So… here goes… 5 minutes to becoming an expert at Facebook causes.
First, a couple of facts.
From the point of view of the organization looking to raise money through causes, the Facebook application called “Causes” organizes itself into a hierarchy.
At the bottom of this hierarchy is the organization that receives the funds. They are called, in causes terms, the Beneficiary.
A Beneficiary must be a 501(c)3, non-profit organization that is registered with Guidestar and, as part of it’s profile, have enabled “on-line donations”.
This is required because a lot of the information that Causes obtains and passes on through Facebook is obtained from the Guidestar database.
The next step up the foodchain is the cause.
A cause can be created by anyone (including the owner of the Beneficiary). Causes are then “affiliated” or associated with a Beneficiary. This affiliation enables a Facebook user to join a cause or donate to a cause and enables the donations to flow through the cause to the Beneficiary.
From a Beneficiary point of view, this scheme enables one or more causes to be associated with a single beneficiary. For example, if I am part of a non-profit beneficiary called “Save The Forests”, I (or any other Facebook user) can start a cause that benefits Save The Forests. I can can start a cause called “Plant A Tree” so others can donate to that cause (and benefit Save The Forests). Other Facebook users who are interested in what Save The Forests does can also start a cause. For example, Joe (who I may have never met) can start a cause called “1000 Trees” that also benefits Save The Forests. The “social idea” here is that if Joe believes in the cause that he created, so will his friends on Facebook.
Creating causes in not some uncontrolled process. A key to the whole thing working is the concept of “affiliation”. In order for Joe’s cause to benefit my Beneficiary, Joe has to request that his cause become “affiliated” with my Beneficiary. If I approve the affiliation request, then all is well. If I don’t (perhaps because Joe’s cause doesn’t quite match my brand), I can reject the affiliation. This frees Joe to affiliate his cause with some other organization if he wants to.
So… if you are a beneficiary, here are a couple of rules to follow when using Facebook..
That’s it!
Happy causing!
]]>If you examine your site analytics (I assume you use site analytics… right?) and you see that the last page most of your visitors see before they leave your site is your donation page (and not the confirmation or receipt page), you’ve got problems.
Here are some checkpoints and questions that you should be aware of when figuring out how to improve your donation page:
By the way, make sure your receipt is a single page that doesn’t use a lot of color ink. In a previous site I worked on, one of the biggest complaints we had about our receipt came from older folks and other who are against waste and extra expense. Black and white is fine here. The critical thing is the information
Like many other parts of a site, you should be able to test different versions of your form to find out which one works best. Design your form so you can test different versions that contains changes in stories, layouts, pre-set giving amounts (or none at all) and copy.
- sign up for recurring giving
- collect e-mail address and opt-in
- Donate a gift (or purchase) in someone else’s name
- Send a gift card
- Privacy (please do not use my name in your annual report)
And finally, for large or special circumstance donors who may want to do something other than give a one-time donation, provide information about how to contact someone in your organization who is an expert at handling their request. The higher up in the organization, the better. If they are going to donate a substantial amount to your cause, start treating them like a major donor as soon as they see the site.
]]>First, the Web, as a story telling and publishing medium has huge potentials for non-profit organizations, Second, the problems that people have using this medium are the same problems that have plagued people who use the web for e-commerce, blogging and whatever other uses can be thought of. That problem is finding a good, clear scheme to organize and present all the information you think that your user needs.
At a conference I recently presented , many of the representatives of non-profits in the audience wanted an idea about “what was right” when it came to having a site that informed people about what they did and appropriately “made the ask” (as they say in the non-profit world) for financial or volunteer support.
Here is what we discussed as the top 10 questions that someone using your site wants to know. If you are a non-profit, check your site to see if you can to easily find the answer to these questions within two or three clicks from the home page. Better yet, if you are a non-profit, test how well your site communicates your core ideas and beliefs by having someone else use your site to answer them for you.
Here are the questions that your site should be able to answer: