Did you see us at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service?
Last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we were all aflutter with conference excitement. Thousands descended on our hometown of San Francisco to talk, blog, and tweet about what? ...you guessed it, volunteering and service. Considering the timing of Obama's big announcement about the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, and the launch of All for Good (stay tuned to see GreatNonprofits reviews up there soon!), the energy this year at this conference was incredible. We were thrilled to be able to participate.
Shari hung out for a while in the VIP room, presenting the site to HandsOn affiliates, speakers, and anyone else wandering in. Perla participated in a panel discussion entitled "When American Idol Meets Philanthropy." What happens when you combine social media with philanthropy? Of course, we have a lot to say about that issue!
In addition to participating in the lively discussion going on at the conference, walking around and talking with all of the other dedicated nonprofit professionals, we were interviewed by a couple people who were interested in what we have to say. Posted below is an interview by VolunteerMatch, our fellow Web site in the nonprofit sphere connecting people to volunteer opportunities. You can read about it on their blog.
And here's an interview with BusinessBoomer, a great online media outlet that produces webcasts with CEO's, business owners, and other cultural leaders to discuss best practices and timely issues affecting us all.
How does Shari look? How do you see GreatNonprofits fitting in to this new world of online, open source service and volunteerism?
Love a Certain Gay Nonprofit? We Partner with Queerty for Pride Choice
The 2009 Pride Choice Awards are half over, and as expected, reviews have been pouring in. It amazes us how dynamic and dedicated the LGTBQ community is to supporting its organizations and advancing its cause. We've recently teamed up with Queerty, the most-read gay lifestyle site on the Web, to get the word out about Pride Choice and make sure ALL of the top LGBTQ organizations are found and given their due. Below is the article on Queerty.com about the Pride Choice Awards (you can also see it here:
Love a Certain Gay Nonprofit? Here's Your Chance to Tell the World
QUEERTY PRESENTS — In December, Queerty identified The Five Worst Gay Charities For Your Dollar, where we examined how much cash gay-oriented non-profits were actually using toward achieving their goals. We also told you about The 5 Best Gay Charities, using the same criteria. But who says we've got the final say? Now it's your turn to identify the best LGBT non-profits.
Queerty is teaming up with GreatNonProfits.org and GuideStar to let you review and vote on the organizations you deem the best — and the worst. If you donate to, volunteer for, or actively support a non-profit you believe in, head on over to GreatNonProfits.org/Pride and give 'em the thumbs up. Not impressed with one? Write that, too.
We'll tally up all the reviews submitted by June 30 and then honor the non-profits who scored the highest. Sure, it's a chance for these organizations to brand themselves "the greatest GLBT non-profit," but it's also an opportunity for you to support the causes you believe in most.
Already being reviewed: The Trevor Project, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, The Gay Christian Network, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Won't you add yours?
Visit GreatNonProfits.org/Pride now to submit your review.
Pride Month Contest! Which LGBTQ Organizations Are Making a Difference? Voting Begins
In honor of June which is LGBTQ Pride Month, the 2009 GreatNonprofits Pride Choice Awards (http://www.greatnonprofits.org/pride) will recognize the top-rated LGBTQ nonprofits. The contest asks people to write reviews of LGBTQ nonprofits they have had an experience with. Nonprofits can also encourage their volunteers, clients served, donors and board members to post reviews.
Nonprofits with the most positive reviews in their category will be announced as winners and receive national media coverage as well as promotion on GuideStar.org. Awards will be given out of 8 categories (5 geographic US regions and 3 budget size - small, medium or large). Contest Deadline: June 30th.
This is an opportunity for nonprofits to engage their stakeholders - clients, volunteers, board members, donors and other stakeholders . They can share their experiences with one another and the larger public. All reviews will appear on both GreatNonprofits.org and on GuideStar.org, the premiere site for philanthropic research. Nonprofits can also later use these reviews in their marketing and brochures.
Plus everyone who writes a review is eligible to win fun prizes such as delicious Alter Eco fair trade chocolate, a subscription to Stanford Social Innovation Review, a getaway at Kimpton hotels (thanks to nonprofit & academic travel service, Academic Ambassadors!) and more!
Best of all, all reviews will be automatically visible also on GuideStar.org, the leading site for philanthropic research.
We here at GreatNonprofits believe that reviews show the real human impact of an organization and raises the visibility and credibility of those nonprofits. These awards will help highly-rated nonprofits attract more volunteers.
Submit reviews by June 30th at http://www.greatnonprofits.org/pride.
Your Fundraising Needs to Change Now
State incomes have declined and social services are being cut to meet budget gap. Foundations lost $150 billion last year - that’s more than foundations gave out in the last four years combined. Many of the biggest corporate givers–Citigroup, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo–are in financial distress. Giving by high net worth individual giving is down because their assets are down. This is a dire snapshot of the fundraising market nonprofits face.
The only giving that is expected to remain unchanged is giving by individual donors who give from income. Individual giving has increased every year despite recessions.
These were some of the key points made by Curtis Chang of Consulting Within Reach, at his seminar I attended yesterday with nonprofits and funders in the Silicon Valley area. Nonprofits are facing an ecological shift in donors. To survive, nonprofits need to lessen their fundraising focused on state, corporate, foundation and high net worth individuals giving, said Curtis. And they need to increase their on development staff and marketing appeals to target middle class individuals.
This requires a whole new set of capacities that need to be built to reach individual donors. Curtis shared this graphic with us:
State/Corporate/Foundation Fundraising Model
Appeal: innovation/social impact
Content: hard data
Communication: grant writing
Tracking: annual Key Contacts: program officers
Individual Fundraising Model
Appeal: brand experience
Content: emotional stories
Communications: marketing
Tracking: continual
Key Contacts: social connections
I agree with much of Curtis’ points, especially the need these days to focus on individual donors. I think there is one missing piece in this, which is to cultivate volunteers as well as individual donors. Research shows that 50 percent of volunteers end up donating to the nonprofits as well. This is a spectacular conversion rate and much better than any direct mail or facebook solicitation. If nonprofits can convey the stories, the emotional experience and rewards of being part of their cause, donations will follow.
Check Us Out in the San Francisco Business Times
For those of you not avid San Francisco Business Times readers, you may have missed the article about yours truly in this week's issue. We've reproduced it here:
Web site promotes candid reviews of nonprofits
Startup pushes Yelp-like ratings
San Francisco Business Times - by Sarah Duxbury
Power to the people, Internet style, is coming to nonprofits.
Great Nonprofits, based in Palo Alto, gives the sector its own Yelp-like platform.
The goal of the year-and-a-half-old Great Nonprofits is to help average people better assess which organizations, big or small, actually provide quality services and products. It does so by encouraging clients, volunteers and board members to write candid reviews.
“All these different perspectives help really inform people about what’s happening on the ground with this or that nonprofit, how it’s making a difference,” said Perla Ni, founder of Great Nonprofits and the former publisher of Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Users can rank a review helpful or not, and — unlike on Yelp — it has always been simple for nonprofits to respond to reviews.
Though young and small, it’s already lined up a heavyweight partner in GuideStar, the go-to source for all financial and other hard data on the nation’s nonprofits. GuideStar will feature Great Nonprofits’ qualitative reviews alongside its quantitative information.
Through GuideStar, Great Nonprofits has 1.1 million nonprofits in its database. So far, 3,000 people have written reviews. Last month, 25,000 people visited the site.
“Great Nonprofits has the potential to transform the way people volunteer,” said Sean Stannard-Stockton, a principal at [CompanyWatch allows you to receive email alerts with stories related to your companies of interest.
You can watch up to ten companies at a time.
