Fundly raises $5 million (and non-profits raise $220 million with Fundly social media platform)

 

 Mark Goines

This morning Fundly announced that we have achieved two more significant milestones for the company:
First off, Fundly landed another $5 million in Series A investment   which we will use to build even more cool features for Fundly’s users!  We have already hired a team of new awesome developers to make it all happen (you know who you are).

However, I could not think of a better way to celebrate this success in our company’s life than the simultaneous passing of another big milestone: the 1,000+ cause based organizations that use Fundly in the US have now raised a collective $220 million!

Our new investor is Morgenthaler Ventures. Mark Goines has joined Fundly’s board of directors. We are very excited to have him. He was an early investor in consumer finance products such as Mint.com and WePay.  The Fundly investor group already included luminaries who invested in social media companies like LinkedIn, Zynga and Twitter. We are now adding Mark’s wealth of financial application experience to the team.

Large non-profits like Teach For America as well as smaller ones like TERI have already discovered the power of social media. You should never allow a donor to drop off a check and then just drive away. When they come to your website to donate to your cause, they already have their hearts and wallets open— this is the peak of engagement and it’s crucial to seize the moment.  Adding Fundly to your donation page(s) or setting up a campaign page with Fundly will automatically ask all your donors to spread the word with their friends.  As the old saying goes, “You don’t ask; you don’t get.”

So, take a couple of minutes and setup a Fundly campaign page   for your any of your own non-profit fundraisers  !

How to Launch a Social Fundraising Campaign

At the social media for non profit conference in New York I spoke about “How to Launch a Social Fundraising Campaign”?

You can find the presentation on slideshare.

Dave Boyce: How to Launch a Social Fundraising Campaign 

 

View more presentations from Social Media for Nonprofits

The main points are:

• Individuals donate $300 billion to charities each year in the United States alone (source: 2008 Chronicle for Philantropy).
• People ask people for money. This is the most successful fundraising strategy, independent of the medium. Friends ask friends to join them in supporting a cause that they care about.
• Giving is moving online: today 13% of giving happens online, but this is growing at 35%-55% each year (source: 2010 Giving USA).
• Social media is changing everything and can put people to people fundraising on steroids.
• The ingredients for a successful for a social media fundraising campaign include: a compelling story, a specific goal, a bite sized ask, a specific benefit and, zealots and … an easy way to spread the word.

So what can I do TOMORROW?

Write Your Story:

1. Choose a GOAL ($ and a date)
2. Write down what the money will do (IMPACT)
3. Write down why your donor should give NOW (Matching donation? Expiring option? Deadline?) URGENCY

Execute:

1. Pick a PLATFORM (don’t build it yourself)
2. Hand-pick your MAVENS
3. ALIGN all channels during the duration of the campaign (mail, e-mail, web)
4. LAUNCH!

Check out www.fundly.com and start a free trial of our non-profit fundraising tools today.

How to Get Started with Social Media (for Non Profits): Tips from #SM4NP in LA

I am proud that Fundly is sponsoring all of the Social Media for Non Profit conferences: we started in San Francisco, then traveled to New York and most recently were in Los Angeles.


The conference series is especially important because social media is both super important and super hard. It has the potential to help you find many new supporters and to build a more direct relationship with these supporters.  However, social media is also very difficult. So difficult that even the founder(s) of Facebook don’t always get it right … Just a couple of days ago, we saw that Hughes’ Jumo threw in the towel. Jumo was aiming to force new bonds between causes and supporters but never got much traction.
So, we are especially grateful that Darian and Ritu put together conferences which feature practical tips for non profits on how to make social media work in real life. No theory, all action. There are so many tools and platforms out there for you to use. Let’s get started!

Some of the tips highlighted at the conference:

Your supporters are already engaged – go join them!

Your (potential) supporters are already communicating and collaborating with each other on social media. Participate in the conversation on these powerful, existing platforms. Most platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) have tools and people dedicated to help non profits be successful. And don’t forget that many people still turn to Google search when they are looking for a cause to support.

• Social Good on Facebook – Charles Porch.
• LinkedIn for Good – Bryan Breckenridge.
• Google search - Evan Bailyn.

Put your supporters to work – it makes them happy!

More than just monitoring supporters on these platforms, make sure a supporter can “join” your organization. Enable communication and collaboration amongst your supporters and ask your supporters to make a substantial contribution. Engagement is a contract of mutual “ask” and “give” both of which need to be substantial and meaningful in order to be fulfilling.  Research has shown that “giving” (both money and non-monetary help) makes people happy … and that happy people are more inclined to give. That’s your challenge! I spoke about that more in my presentation on engagement.


