time (far more sporadically than I’d expected!) I invest a lunch hour talking to a people I really look up to and share those conversations with others!

  • The Baudcast
    Produced by Blackbaud’s Chad Norman, this show involves engaging conversation of many of the folks in our field that are pushing the technology limits. I always find it informative!
  • Fundraising is Beautiful
    Fundraising experts Jeff Brooks (of DonorPowerBlog.com) and Steven Screen lead terrific conversations that are meant, in their words, to give “inspiration and ammunition for fundraisers.”
  • Social Good
    The Chronicle of Philanthropy has started a great podcast hosted by author Allison Fine. I’ve only caught one of these episodes but it was quite good.

  A great thing about podcasts is that they’re recorded and posted online, so you can listen to them when you’re ready!

• Experiment with other free tools

  Sites like FreeConferenceCall.com allow you to use a free phone bridge. To have a conference call, all participants need to pay is the cost of the long-distance call. Thanks to the initiative of Mary Luebbert Director of Development at Susan B. Allen Memorial Hospital, a few of us held a monthly open conference call. We connected through the AHP email listserv, but the call was independent of the AHP organization. These calls were very well received by all of us. We described them as part water-cooler, part group therapy session.

• Call your colleagues and go out for coffee

  We are very good at making phone calls to set up appointments. Why not make a few to get together with other fundraisers in the community? More often than not, we’re really not competing with each other.

There are a few of my ideas. What other ways are you finding to connect with others despite dwindling budgets?

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Working on a session for the APRA conference in Boston, I’m relearning how fun objections can be.

Seriously, if there were no objections, we wouldn’t be needed. It would be so clearly self-evident that people would simply fund our cause. While that may seem like a state of bliss, if your primary job is fundraising, it could mean unemployment!

Here are Zig Ziglar’s five reasons to like objections:

Objections show interest

Many sales trainers refer to objections as the beginning of the sales process. So to in fundraising. Objections show the donor is interacting with what you say. Objections become much easier to take if you see them as the donor-to-be asking you to help him figure out how to make the gift. If he says, “But my kids are in college…” you could tuck your tail and run. Or you could offer him ways to make the gift that would fit his need to also pay tuition.

No objections and you’d be out of a job!

Enough said. Especially in this economy!

Objections are better than questions

Questions can be very distant and theoretical. A donor can ask a question without it being a personal question. But not so with objections. Objections are, by their very nature, personal. Therefore, objections show the donor is interacting with your ask on a personal level, not a merely theoretical one.

You don’t have to answer them all

This is the biggest “wow” of them all for me! I always thought I needed to cram every possible answer into my head so I wouldn’t get caught off guard by an objection I couldn’t answer. But you don’t have to. Sometimes, the very best thing you can do is ask, “If that were never solved, would that keep you from making a gift?” If no, they’ve indicated they’ll make a gift. If yes, then you’ll be getting closer to the real objections. (Most of us start off with surface objections and eventually get to the core thing holding us back.)

They’re consistent—usually only 5-7

Isn’t this cool?! Last month, I proved this to a team of major gifts officers for a university in the Southwest. I had them write out as many objections as they could think of, one per post-it note. When they stuck the post-its on the wall, we started grouping them according to themes.

It was so cool seeing how more than 70 objections so easily clumped together. Once we had them grouped, we started coming up with ways to overcome the common objections. This was an exceptional group of major gift fundraisers so they amassed a few more than 7. But the 10 or 12 we came up with were far more manageable than the 70 or so we’d started with.

Once you know the common objections, you can even work answers into your cultivation materials and the stories you highlight. It’s kind of fun!

I’m not sure this totally convinces you to love objections. But hopefully this will go a long way toward neutralizing the fear they can evoke.

The next time objections show up, instead of freezing, hopefully you’ll be able to say, “Well hello, we’ve been expecting you.”

Your turn: What objections do you regularly hear?
Use the comments to reply.

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