what we learned from this election season

 

Yesterday America voted to keep President Obama in office. Like many American's, I stayed up late into the night to watch his acceptance speak and went to bed with the peace of mind that I would not have to suffer through another political ad for at least another two years. I am a fan of politics. I like to keep myself informed and involved, and I love to conclude my night by watching an episode of the Daily Show; however this year's campaigns were so ugly that my desire to stay informed was almost being outweighed by my desire to stay sane. But there is one thing I managed to take away from all those negative campaign ads and that little gem is that we should always run on the platform of what we do well, and not what our opponent does not do well.

In the nonprofit sector, we are in the market of working to put ourselves out of a job. Ideally, one day our organization's mission will be accomplished and we will cease to be needed (in which case you should redefine your mission statement, but I will save that for another post). But our mission is not always defined by one opponent, or one enemy. We are not just work against someone else, we are working as a standalone organization to accomplish something. If we get caught in the trap of, "You should donate because that company is doing bad things and we need to stop them!" then your organization will cease to be relevant when you stop the company, and not when you accomplish your mission. Example: Nonprofit X has a mission of cleaning up river X. River X has a lot of issues like shoreline erosion, and water quality, but the one Nonprofit X has focused all of its energy on is the pollution being generated by Company Y. If Company Y is either shut down, fined by the EPA, or have a change of heart and decides to stop polluting, Nonprofit X will have an issue getting donors who gave on the basis of, "Help us stop company Y!" to renew their funding. Instead of focusing on the mission of the organization, they got lost putting all of their energy and resources into combating an opponent.

In general I believe that all people are inherently good, and part of this to me means people would much rather hear about what you are accomplishing and not how you view someone else is wrong. It is the role of a fundraiser to connect people with issues they care about. Once that alignment occurs, then people will be willing to give to support your work. But if you have wasted all your time with them about how bad or wrong someone else is, they are no longer donating to the good work you do and are instead donating against someone else. Our organizations are strong enough (or at least they should be) to inspire giving based on their own merits. We as fundraisers should not have to resort to attack ads to generate funding. If this is the case, than your organization as a whole needs to reevaluate its mission statement and visions statement to make them more relevant.

We are in the business of doing good and being change agents. Please do your profession justice by keeping your campaign ads positive. There is enough ugliness in this world; we don't need our nonprofit organizations adding to it.

Twitter can be something bigger

The morning after Hurricane Sandy, one of the first things I did was lay in bed and check all my social media pages to see how my friends on the East Coast weathered the storm. My college roommate who now lives in Brooklyn said she spent the night with her dog, reading on the couch. A friend from high school living in DC lost power, but was other wise untouched. Another friend from college living in Manhattan was fine, although her car, which had been in a parking garage that flooded, was now no where to be found.

This made me realize that as much as I grow tired of seeing pictures of friends' dinners, or reading vague status posts, social media is a powerful force in our society. It have given each of us the capability to broadcast our every thought, emotion, and belief to the entire world, and for better or worse, it is not going away. But instead of just learning to deal with this new form of communication, we in the nonprofit community need to learn to work with it.

Something that I hear quite often in board meetings and staff meetings is squabbles or laments over the budget. It's not big enough. We in the nonprofit community have gotten great at living lean, but with ever increasing problems in the world, we have an ever increasing need for more money and the reduction of over head. As a professional fundraiser, I have seen first hand that it takes money, sometimes a lot of money, to make money. There is the cost of materials, printing, postage, processing, content development, the list goes on and on. So I have to wonder why more nonprofits are not using social media as a fundraising tool? For the most part, social media is free. Yes, there is the cost of graphics and content development, but that one time cost give you the opportunity to reach hundreds, sometimes thousands of people at the same time.

One of the keys to a successful fundraising ask is portraying the urgency in your campaign. With social media, you can give your stakeholders and followers a second by second update (although, please don't) of your mission. In addition to using this for policy campaigns, this could be used to give minute by minute updates to fundraising goals. This offers us the opportunity to get out followers and stakeholders even more involved. Next time you are running a fundraising campaign, try picking a few donors to write a post for your Facebook page about why they give, and why they feel your mission is important. And don't just use your major donors! The story of a donor giving $25 or $50 a year can be just as compelling as the story of a person giving $1,000 a year. Sometimes our donors tell our stories better than we do. We might know all the facts of the campaign, but often our donors can see the forest when all we see is the trees.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good cat video as much as the next person, but we are change agents. Let us start to harness social media and use its force for the power of good.