] Ensemble Capital Management and writer of the Tactical Philanthropy blog. “The major problem that Great Nonprofits faces is that too many of the current reviews are positive. Unless they can encourage volunteers to post both positive and negative reviews, their service will not be credible”
Because the site is free, many small nonprofits are likely to hail it as a leveling power to help them compete against large nonprofits with marketing budgets.
“I’ve been hesitant to plunge into (Internet marketing) because, running a small or medium nonprofit, you don’t have the luxury to try something new unless you know it will pay off,” said Charles Higgins, executive director of Slide Ranch in Muir Beach. The nonprofit, with a $680,000 annual budget, decided to tell its 2,200-person mailing list about the site, where it then garnered enough positive reviews to win a Green Choice Award. Higgins said he already knows of several small donations Slide Ranch has received as a result.
The much smaller Hayes Valley Neighborhood Park had a similar experience.
The contests are part of Great Nonprofits’ marketing and growth strategy moving forward.
Great Nonprofits’ own budget is $220,000, most of which comes from family foundations. It employs two full-time people, some contractors and scads of volunteers.
So far, few large nonprofits have embraced Great Nonprofits, Ni said.
She is not discouraged.
“We’re finally getting people to understand that there can be a rating and review process for nonprofits.”
The Results are In- and They Will Surprise You
Yesterday we tallied and released the results of the 2009 Green Choice Awards, and what we came up with is amazingly unexpected. Across the board, grassroots organizations were more reviewed, and more highly reviewed, than any of the more well-known environmental nonprofits that we would all expect to see feature prominently in a contest like this one.
To see the results of the 2009 Green Choice Awards, click here.
This outcome has a number of interesting applications for the environmental nonprofit sector, and perhaps the future of green industry in general. Why did local, grassroots groups do so much better? You would think that since larger, more well-known groups reach more people, they would get more reviews, but this was not the case.
Through personal, experiential reviews, GreatNonprofits showcases the real human impact that organizations have. Perhaps the 2009 Green Choice Awards has revealed the fact that grassroots organizations, through deeper and more complete connections with their followers, are able to have more impact in their communities than national organizations that focus on breadth as opposed to depth. Could this indicate that success in promoting greener living and the engagement of every citizen in saving our environment should be fought from the bottom up?
While important strides towards a cleaner environment are indeed made by large groups, the results of the 2009 Green Choice Awards could indicate that the future of this movement lies in the dynamic engagement created by grassroots nonprofits.
What do you think the results of 2009 Green Choice tell us? And what should we do about it? Post your comments below.
If you are a member of the press, or would like to cover the 2009 Green Choice Awards in your blog, contact Shari
Saving the Planet Can Be Fun!
April 1st marks the beginning of Earth Month, so tell us: What organizations do you know that are saving the world? We want to know! We're officially announcing the 2009 GreatNonprofits Green Choice Awards.
Tell us all about the environmental nonprofits you've been involved with- the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly. Between now and April 15th, the organizations with the most positive reviews (in each of the size categories: small, medium, and large), will be featured in national media.
And there's more!
Those of you amazing and dedicated individuals who post reviews of the winning organizations will be eligible to win great prizes including an autographed copy of Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," earth-friendly wines from Fetzer wineries, a subscription to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, a getaway to a Joie De Vivre hotel, gift certificates to Whole Foods, coupons for Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and more!
Click here 2009 GreatNonprofits Green Choice Awards. to see the current leaders and to post your review.
Seems too good to be true, we know. It only takes a few minutes to tell your story online, and you could win great prizes AND help our environment.
How can you save the planet during Earth Month? Be a part of the GreatNonprofits Green Choice Awards.
Invite your friends to participate! Send emails, post to facebook, and tweet about us with the hashtag: #greenchoice.
The Great Outdoors
It's that time of the year! As spring rolls in, many outdoor and nature-based organizations are rolling out their programs.
A fan of Audubon Canyon Ranch in Stinson Beach, CA recalls "the childrens' bonding with the natural world and becoming joyful amateur naturalists. Many of the children who come to the Ranch have very minimal exposure to natural settings. The place is a revelation to them."
