Consider this a warning for all organizations considering a “jump” onto the Facebook fundraising bandwagon. Before investing in social networks as a marketing tool, be sure to evaluate the opportunity cost of investing limited resources at the expense of more lucrative options, recommends Justin Perkins of Care2.com, during a presentation for International Fundraising Congress(IFC) Online 2010.

Perkins illustrates his point by presenting three principles of successful online fundraising: 

• Be prepared to be lucky. If an opportunity or crisis happened tomorrow, could you reach enough people to help? Three well-known NGOs in the United States, (Greenpeace, The Humane Society and WWF) each report an email list in excess of 1 million contacts. Online fundraising often comes down to the numbers. If your organization can’t appeal to a mass audience, perhaps another approach would be more effective

As part of our recent benchmarking at Pareto Fundraising, we were asked to look at the subsequent behaviour of new onetime cash recruits. In other words, looking at donors that are recruited online, where do they go once on board? What about direct mail donors? Do they follow the same stream or veer off into other vehicles?

Here’s what we found

Direct mail recruits tended to keep doing what they did originally. Ninety per cent subsequently kept giving through the mail. No surprises there.

Scott Janney, planned giving director at Pennsylvania’s Main Line Health, offers these tips for those new to the field of planned giving:

Know yourself. Planned giving is not a way to hide behind a computer and spend your time reading about legal opinions and esoteric plans. It’s fundraising. Be prepared to ask for money. If you can’t do that, you can’t raise planned gifts.

Earlier this May, the International Fundraising Congress (IFC) delivered its second annual online conference at www.ifconline.com. Thirteen webinars provided learning opportunities that were timely and relevant. Live email Q&A sessions led by a moderator at the end of each presentation enabled participants to engage in their virtual workshops. Networking tools and an interactive online exhibition added value to a worthwhile and unique international conference experience. 

The cost to attend IFC Online was $279 US per site. Multiple staff or volunteers from an organization could attend on a single registration by sharing access from one central location.

Casanova never penned a one-page love letter. So neither should you.

I’ve written fundraising letters for some of the most well-known nonprofits in North America, and not one of them has ever hired me to write a one-page fundraising letter. They know from testing that donors read two-page letters. And four-page letters. Even eight-page letters. Donors read what interests them, and not a word more.