Holly Sizemore of No More Homeless Pets Utah is talking about fundraising!

Remember, a fundraising event may not be the best venue to promote your adoptable pets... sure, you can bring a few, but be careful not to mix your message. Have fun & plan! Location! Location! Location! A great location can make or break your event. Network in your community and often times you will be able to get a venue donated for your event!

Holly talked about the Canine Casino Night for NMHP Utah.  Hosted in a local hotel, the ticket price was $35 and guests enjoyed an adoptable parade, silent & live auction, free drinks, merch table, gaming that is donation based, doggie pampering, photos, pet psychic. Take note -- the media and guests gravitate and love this kind of stuff! A fundraising event like this takes about 6 months to plan and starts with putting together a commitee that's made up of: event director, silent auction acquisition (be persistent and polite!), entertainment, logistics, PR, volunteers, sponsorship. Planning is key to success and ultimately the community becomes a big part of the event.

Holly's presentation and other resources will be available online soon. Also, check out Susan Daffron's book "Funds To The Rescue: 101 Fundraising Ideas For Humane & Animal Rescue Groups"

Bottom line - get creative with your message and believe in your organization and your event!

 

 

Scott Goodstein is president of Revolution Messaging and was the external online director for the Obama for America campaign. He shared some of his secrets with us today... (he's also a fan of haiku!). Check out Christie Keith's blog post on Pet Connection about Scott's session. Just click here: http://tinyurl.com/yk3zh7m

"Liveblogging No More Homeless Pets: From the Obama campaign to your shelter"

 

Mike Arms –President of the Helen Woodward Animal Center

http://www.animalcenter.org/

It’s a teary-eyed, emotional, and inspirational morning with Mike Arms – but I don’t think we could expect otherwise! As he recounts his first blush in animal welfare he reminds us all how we are dedicating our lives to be advocates for innocent, unselfish animals.  They, the animals, will give us everything they can – when do we step up and make a difference in their lives? We’ve been doing it, but we need to challenge ourselves to be better at it.

“We are in the business of saving lives” says Mike. And we MUST use the best business practices to help these animals. We better be good at it – the animal’s lives depend on it after all.

To put it in his words “We need to promise these animals our minds. They already have our hearts.” Arms is talking about strategic planning. Start by doing a written assessment of your organization –  ask yourself, what is your mission? What are your strengths & weaknesses? Get a written action plan down on paper for the next 2-3 years of your organization. Start by talking to everyone who’s a part of your organization, from board members to volunteers. All this input will be invaluable for planning success.  Have a statement of vision (the future you would like to build for your org) and have a clear set of core values. Get a plan down for the animals.

Put your mission statement on your business card—it’s more important than your name and even your organization’s name. Let people know what you stand for.

Arms diverts from the strategic planning to tell us about some highly creative projects he is working on.... for example, he is going to Puerto Rico in December to start education programs to teach the children humane practices. Then, in turn, the children will pay it forward to their parents. Another… there is a Meals on Wheels program in San Diego that delivers food not just for people, but for the people’s pets, too.  How does it work? Pet food donations are obtained from the community in grocery stores, and volunteers collect the food, sort it, and deliver the meals (enough for a week) to Meals on Wheels, who then deliver it to the homes.

Here’s another tidbit Mike reminds us of… animal control started over 50 years ago when we had a rabies epidemic in this country.  Point made: we need to start changing the way we are doing things – and devote our minds to doing this. The animals have our hearts already.

Best Friends’ Terri Shoemaker did a session on Fundraising that was chock-full of good information…

Get this: 75% of donated revenue comes from individuals. WOW! Who knew!

Who are these donors and how do we find them? Where can you gather names?

-       special events

-       vols

-       board members & their contacts

-       community publications and listings

-       workplace campaigns

-       vendors

YOU HAVE TO ASK! How?

-       it begins with data management (all forms of giving start here)

-       it costs to ask people for money  - and you need to collect data in order to ask them again….. other wise it’s a waste of $$$!

o   Resources:

• etapestry.com (free software when you have 500 donors or less)
• orangeleap.com (free software for data management to NPO’s – they just sell the tech service)

-       81% contribute when ASKED – remember, tap into that emotional connection when asking.

-       Once someone gives you $$, send a thank you card or email to every person who has donated. It could be as simple as a generic greeting card that you send – don’t worry about getting fancy – just be sure to say “thank you!”

-       IF you have waited too long (about a month) to send a thank you, do it in January and send them a letter for tax purposes… but, try NOT to get into this situation in the first place!

 

A few different ways to ASK:

-       Emails

-       Website

-       Honor/Memorial Donations (in lieu of gifts)

-       Direct mail

Direct Mail: most of your $$$ will still come through the mail.  Here’s some lingo:

-       “House” mailings go to previous donors, lapsed donors.

-       “Prospect” mailing goes to people who haven’t given before

 

If you do ONE mailing, the best time of year is during holiday season, towards the end of the tax year.

How do you take your story and make it an appeal?

-       Add an offer (answer the ??? “how does my $$ go to work – what specifically will it be doing?”)

-       Ask!

-       Include these mailing elements: outer envelope, letter, response form & envelope. Put images on your envelopes to get people to open them!

 

Testing: Track your data so you know if it works or not.  Build on your successes!