And a very adoring life-long client and later supporter of Whole in the Wall Gang camp in Connecticut shares his experience: "As a camper, I fished; I canoed; I made beads; I put on plays; I climbed a rock wall; I wrote poetry; and I did all of that in a supportive, safe, respectful, and loving environment. These experiences were, of course, great fun. But they were also so much more. They offered a sense of normalcy. I too have ridden horses. I too know how to canoe. I too have a drawer full of arts and crafts projects. While, perhaps for some children, these are just summer distractions, they gave, to me, a sense of being “normal.” As a child, I spent much of my time around doctors or hospitals. And during much of my remaining time, I was around those who had never had such experiences, a constant reminder that I was “different.” But for a short time each Summer, I enjoyed what everyone else seemed to take for granted."
And it's not just the kids that are having fun, volunteers are too! Dr. Chip, a volunteer doctor at Camp Odayin, a camp for kids with heart disease confesses: "I can tell you that I will keep going back every year. It is always the best 3 weeks of my summer!!"
Featured Nonprofit Review: First Place for Youth
Every day we are touched by the stories you share about the non-profits that impact our lives.
Cassandra has this to share about her experience with First Place for Youth:
I've been on the Board for one year now, and been a donor to First Place for more than five. I began supporting them because of my work with homeless adults and discovering that more than half of them had been part of the foster care system as children! At 18, foster youth lose all financial and empotional support from the State and are expected to be able to make it on their own - the reality is most don't even have their high school diplomas yet and many become homeless, teen parents, and/or involved in criminal activities. First Place provides the practical and caring support that many of us received from our parents to help these youth transition to adulthood and self-sufficiency. The staff are great champions for the youth, and the peer counselors help the young people to see that they really can change their lives. Although I'm impressed with the staff, program, and outcome measures, it is meeting the youth in the program that has inspired me most.
To learn more about First Place for Youth, visit their website.
What do Nonprofits Think of GreatNonprofits?
Having your organization reviewed can be scary, but hundreds of nonprofits have already found out that it's more of an advantage than they ever thought possible, and thousands more are joining in. Here are some thoughts from wonderful, reviewed nonprofits about what GreatNonprofits has done for them:
“As much as those of us who run nonprofit organizations believe in our mission, and our ability to communicate the importance of what we do, the simple fact is that we're not the best people to tell our story. The most insightful and credible people to do so are the clients, volunteers and donors who experience the results from a different and understandably less biased perspective. GreatNonprofits has now created a central location for them to share their experiences with potential clients, volunteers, donors, and very importantly, with those who run the organization. Able Flight was an early adopter of the opportunity to be reviewed, and has encouraged those who have real-world, first-hand experience with us to, in their own words, "write from the heart" to allow others to learn of this unique organization that provides flight training scholarships for people with disabilities. With links from our website and newsletter, we welcome those who are interested in our mission to visit Great Nonprofits to learn about Able Flight from those who know us best. Thanks for providing the opportunity for Able Flight to share our story.” ~Charles Stites, Executive Director, Able Flight
“We're thrilled to have the opportunity to connect and communicate through GreatNonprofits. Just days after completing our profile, we were contacted by a local business that had some resources to give away. They used our GreatNonprofits profile and reviews to determine which organization they would donate to. GreatNonprofits provides an invaluable service and has created a lively, interactive way to spread the good news being done all around us.” ~Jerri Jensen, Programs & Marketing, Springboard Forward
What do YOU think? How has GreatNonprofits worked for YOUR organization?
Future of Nonprofits & Rhetoric of the sector
I was on a panel with the Paul Light, Lester Salamon and Peter Frumkin hosted by Bill Schambra at the Bradley Center in Washington DC.
