Flickr: visit~ fingerlakesWhere I come from, there's a lake, and every year on the Saturday before Labor day when the sun goes down, everyone who lives on that lake turns off their house lights, lines their waterfront with lit red flares, and builds a bonfire. This is how we mark the end of summer (high tourist season) and the beginning of a new year. For the past few years, I've been in Portland, OR, far away from this tradition -- which may explain why it feels a bit like September has smacked us over the head, as it walked unannounced into our summer party.
Regardless of how it got here, it's already September and before we know it, October, November, and December will soon follow. In preparation for your end-of-year campaigns, NTEN has devoted September to talking about fundraising. I thought I'd do my part with a few of 2010's best resources (so far).
First, some highlights from the past couple weeks (in case you missed them while on summer vacation). Just today, Care 2's Frogloop blog provided the slides from their presentation "Hot or Not: What's sizzling in Nonprofit Fundraising". Socialbrite also posted some great slides, handouts and information from JD Lasica's presentation "Move the Needle: How to activate your supporters". The presentation gets into how to rally supporters to donate, among other things.
You can always count on Philip King from Artez Interactive, to bring you some great information in his podcast series. We recommend episode 11. (Spoiler alert: in this episode Phillip interviews Holly.) You should also check out the article Philip wrote for us this month, "Effective Uses of Social Media for Fundraising".
Speaking of ourselves, remember that post back in February from Alan Cooke of Convio? You know the one, where he talks about Online Engagement and Giving? Oh, you don't? Well, lucky for you, it's still available here.
We also partnered with Sea Change Strategies and Care2 way back in July (when we thought summer would last forever) to present a webinar called the Overachiever's Guide to Year-End fundraising. If you're not quite that much of an overachiever, you can still access the recording here.
If you haven't yet downloaded the free eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, released in April in partnership with M+R Strategic Services, you should definitely do that now. For the Cliff's Notes version, check out the blog post from Steve Peretz of M+R. If you really hate reading, we also discussed the report in a webinar; that recording is here.
Another great resource is Blackbaud's Index of Online Giving, which holds information on online revenue trends for over 1700 nonprofits.
A recap of fundraising resources of the first 2/3 of 2010 wouldn't be complete without some discussion of the incredible work that the Red Cross did using mobile and social media to raise funds and awareness about the disaster in Haiti. Amy Sample-Ward was kind enough to break it down for us back in February. You can find a more recent update that focuses on the Facebook fundraising efforts of the Red Cross since Haiti on Inside Facebook.
Coming up this month, you can join GiftWorks for a free webinar on the 14 Basic Principles of Fund Development.
Whatever else you do, make sure you mark your calendar for our September Ask the Expert session. We'll be talking to Geoff Handy and Carie Lewis from the Humane Society for the United States about social media fundraising and, like all Ask the Expert sessions, it's free for NTEN members.
Share your favorite fundraising resources in the comments below and we can usher in the new fall fundraising season together. (It will be like a communal ice pack for the welt September left on our heads).