Here's an idea from our friend Laura at Idealware: what if you measured any communications method by whether it would have more or less impact than spending the same amount of time calling donors on the phone?

…You could spend that time simply calling donors and constituents at random, to thank them, or to ask them a quick set of questions (how did they like the services they used? what do you do well? not so well?). If you've never done this, it can be pretty magical. Often people are amazed that you've called, happy to talk, and have useful insights. It gives you a great sense as to who your constituents actually are and what they care about. And not coincidentally, my experience is that it fosters great new connections. People want to volunteer, wanted to ask you something, and, not coincidentally, donate at considerably higher rates after. Nothing starts a conversation like, well, an actual conversation.

I love the way Laura articulates this. When we adopt social media strategies, we often tell ourselves that it's not just about donations, it's about starting a conversation. There are plenty good reasons why it's important to keep conversations going with supporters, but are Twitter and Facebook always the best way? If your goal is to have a conversation, then why not pick up the phone and have one?

This is not to say that there's no place for social media; rather, I think that the phone test can actually help you articulate the purpose of any communications tactic, be it a fundraising letter, a donor event, a print ad, or a Facebook page. If you can clearly identify who the target audience is for a particular effort and what action you want that audience to take, you can put together the right campaign for achieving that goal. It might be a letter, an email blast, or a social media campaign, and it might be a phone call.

This week, Slate has a cute article on the lines public radio stations use to get pledge drive donations. If you listen to public radio, these will all have a familiar ring, particularly around this time of year:

The New York Jets would never let fans into the big game for free and then request donations as they leave the stadium. Public radio gives away its product and then asks listeners to pay once they're hooked, like the mythical schoolyard drug slinger. The strategy here is to remind listeners how much they rely on public radio (rely is probably the most oft-repeated word during these campaigns) and to ask them to put a price on their dependence. Most stations play it straight — "Think about how much you use WAMU and how you would quantify that in terms of your budget if you received a bill only a couple of times a year." Sometimes, however, this tactic can feel overbearing — and off-putting. When a host throws out a virtual bill ("WNYC pays over $5 million a year for NPR News and the BBC"), I want to send it back unpaid.

The one that drives me crazy, both as a public radio fan and as a member of the nonprofit community, is the "help us stop this dreaded pledge drive!" approach. Shouldn't our fundraisers be a cherished event for donors to look forward to every year?

This week through TechSoup Limited, we've been running a special discount on NOZA, a database of philanthropy data. This database has more than 43,000,000 (million) donation records in it — where you can search for individuals, corporations, and foundation donation records to see who they've supported in the past, how much they've given, and look for those donors who may be likely to also support your cause. The special discount ends today at 5 p.m. Pacific time, so place your request now.

The promotional offer is for a 30-day subscription that gives you unlimited access to the database and all those donor records for the grand total of $99. The subscription starts when you activate your account (between now and December 31, 2009) and gives you unfettered access for the next 30 days, so you can research for the best donor prospects to grow your organization's support. It's available to 501(c)(3) nonprofits and public libraries. Also, libraries and nonprofits can make their subscription available to individual community members and patrons to help them research potential donors for community, school, and local programs.

In preparation for this promotional offer, we sat down to interview Craig Harris, the CEO and founder of NOZA, about his fundraising background and how NOZA can be put to use by nonprofits and libraries. He also guest blogged earlier this week about developing a major gift fundraising program.

When asked about his background, Harris wasn't shy about what's helped him learn the ropes of fundraising for nonprofits. "I don't consider myself an expert," Harris claimed. "I've failed at a lot of my fundraising endeavors. I come from the school of trial and error… mostly error. In the evolution of my fundraising career, I've gleaned some of those best practices that are relevant to nonprofits. My fundraising came by accident."

This week, Craig Harris, the founder and CEO of NOZA, Inc. is sharing his wisdom on developing a major gifts program at nonprofits. NOZA (a TechSoup donor partner) is a Santa Barbara based technology company that has developed a platform to convert unstructured web data into searchable databases. Prior to founding NOZA, Craig founded South Coast Strategies, a fundraising consulting firm. Craig graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara in 1995 and then spent two years as Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay. Upon finishing his Peace Corps service he began his nonprofit career as the founder and first executive director of Servicios Ecoforestales Para Agricultores (SEPA), a large agroforestry demonstration farm in Eastern Paraguay. Eligible nonprofits and libraries can request a special NOZA discount through the end of this week.

Where do major gifts come from?

Major gifts come from three primary sources: (1) Corporations (2) Foundations (3) Individuals.  According to the annual GivingUSA Foundation statistics (PDF) charitable giving in the U.S. topped $307 billion in 2008. Here is where the money came from:

• Corporations:  $14.5 billion (5%)
• Foundations:   $41.2 billion (13%)
• Individuals:      $251.9 billion (82%)

While foundation and corporate giving play a major role in U.S. philanthropy, most of the money comes from people. Having spent several years as a fundraising consultant, I've worked with organizations that excelled at major gift fundraising, and I've worked with organizations that couldn't raise a major gift to save their mission. One of the common threads for the successful organizations is that they followed the money, focusing the majority of their time and resources on individuals. Those that failed typically hid behind the relative ease and comfort of shotgun blasting grant proposals and letters to foundations and corporations. In fact, I'm yet to find an organization that was able to develop and SUSTAIN a major gift program from only foundations and corporations. While the relative proportion of individual/corporate/foundation giving will vary from organization to organization, for those just getting started with major gift fundraising, my advice is to focus on individuals.

Why do people give major gifts?

What is the number one reason why people make major gifts to nonprofit organizations? Because they were asked. During my early years as a fundraising professional, I once heard a line during a fundraising workshop that I've always remembered: "People don't give money to causes. People give money to people with causes."

Are you tracking your data through multiple spreadsheets, emails and sheets of paper found throughout your office? You're not alone.

Join us on Wednesday, October 21 at 10 a.m. Pacific to learn about Telosa's Exceed! Basic, a tool that can help you organize your data, especially that which is donor related. Not only will you learn how to get your data into one place, but we'll discuss how you can use this tool to streamline and automate many of the routine, yet time-consuming tasks associated with fundraising and donor management.

Here's a fantastic blog post at NTEN from Network for Good's Rebecca Higman and Katya Andresen (we've linked to Katya's excellent blog numerous times in the past). Rebecca and Katya try to pin down the seemingly erratic behavior of online donors and offer some lessons on how we can develop longer relationships with Internet supporters.

Imagine a scenario when a check arrives in the mail as a result of a direct mail campaign. That supporter may receive a hand-written thank-you note back via mail. Perhaps even a phone call. And, of course, the donor database is updated immediately!

What about an online donor? Is his or her name ever retrieved from the online report? Is he or she added to a direct mail list? What about the thank-you? Is it sent back via Facebook or email, or will there be a snail-mail letter on the way?

It seems there's a bit of a discrepancy.

They go on to suggest that for follow-up communications with an online donor, you should defer to the donor's medium of choice. "Would you add a direct mail donor to your email list and remove her from your direct mail list? Probably not. If a supporter donates online through a nonprofit website or social network like Facebook, that supporter should be thanked online through that same medium." I would add that not only should the thank-you note arrive in Facebook instead of snail mail, but it shouldn't sound like a snail mail letter either: it should have the personal tone of an online exchange.

Our friends at Idealware have partnered up with Third Sector New England to offer a one-day, intensive bootcamp on October 7 to help organizations maximize their fundraising through email. And, they've extended an offer to TechSoup users for a special 15% discount off the registration fee by using the discount code TS325 when registering.

Here's more info from their site:

This was originally published on The Case Foundation Blog. Giving Guru Marnie Webb is Co-CEO of TechSoup Global where under her leadership the NetSquared initiative is in its fourth year of helping nonprofits worldwide use innovative web tools to increase their reach and impact. A sought-after speaker and writer on nonprofit technology, she was named the NTEN Person of the Year in 2008 and included in the Nonprofit Times' list of the 50 most influential leaders in the U.S. nonprofit sector. Marnie will be available to answer your questions about social media for nonprofits on Tuesday, Sept. 21, at 1 p.m. Eastern. Submit your question in the comments of this post, or check out the many ways to ask our Giving Gurus.

In fundraising, we often get two things drilled into us: ask and thank. Ask and thank. Ask and thank again. Asking and thanking is not nearly enough. But you know that, right? You know that you have to build your network. You have to use excellent listening practices. In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky writes about bonding and bridging capital. Basically, bonding capital increases the depth of the relationship between people who already know each other. Bridging captial increases the number of people in relationship to one another. This is an important concept for nonprofits: bridging capital gets you more donors, more volunteers, more support.

Later today, TechSoup will be hosting a free TechSoup Talks! webinar with one of our donor partners, Acteva, to discuss the features and answer questions about their event-registration, ticketing, and management tool. Here are more details:

Acteva: Event Registration Made Easy
11 am Pacific today!

Are you planning an event for your organization? Have a big fundraising banquet coming up? What about a member conference or alumni gathering? Maybe you run a theater or hold paid training events for community members. Acteva might be the right event registration solution for your nonprofit or library!

Through TechSoup, Acteva Plus event registration, ticketing, and payment management solutions is available for donation to nonprofit organizations and public libraries for a $50 admin fee.

In this webinar, TechSoup's Becky Wiegand will interview Ed Lemire, Acteva's Executive Vice President, and Jonathan Cohen from Cohen Camps — sponsors of Camps Pembroke, Tel Noar, and Tevya — who recently held two events for his camp alumni using Acteva. We'll discuss the overall features of Acteva's toolset and the ins and outs of planning your next successful event!

Join us at 11 Pacific: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/schedule /display.do?udc=1ljm0iyzznp2

In addition to this webinar, we'd like to invite you to share your experiences using Acteva to plan an event at your organization, to ask any questions about how their tool functions, or about their donation program for nonprofits and libraries through TechSoup. You're welcome to discuss your thoughts on other event registration, payment processing, and ticketing tools you've used as well.

Over the past few years I've been compiling what turned out to be a huge list of donor databases. The entries came from a variety of other lists and from customer satisfaction surveys done by Campbell Research, NTEN, and Idealware.

Once I posted the list I started getting requests to add links to vendor websites, tags, and comments. Now the good folks at Aspiration have taken my list and put it into the Social Source Commons wiki.