The discussion moved to how will metrics and effectiveness be shaped by the new economic conditions. I spoke about GreatNonprofits and how we believe that the new yardstick will be how responsive nonprofits are to needs in their communities. And this responsiveness can be seen in the stories about them by their stakeholders - how they are making a difference, how they are responding to the needs of their constituents, and how they are improving their programs in response to constituent feedback. Peter Frumkin then shared his theory that nonprofits that have been using the “rhetoric of reason and rationale” may begin using the “rhetoric of emotion” - using appeals to "morality" or "obligation" to maintain and attract donors. I agree with his prediction. During these difficult economic times, when all of us knows someone who has or is at risk of losing their jobs, it's much easier for us to relate to the appeals to our conscience and our heart. That's not to say that there is no room for "expert" evaluations and quantitative metrics. It's about degree and balance of the heart and the head.
Happy MLK Day: a dedication to great nonprofits
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a day Congress declared dedicated to national service. This year almost-President Obama urged everyone to continue Dr. King's legacy by finding ways on this day to improve the world around us and strengthen the things that are important to us.
At GreatNonprofits, we dedicate ourselves to showing the world the great nonprofits that are out there- through your personal stories and reviews, we can all learn about what these organizations are really doing- the big ones that we hear about every day, and the small ones that no one ever hears about.
Did you volunteer somewhere today? Do you feel you had an impact in some small way in your community? Was your experience frustrating, inspiring, tiring? Even if you were unable to volunteer today, surely you've had an experience in the past that everyone else would benefit from hearing. Do your part to strengthen nonprofits and your community, and post a review on GreatNonprofits. And browse the site to read about the countless amazing experiences others had participating in National Day of Service.
To post a review of an organization, click on "Write a Review" on the GreatNonprofits homepage, and search for the organization by name. Tell your story, and make an impact.
Happy New Years! Start the year with board service!
For every personality, there’s a match. Find yours at The Board Match event – the best way to explore nonprofit board membership in the Bay Area. Over 100 Bay Area nonprofits are waiting to meet you!
Our friends at Volunteer Center of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin asked us to put out the word. We'll be there too - come out and visit us! Happy New Years! Perla
From Volunteer Center of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin:
Take the lead and give your time, talent and energy in one of the most meaningful ways you can – join a nonprofit board!
Nonprofits count on volunteers like you to lead them to success. The Board Match is a job-fair style event featuring over 100 Bay Area nonprofits whose leadership will be on hand to talk to interested candidates about serving on their organization’s board of directors. There will be a variety of organizations from large to small, focusing on everything from the environment to arts to youth.
Serving on a nonprofit board can provide fantastic opportunities for your personal and professional development. You can build new and skills, network and broaden your knowledge of the community and provide essential skills to community nonprofits. We recommend bringing copies of your resume and business cards to The Board Match to share with your potential match.
The Board Match DATE: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 TIME: 4:30 – 7:30 pm PLACE: Moscone Center, 747 Howard Street, Room 103, San Francisco ADMISSION: Free! Bring your friends! FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.theboardmatch.org
Board Service Information Sessions Curious about nonprofit board service, but not sure if it’s for you? The Volunteer Center will be presenting free Board Service Information Sessions to give you the information you need to decide if joining a nonprofit board of directors is right for you. Register online at: http://www.theboardmatch.org
Lead Sponsor: Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Co-Hosted by: The Volunteer Center Serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties,
the Bay Area Corporate Volunteer Council, HandsOn Bay Area and Craigslist Foundation
Media Sponsor: San Francisco Business Times
A Lesson from Obama’s Campaign
Obama's presidential campaign broke new ground with its inclusive and energetic social networking platform and its ability to mobilize an unprecedented portion of the population to action (and giving) on his behalf. His use of web 2.0 technologies reinvented the way political campaigns are run in this country, and considering how GreatNonprofits is applying web 2.0 to mobilize the nonprofit community, I am personally fascinated to see where we all go from here, and what happens during the NEXT election.
But for those of us in the nonprofit sector, there's a more immediate question: what can organizations learn from Obama's success with web 2.0, and how can we put it to use? Obama, for all of his manic fundraising, had plenty of money to implement his campaign initiatives. But if we're like most of the organizations in the country, with barely any marketing budget at all, never mind any money or personnel for social marketing, what can we take away from Obama's campaign that will help us in the scary new world of social networks, blogs, and wikis?
I think the most important lessons for nonprofits comes from Obama's operation at its most basic: he innovated. He took technology that had been around for a while and used it in a new way. He applied web 2.0 to a realm that had never met it before, and in so doing he changed the face of modern politics. What's scary about what Obama did is the risk he took- putting large amounts of resources into an untried strategy. But his success reminds us all that anything new, exciting, and ultimately worth it requires risk. Nonprofits have sat back and followed current trends for too long- in order to achieve the potential for influence that this sector needs in order to affect REAL change, to solve all of the problems that have created a need for our existence, we need to take these risks. Don't be afraid to innovate! Listen to every crazy idea that comes up, because it might just be the next break-through, and when was the last time a break-through came from the nonprofit sector? Perhaps if we take some risks and make some break-throughs, the world will sit up and take notice of the other work we're doing, and the public will elect us to create the change we know is necessary.
(For a great example of nonprofits using web 2.0 technology to reach more people, check out GreatNonprofits at http://www.greatnonprofits.org.)
GreatNonprofits Widget - Add Reviews To Your Site!
The Great*Guide - 2009 Bay Area Guide to Giving and Volunteering
It rolled off the presses and I got my first copy today. We then were doing a presentation at the Sobrato Center for SV2's grantees and showed them the Guide, and I had nonprofits coming up to me afterwards and asking how they could get into the Guide next year.
The Great*Guide is going to be available shortly online and in print. It'll be distributed through select retailers in the Bay Area and through the Nov 12th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle to select neighborhoods in the Bay Area. Look for it!
Perla
GreatNonprofits On the Road - Cleveland, Philly and San Diego
Come out and see us!
We'll be speaking at
San Diego Grantmakers conference in San Diego Oct 23rd
Ohio Grantmakers conference in Cleveland Oct 29th
Independent Sector conference in Philly, Tuesday Nov 11th
Would love to meet you all in person!
Perla
The Columbus Foundation - a model for communitiy foundations
If you are from Columbus, you know this already. The Columbus Foundation is an outstanding community foundation. Lisa Courtice invited me to speak at their 2008 celebration and I had a chance to see up close the work of this foundation.
First off, I was really impressed by Doug Kridler, President of the Columbus Foundation. With a substantial civic and volunteer background, Doug understands that a one of the most fundamental things that a community foundation does, is to support local nonprofits. He emphasized, to a crowd of nonprofits - "Our effectiveness is your effectiveness." I saw this commitment to local nonprofits in conversations with many of their staff. Their PowerPhilanthropy initiative seeks to provide more information and thus direct more giving to local nonprofits.
The Columbus Foundation does well on the donor side as well. I had the pleasure of meeting one of their donors, Shirle Westwater. She just had her 90th birthday party. She is a devoted donor and past board member of the Columbus Foundation. She's proud of the fact that people know her as the woman who asks people to donate. She's particularly proud of the fact that she got asphalt donated for the parking lot and trees for the courtyard of the beautiful Columbus Foundation campus.
The foundation seems to be loved by many of their donors. In fact they are currently the 9th largest community foundation in terms of assets, and most of those assets are unrestricted grants to the foundation. It's a high sign of trust that their donors give so much directly to the Columbus Foundation.
I spoke in my presentation there about the origin of the word philanthropy - which translates loosely to "love of mankind'. And about the uniquely American tradition of philanthropy with its citizens coming together to form voluntary associations. It is embedded in our history. The first "corporation" in this country, was a nonprofit one - Harvard College. The first civic institutions - fire station, library, city council - were all formed as voluntary associations to which people gave their time and their money. And gave it out of love. Shirle started to tear up when she talked about what philanthropy meant to her. "It's a real joy to give," she said with a big smile. Wow, what a way to continue our country's history of philanthropy and what a great testament to the community nurtured by the Columbus Foundation!
GreatNonprofits in DC
Nonprofits are spreading the word about how "reviews" increases your public visibility and improves your organizational performance.
In September, we were at the Nonprofit Roundtable where we and GuideStar introduced our partnership. We heard testimonials from Interstages, SERVE Inc., and Mary's Center, who have already benefited from being reviewed on GreatNonprofits. Check out their reviews!
Mary's Center - http://www.greatnonprofits.org/reviews/profile2/marys-center-for-maternal-child-care-inc
Interstages - http://www.greatnonprofits.org/reviews/profile2/interstages-inc1
SERVE Inc. - http://greatnonprofits.com/reviews/profile2/serve-inc
We were honored to be able to serve such amazing nonprofits!
The session was at the Urban Institute and attended by both foundations and nonprofits.
Bay Area Giving and Volunteering Guide
I'm thrilled to announce that Bay Area nonprofits who have 3 or more reviews will be considered for inclusion in our first ever Bay Area Giving and Volunteering Guide. Similar to Zagats' Guide, this print publication will include reviews of nonprofits along with short descriptions. Our marketing managers are working hard to get the message out to all Bay Area nonprofits. David Weir, on our advisory board, former managing editor of Mother Jones and Salon, has been helping us conceive of the content. The editorial design firm Exbrook, has taken the lead in helping us bring this to life. Look for it this Oct/Nov to be distributed through local newspapers.
Best,
Perla
Website Improvements
Hey all,
Thank you for all your suggestions for improving our website. We were able to get a lot of your ideas implemented in this new release. Marcel, our intrepid developer completed the release this morning.
You'll see:
*Sort by “most recently reviewed” under Find Reviews
*On the “reviews” page is a prominent call to action for nonprofits to solicit reviews – “Add more reviews – ask volunteers, clients…” This links to the email form.
*Location search for “Find Nonprofits” – you can choose the city from a drop-down.
*For the individual advanced profile, we eliminated the fields: “marital status”, “gender”, “Blog or website”
*“Also Known As” field for nonprofits to add past names or other names they are known as.
*There is a Success message for photo upload
*Nonprofits no longer need to choose a “thumbnail” for the search results display page or the homepage. We are now converting their logos to resize. (It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good).
*For the nonprofit Advanced Profile: fields that are not completed are hidden instead of showing “not yet provided by the nonprofit”.
*The default search option has changed to "and" instead of exact phrase.
Thank you all for all of your helpful suggestions and inquiries. Please keep the good ideas coming. Drop me a line perlani(at)greatnonprofits.org
Best,
Perla
Partnership with GuideStar
I am very excited to tell you about a new partnership between GreatNonprofits and Guidestar that we think will help nonprofits get more visibility and attract more volunteers and supporters.
As a result of our partnership, reviews posted on GreatNonprofits will also be seen on GuideStar.org later this Fall. In addition to this, GuideStar has some tremendous other new developments that will be unveiled in the Fall - watch for it!
This summer, we're working closely together to get the message out. We recently co-hosted the after-hour party at the CompassPoint conference in San Francisco. And GuideStar invited us to co-exhibit at the AMA Nonprofit conference in DC last week. Look for us and GuideStar making the rounds this summer!
New Outreach Managers !
I'm so excited to introduce our new outreach managers. They are smart, articulate, and dedicated to the nonprofit community. Allison, Sarah, Erin, Caroline, Lisa, Amanda, and Kathleen are all Stanford students.
They are being led by our intrepid Shari Ilsen and Sujata Shayam. Sujata was part of the team that did the outreach in Pittsburgh, PA and we're thrilled to have her rejoin us for this launch. More bios and pics of everyone here: http://www.greatnonprofits.org/team
The outreach managers did a week long orientation with activities and speakers such as Bruce Sievers. They visited GoodWill industries and Delancey Street restaurant in San Francisco and volunteered at Glide.