 

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Best Friends’ Elizabeth Doyle took the second half of the session to talk about how to write appeals – it’s an art, not a science! Here are a few tidbits to keep in mind when writing your appeals:

-       People like to give money to a solution, not a problem. Tell them how you are trying to solve the problem!

-       Answer the question… “why is giving your organization $$ a good idea?”

-       Don’t sound desperate. It may work one…. But not the ten times after that!

-       Sound organized! The more organized you sound, the more of a good investment you seem like.

-       Animal lovers can be sensitive. Don’t show the gory picture and tell the horrible details… this is the problem (remember?!).

-       People can relate to one animal much better than a million.

 

Just remember... ASKING should be a regular part of your routine. It feels uncomfortable, but you have to do it. If someone doesn’t have time to transport or volunteer, chances are they will help by donating $$

 

Making Facebook and Twitter Work for You

Speaker: Jon Dunn; @jon_dunn

I gotta say, if you didn’t get a chance to make this session today, definitely look for Jon Dunn in the Internet Lounge while you are here at the conference.  If you aren’t here, friend him on facebook. Then, be sure to ask him questions about social media—he’ll give you an honest answer.

Ok, listen up… here’s some live-blogging about Jon’s social media session.

·      10 million people become a fan of a page EVERYDAY on facebook.

Woah – that’s a lot of people… like, 20 million eyeballs… AND the average facebook user has 130 friends, talking to their 130 friends, and so on.  Point is, facebook is a place for you to get your message out there!! It’s easy, for real.

www.facebook.com

Facebook Rule #1 – Use a Fan Page for your organization!!  Look at other non-profit facebook pages… Best Friends, HSUS, etc… for examples of what a page looks like and the type of stuff on the page.

Facebook Rule #2 - Start with your mission first. Tell folks what you’re doing and why. Then… keep the conversation and relationship – friendship – going.

Facebook Rule #3 -You will be an admin. Get multiple admins to help you. Be creative, maybe your neighbor’s kids will help you!

Facebook Rule # 4 - Use “Rich” content… no, not money…. Just post videos and photos to your facebook page! The worst thing you can do is NOT post things! It’s about interaction. Don’t let your page sit stagnant.

Facebook Rule # 5 - You DO have time – no matter how small you are, take just a few minutes everyday to pay attention to your supporters who are watching you on facebook and twitter.

Ok, enough with the rules. Jon would actually tell you that there are “no rules” in social media. J Here’s what he also says:

It’s more about “friend” raising vs fundraising.  First, listen to who your supporters are and what they are saying.

Once you are set up on facebook, try creating custom landing pages using the “TAB” feature on facebook. Use it for special promotions and events that you are doing. This is a great option for a facebook homepage instead of using the the “wall” on your page that consists of your status news feed (which sometimes can get cluttered with info).

Give incentives for people to follow your fan page and stay involved. For example, tell your fans about your next adoption event and offer them a discount on the adoption fee for mentioning they saw your offer on facebook.

What Best Friends is using: MySpace, facebook, twitter, change.org, youtube.com, network.bestfriends.org  More resources are found on the conference website here: http://nomorehomelesspetsconference.com/resources.htm

Jon took some questions from the audience…

Q: On the fan page, can you email everyone, all the fans at once? (just like I can do on the group page)

A: Nope. But, keep the news feed updated. Don’t worry about blasting them via email since it may not be the best way to communicate every time.

Q: Twitter has a language of it’s own. Where can I get more “how to” info?

A: Looking for a how to manual on how to get social media up & running? Kinda like a Twitter 101? More great resources at  mashable.com

There’s also TweetDeck, CoTweet (dashboards for twitter). Best Friends uses CoTweet – it allows you to have multiple Twitter accounts with multiple users.

Q: I work for the Humane Society in Tijuana – how can I use both English & Spanish?

A: Anyone out there have a good bi-lingual solution for facebook?

Q: Can I get analysis on my Facebook Fan Page?

A:Yes,  Facebook insights! Pages views, how many followers, male/female, age, even where they are (city, state). Go to your fan page (as an admin) and “insights” will be in the left rail of the page.

Q: What is a twitter hashtag?

A: This is a way to categorize a tweet. For example, use the conference hashtag #09nmhp in your tweet message, so you can then search this hashtag to see all the tweets about the conference (versus getting lost in the thousands of tweets that are posted).

Q: I live in a small town – 2500 pop – how do I make it grow?

A: There is no silver bullet.  Hey, it’s better to have 50 people following you who truly care  and get involved in your organization and what you are doing instead of thousands who don’t. Sign up to the Best Friends Network, too!

Q: When I send a tweet, who gets it? For example “Box of kitten on my doorstep.”

A: Only the people who are following you will get your tweet. Also, use a hashtag! People who aren’t following you may search for your hashtag; for your example you could use #kittens and peolple searching for kittens can find you.

Twitter Tidbit: How can you grow your network and followers? Search for groups on twitter in your area and follow their followers…. They will (hopefully) ultimately follow you back!

Q:  My org is has a Group Page and is a Cause on facebook. Should I start a fan page?

A: YES! Start it and make it your main homepage for your organization. Repurpose your Group page to be about something specific your org is doing… for example a “Spay/Neuter” page.

Social media, twitter, facebook…. It’s ever-changing but a necessary agent of change. Sign up, sign on, follow, become a fan…

Don’t forget the TweetUp tonight at McFadden’s 8pm. Be there!