Not all supporters are created equal. Evan Bailyn shows that your true “brand (cause) advocates” are both high energy and high influence.


Not surprisingly, you should make those supporters super heroes (Charles Porch) and give them a special role in your campaign (Matt Mahan).

Give back by telling stories about your success 

Other speakers spoke about how you can close the loop with your supporters and “give” back by sharing your success stories. The language of Facebook is visual: for your story to be heard you MUST include pictures or videos (a “photo economy” as Guy Kawasaki called it in SM4NP San Francisco). JD Lasica spoke on storytelling 2.0 for non-profits and specifically on the use of video.
For your story to be heard on Twitter you MUST include hash tags and link to interesting articles (a “link economy” as Guy Kawasaki called in in SM4NP San Francisco). Here is a super useful Hash tags list (and Twitter chat schedule) shared by Beth Kanter during the SM4NP conference in San Francisco.
Help is on the way. 

Many of the speakers shared lists with tools for social media engagement and online fundraising and further reading. Some of the top sites are listed here:

• The list on the last page of Holly Ross’ (NTEN) presentation
• Awesome list with resources by JD Lasica
• Beth Kanter http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/Social+Networking+Resources

All presentations from the conference can be found here:

• http://www.slideshare.net/SM4nonprofits

In summary …
Here are 5 Tweets to sum up what we learned in at #SM4NP in LA:

1. Get your team in rhythm, in harmony on social media. They have to work from the same place. ~@bgbreck | tweeted by ntenhross
2. Messaging that is Compelling, Concise, and Credible is Contagious. ~@dheyman | tweeted by ilovegarick
3. The psychology of engagement: happy people give more, and giving people are happier. ~@davidjboyce1 | tweeted by aleshalesha
4. A successful brand advocate needs both influence AND energy for your cause — equally valuable assets. ~@ineffable111 |tweeted by geoffliving
5. Nonprofits are now media organizations too. Stories persuade people to be excited about their mission. ~@jdlasica | tweeted by hilwhite1

And a bit overdue, but as a bonus our top 5 favorite tweets from #SM4NP in NYC:

1. Inspire first. Do it with inspiring content. @charitywater
2. Help supporters tell your story. Stories have to be retellable — that means short and focused. @fundly
3. You’ve lost control. And that’s okay… You never had it. @kn0thing
4. Ask proudly. You are doing the donors and the world a favor, by filling the world with goodness.  @dheyman
5. Consistent Messaging. Align ALL your channels to the same message (including offline). @causes

Please visit www.fundly.com to check out our online engagement and fundraising tools. Get your free trial today!

Dave Boyce

CEO, Fundly

Online Fundraising – Successful Non-Profit Fundraising Ideas

Fundraising for your non-profit is now just a click away with so many great online tools that makes donating money to your favorite charity easy and convenient. Often, non-profits set up their online profile and donation pages and wonder why they are not getting the large amounts of traffic or donations that everyone’s talking about. That’s mostly because just creating a profile and sending a few emails is not enough. Your non-profits online presence needs to be monitored constantly to make sure you are connecting with all the right people!

Here are a few useful non-profit fundraising ideas that every non-profit organization should think about while setting up their fundraiser online:

Baby Steps: Set small and achievable goals to make donors and volunteers feel like they can help make a difference with their time or money. Smaller goals can be achieved quickly; giving everyone involved a sense of accomplishment, and a boost in morale. Setting huge goals can be intimidating especially to people who can’t donate large amounts of money and may force them to back out.

Reviews: Your donors will do your marketing for you! Get your donors to review your non-profit or fundraiser and tell the world about all the good work you do. New and potential donors always feel comfortable about making a donation after they learn about other donors’ positive experiences.

Stay on the message: This is key. Often, non-profits emotionally blackmail their audience into donating. This usually works the first time but you want your donors to keep coming back! Your message should be consistent and should talk about the non-profits commitment towards the cause, talk about the great work and progress already achieved and the amount of work left to be done. Too much of any one message will most often falls on deaf ears.

Get Help: With social media tools expanding, often non-profits fail to stay up to date with new techniques that are freely available on the Internet. It always helps to get help from great companies like Fundly that are committed to helping non-profits meet their fundraising goals by helping them set-up their online fundraising pages and giving them the essential training and skills required to run those pages successfully!
Connect: It’s most important to constantly connect with new and old users. Make sure to send them progress updates, promote your charity with new messages and every time you reach a fundraising milestone, thank them for their contribution- be it time volunteered or money donated.

A mix of these above steps in setting up and managing your charity’s online presence is sure to get your fundraiser on its way to success!