Now, they will be helping nonprofits to collect reviews from their stakeholders. Lisa and Sarah went on their first site visit this week to Peninsula Bridge Program where they collected reviews from Spanish-speaking parents of the kids in the program. Lisa has studied in Chile and Madrid and was able to speak to the parents and translate their stories. See http://www.greatnonprofits.org/user/1380
I'm going to be inviting these stellar outreach managers to post on this site about their experience. Drop Shari a line, if you can use the help of one of our outreach managers to come to you and help you collect reviews from your volunteers, clients or other stakeholders.
Perla
Head or Heart When Appealing to Donors?
There is no doubt that attracting and retaining donors is front of mind for all nonprofits, particularly given the struggles of our current economy. Beyond the traditional methods, some new players in the sector have developed online applications for reaching out to donors. Interestingly, however, these Internet-based approaches can differ quite dramatically in how they woo potential givers. Two organizations in particular come at donors from almost opposite angles: one strikes at the heads of donors, with a more investment advisor approach, using statistics, measurements and hard data; the other strikes at individuals’ hearts, using stories and ratings to intrigue donors. Although both would probably agree that, in reality, donors rely on a mix of the two in making their charitable giving decisions.
Winning their hearts According to Wharton professor Deborah Small, organizations that want to raise money should appeal to the hearts of potential donors, not their heads. The study she conducted, along with co-authors George Loewensteinb and Paul Slovic, shows that when making charitable gifts, “most people probably do not calculate the expected benefit of their donation. Rather, choices are made intuitively, based on spontaneous affective reactions."
Examples cited by the study include, according to the publication Knowledge@Wharton, “several well-known examples of large sums of money being donated to help identifiable victims. In 1987, a child named Jessica McClure, dubbed "Baby Jessica" by the news media, fell into a well near her home in Texas and received nearly $700,000 in donations from the public. Ali Abbas, a boy who lost both his arms and his parents in the Iraq War in 2003, was the subject of widespread media attention in Europe and received some $550,000 in donations. Even animals generate sympathy: In 2002, more than $48,000 was contributed to save Forgea, a dog stranded on a ship adrift in the Pacific Ocean.”
In the Knowledge article, Small suggests that there are important take-aways from the study for charitable organizations. "It's all about putting together a simple, emotionally compelling message. The best way to do that is in the form of a picture or a story, something that purely engages the emotional system. The mistake that many charities make is trying to appeal both to emotion and to reason. They assume this would be more effective than appealing to only one or the other, but it isn't."
GreatNonprofits Perla Ni also believes that donors will respond best to the stirring stories of nonprofits, and founded the organization GreatNonprofits to enable nonprofit stories to be told. Founder and former publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ni states on her organization’s website, “It struck me, as I struggled professionally to find great nonprofits for our magazine [Stanford Social Innovation Review] to write about, that there needed to be an online "Zagat," if you will, for nonprofits that would collect stories and reviews of people—people like me, the victims of Katrina, and hundreds of thousands of others—who have seen the impact of nonprofits up close, and can speak personally and firsthand about it.”
The mission of the organization is GreatNonprofits is to: • Help inspire and inform prospective donors and volunteers, help them differentiate between nonprofits, find ones that they trust, and be more confident in giving or signing up to volunteer. • Enable great nonprofits, regardless of the size of their marketing budget, to harness their most authentic and most effective advertising - the stories of the people they’ve served. • Promote greater nonprofit excellence through feedback and transparency.
GreatNonprofits uses a model similar to TripAdvisor, Epinions or Yelp that rely on people who have actually interacted with an organization to post reviews and ratings. In the case of GreatNonprofits, these people might be volunteers, board members, staff members or clients of the nonprofits. An example is the reviews of MusicLink Foundation from both clients and volunteers. So far, this charity has a five-star rating based on three reviews. Reviews of other nonprofits are not all positive, as clients who have less than satisfactory interactions are free to post their thoughts as well. Caroline Heine
