You know about integrated fundraising campaigns. In a new white paper, "How Giving Contests Can Strengthen Nonprofits and Communities", long-time NTEN Member Geoff Livingston takes a look at the next level: coordinated integration. With his analysis of "Give to the Max DC", Geoff hits on some important points that make the entire paper well worth a read, but here are a few things that stood out to me.

Learn, learn, learn. At NTEN, we always say it's our community that has the knowledge, not us. Somebody, somewhere has had your problem or encountered your situation before. Usually, you need to find them, but in this case, they came to the participants. As part of "Give to the Max DC", 7 half-day bootcamps were held before the actual event, to teach nonprofits about online giving, storytelling, social media strategy, and more. In the end, 88% of nonprofit survey respondents said they felt the training program had helped, and 72% of participating organizations felt they would be able to apply the lessons they learned from the contest in the future.

It pays to cooperate, even in a competition. I've heard a lot of anecdotal stories about nonprofits competing not just against each other, but internally, with departments trying to get donations classified in the way that best meets their internal goals. That's not really the best way to go about things, right? "Give to the Max DC" featured elements of gamification, with nonprofits competing to cultivate the most donors within 24 hours, but it was under the umbrella of a larger event that helped raise visibility for all of the organizations involved. A key part of a giving contest like this is the creation of a sense of unification or regional identity. The rest is gravy: 58% of participating nonprofits recruited new donors and 56% said they increased public awareness. #Winning is nice; working together, even in friendly competition, is better.

Social media can work if you put in the work. According to the report, "Sixty-two percent of nonprofits who spent 10 to 30 hours on the contest raised $2,500 or more, and 67 percent who spent more than 30 hours raised $2,500 or more. Conversely, only 23 percent of those that spent less than 10 hours netted $2,500 or more." The effort paid off, though. Of the more than 17,000 donors, 75% reported that this was their first experience using a social online fundraising platform.

The full white paper, published with the support of the Case Foundation and the Razoo Foundation, is available as a free download. I suggest you check it out – and then let us know what your takeaways are in the comments, below.