Cancer Family Care

Everyday, nonprofit organizations continually seek ways to build a new donor base, to sustain loyal donors, and to raise funds needed to deliver their mission. Cancer Family Care (CFC) and echoDonations.org™ (echo) has kicked off the year with a new and exciting partnership. Through the use of echo’s new technology, those who wish to donate to CFC may now do so with the incentive to receive Lifetime Cash Rewards™ for their generosity.

Founded in 1971, Cancer Family Care (CFC) provides counseling and understanding to cancer patients and their families in the tri-state area. “Our social workers are specially trained to help individuals and families deal with the fears, frustrations, and communication difficulties that occur when cancer is diagnosed,” according to CFC.

Everyday, as all of us continue with our daily lives, routines, and careers, there are many people in the world who are struggling with the onset of a terminal illness, or perhaps the death of a loved one to a terminal illness. The physical and emotional effects of an illness such as cancer require a great amount of kindness and support. CFC works hard to provide loving care and friendships, reaching out to those who struggle with such difficulties in life. They offer group counseling, education, and emotional support to all people affected by cancer or death.

Through with Cancer Family Care, I have experienced warm, positive attitudes in everyone I have worked with. They are highly optimistic in all that they do, and friendly to work with.

I hope that echo is able to provide help for them as a token of appreciation for all they have done for so many families in need.

Driving home the point:

In the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Obama has clearly taken the lead in the fundraising battle. His approach of collecting smaller donations from more people has proven to be a better solution than Clinton’s approach of targeting donors who contribute large amounts of money.

However, there is another name in the 2008 Presidential Race that deserves an honorable mention: Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas. Also targeting smaller donations, Huckabee has good success in gathering a large total from smaller contributions (under $200).

“Voters are looking for a fresh face,” Huckabee said on CNN’s America Morning today. “They are looking for somebody who understands the struggle in the middle class, who is championing the calls of small business.” (The Washington Post)

Breaking Barriers – Obama Nears the 1,000,000 Mark

As stated by The New York Times, “The details of Mr. Obama’s January fund-raising illustrate just how much his campaign has been able to chart a new path for the presidential race. He brought in $28 million online, with 90 percent of those transactions coming from people who donated $100 or less, and 40 percent from donors who gave $25 or less, suggesting that these contributors could be tapped for more.”

Tapping into a new method of fundraising, Obama has experienced great success from online donations. During the New Hampshire primary in early January, Obama raised $4.4 million via online donations within 2 days.

Continuing down this path, Obama’s campaign is more successful than ever. “If we can reach our goal of one million donors by March 4th, we can send a powerful message that the Washington establishment and big-money interests cannot ignore,” as said by Obama in his community blog. What is that message? — “As one million people with one voice, we can tell them that their days of dominating Washington are coming to an end — the old politics are crumbling and a new voice is breaking through.”

Whether Obama’s supporters contribute $5 or $500, all donations work together,  attesting to the vast amount of support he has gained. People want to make a difference. Because of the nature of Obama’s fundraising campaign, each person who contributes feels the importance of their donation. Small donations turn into big donations if everyone gives what they can.

Once again, Obama reinforces the fact that small donations given by many people can form a very large contribution.

One piece at a time.

“Mr. Obama’s fund-raising dominance, especially his announcement on Jan. 31 that he had raised $32 million, has sent jitters through Mrs. Clinton’s donor base,” according to a recent article in The New York Times, written by Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny.

According to The Washington Post, “He [Obama] reported donations from 100,000 individuals, double the 50,000 people who gave to the former first lady. More than half of those donors, largely giving in small increments, sent money over the Internet…The fact that many Obama donors contributed relatively small amounts also means that he will be able to appeal to those donors for contributions later in the campaign.”

Also, according to the Associated Press, “Clinton’s campaign often solicited the $4,600 donations, while Obama’s campaign focused on recruiting small dollar donors, once again reinforcing the impact of frequent, smaller donations.

Over the month of January alone, Barack Obama successfully raised $32 million, in comparison to the $13.5 million Hillary Clinton pulled in.

How??

Two unique methods: taking advantage of online donations, and encouraging smaller contributions to add to the whole. I think this brings up a very important point — Obama has proven the value of small donor democracy as a viable and effective technique to use in fundraising. This will not only greatly help his campaign, but also has the power to change the way campaigns are run in general. Obama stresses the power of the individual. It is much easier to find a million people to donate $1.00 than it is to find even one person to donate $1,000,000 to a cause.

Every bit counts.

“If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.” – Betty Reese

While a bit comical, how true? One of the smallest entities of life – a mosquito – is quite possibly one of the most significant annoyances to human beings.

There are those who believe that $5 cannot logically have any significant impact on the well-being of their local parish, or that their one vote has very little value in a nation wide poll. However, if you break down the big picture, there are always small pieces. Without the pieces, there is no larger whole.

Like pieces of a puzzle, every act of generosity contributed to a cause is significant to the whole. You cannot expect to build a brick house without starting with the individual bricks. In the same way, you cannot expect the American Cancer Society, or the Make-a-Wish Foundation to survive on only the contributions of the extremely wealthy.

This is our goal: to make every donor aware of the impact of their generosity, however large or small, and feel appreciated for their gifts. If you felt you could make a difference with $25 to a cause you are passionate about, wouldn’t you be much more likely to give??

The other day I came across a fairly new concept developed by Yahoo, called Goodsearch. It’s a fairly simple concept. Goodsearch is a search engine developed by Yahoo. By choosing to use Goodsearch on your web browser, Yahoo will give a penny to your favorite nonprofit organization every time someone does a search through them. That’s a lot of pennies! Again, maybe a penny sounds insignificant, but as a part of the whole, it’s quite significant.

Also – Britt Bravo has a wonderful blog in which she wrote about the importance of the indivdual recently. Check out her post, “Kenya: What can one person do?” at havefundogood.blogspot.com.

How would you like to make a difference??

Donor Drain and Churn???

An article in the recent issue of Contribute Magazine quoted two stunning statistics:

“Raising money for a cause these days has become much like trying to walk up a “down” escalator while it is accelerating. It’s getting tougher just to break even and much easier to fall behind. “The problem is not that [charities are] not getting new money; the problem is that they’re losing an enormous amount of money,” says Bill Levis, the author of a new pilot survey by the Urban Institute that documents the trend. Levis’ survey shows that most nonprofits post an average gain of just 10 percent each year: they lose 52 percent of their donations, which is then offset by a 62 percent gain in new or upgraded donations. In short, says Levis, nonprofits are losing almost as much as they’re gaining, pouring a river of money into a nearly open drain.

And

“Of the donors who withdrew support, 47 percent did so because they felt uninformed or unappreciated.”

Click here If you want to read the full article.

I have several questions for you to ponder upon:

• As a nonprofit, what are you doing to keep your current donors engaged and spreading the word? Request for money letters do not count.
• How open are your books? Do you show your donors where their money is going? Donors want transparency. If you do not give it to them, they will go elsewhere.
• Do you send thank you letters and emails for all donations? Even the ones as low as $25? Recently, I made small donations to numerous nonprofits. About a third did not send even an email thank you note.
• What are you doing to reward the small donors? T-shirts, DVDs, and trinkets are somewhat effective; but are boring. Think outside the box. (I’m biased. I know cash rewards always get people of all income brackets interested. They can keep the cash rewards or give them away to the charity.)
• What are you doing to make your organization different that the other 1.3 million 501(c)3 other nonprofits? For example, did you know that there are over 7,000 501(c)3 nonprofits in Cincinnati, OH?

There is an old business maxim that states to do whatever it takes to keep an existing customer………as the cost of keeping one is cheaper that the cost of getting a replacement.

Over two years ago, we started a nonprofit with a new idea…create an incentive for donors to give more to their favorite charities. After extensive listening to donors about what they wanted from their nonprofits….we created www.echoDonations.org.™

We are here to help you. Let us know how we can help.

The Street Market

The other day I ran across thestreetmarket.com. They are a free online market where entrepreneurs showcase their projects and capital needs to investors. There goal is to provide international exposure, and efficient and innovative communication tools to entrepreneurs. The Street Market is advertised as a free tool to find national and international investment opportunities.

They seem to be a fairly new tool on the Internet, but so far have 23 registered members from over 10 countries around the world. It’s an interesting concept, but seems a little vague to me.

If any of you have ever read about or considered registering with the Street Market, let me know what you think. How do they help entrepreneurs? How do they help them gain exposure and find investment opportunities? Have they had any success?

Read more at http://thestreetmarket.com. They also have a blog you can read.

What is the craze with sharing so much of our lives with the world?

After a bit of research and with the recent launch of our widget, I’ve discovered that over 300 million people are using the Internet to share themselves, their lives, and their passions with as many people as they can. The Internet has become a part of their daily lives to interact with others. Sure, I have a Facebook account, and yes, I check it often just like check my email.

But for some people, Facebook is a way to track every detail of everyone they know. They can look at pictures, find events that people attend, find who else attends their school, and much more. There’s also social media sites such as LiveJournal, where writers can share some of their inner-most thoughts with hundreds of people, some they might not even know. However, the one I find the most interesting is Twitter – a place to share what’s going on in your life with people literally every 5 minutes. Is it really that important?

It’s a little odd how we feel that we can get to know someone so well through what’s seen on a computer screen. It is quite a powerful tool. The ability to share information instantly to someone who may be 500 miles away from you is amazing. For instance, this blog is a means of discussing, sharing, and questioning through the Internet. It provides a vast array of resources across the globe for many individuals. If you used appropriately, social media can be a wonderful means of learning and sharing.

I’d love to hear what you think about social media sites and their use in today’s highly digitalized world!

A Changing World

It’s a little scary how much technology has taken over so many aspects of daily living. Everyday there’s something new that “makes life a little easier.” Perhaps your calendar is on your computer instead of in a physical book. I bet you don’t go anywhere without your cell phone to make it easier for people to get ahold of you. And I’m sure you check your email at least once a day, because it’s so much quicker and easier than “snail mail.”

Jason Dick, who writes for asmallchange.net, recently posted a blog discussing the use of online fundraising. Every company he interviewed stressed the importance of having an online fundraising plan. If you want to read more visit Jason’s blog, A Small Change – Fundraising Blog.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Would you be more willing to give to non-profits if you could simply click a button…? Would you trust it? Would you be glad that there was no paperwork involved? Or would you be weary because there’s no physical piece of paper to document your donations?

Food for thought…

Technology in Giving: Share

Have you ever heard of a widget? Perhaps a widget is an economic term to you, perhaps it’s an imaginary object, or perhaps it’s a technology tool in your vocabulary.

In our books, it’s a technology tool: an active item that can be embedded onto a webpage. In other words, a widget is an advanced form of communication for the Internet. As a developing organization, we want to share our new idea with everyone! The widget is a tool that does just that.

It has been added to our webpage as well as other social media websites, such as MySpace and Facebook. It has the capability to link to other sites, such as our homepage or our blog, and can be shared with other people who have accounts with MySpace or Facebook. The following is merely a screenshot, but visit the site to “grab” the actual widget.

In a sense, the widget is a program in itself, which allows for advanced communication in a very simple, concise way. It’s physical appearance looks somewhat like a button or badge on the screen, and it contains a simple, clean message in the graphic, “echoDonations.org: Give the gifts that give back.” Check it out and tell me what you think!

It was designed to spread our message as far and wide as the Internet will allow. Anyone who finds the widget online can click it, grab it, or share it. By clicking the widget, the user is linked to our website and blog. The widget also has a feature that allows its user to “Donate Now,” a button that links directly to echoDonations’ donation page. Secondly, by choosing the option on the widget to “grab it,” they can take the widget themselves and add it to their website, if they wish to do so. Lastly, the user can “share it,” or invite others to add it to their website.

It’s a fun way to promote something you care about. With so many people out there that use the Internet, widgets are great viral marketing tools. I encourage you to use them if you wish to share your passions through the Internet! And please – use ours if you enjoy our organization and its efforts!