Personify has been a longtime partner of Blackbaud and we are pleased to return to bbcon this year. You can meet with the Personify team at one of our two education sessions or stop by booth #400 in the expo hall. We’re also the official sponsor of the headshot lounge so I encourage folks to get a new headshot taken for your website or social media platforms while you’re at the conference. 

Looking at the conference agenda and list of breakout sessions, there are a wealth of opportunities to gain knowledge and best practices. Here are some of the sessions that I’m most looking forward to attending: 

Emerging Tech Trends and Their Impact on Social Good 

Tuesday, October 15, 2019 from 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM 

Join Blackbaud product and innovation leaders along with Amy Shope Manzi from the American Heart Association as they examine technology trends and innovations affecting social good organizations and those who support them. We’ll give an overview of emerging trends and discuss how to prepare for upcoming technology changes. 

Educate, Empower, and Connect Your Constituents Through An Online Community 

Tuesday, October 15, 2019 from 2:45 PM – 3:30 PM 

Personify’s Benjamin Morton and Forté’s Krystal Brooks will share how to increase engagement and extend your organization’s programs with an online community. This session will provide tips that other nonprofits can implement while showing how Forté uses its community to empower women who are pursuing MBAs. 

Right Message, Right Person, Right Channel: Direct Marketing Analytics at the National Park Foundation 

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 from 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM 

Constant experimentation is how the National Park Foundation drives engagement through its extensive direct marketing programs. Join this session to hear from John Wilburn, director of direct response at the National Park Foundation, about how he’s using advanced analytics to drive strategy and deliver results.  

Connect Your Audience and Drive Engagement With An Online Community 

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 from 6:10 PM – 6:30 PM 

Personify’s Benjamin Morton will provide an overview of online communities and share how nonprofit organizations can leverage them to achieve success for their organization. Learn how the Canadian Cancer Society supports people who are affected by cancer via the Cancer Connection community and how Forté empowers women who are pursuing MBAs through the Forté Connect community, both of which are powered by the Personify Community platform. 

Peer-to-Peer Freakonomics: The Surprising Decisions People Make When Donating to Nonprofits 

Thursday, October 17, 2019 from 8:30 AM – 9:15 AM 

Peer-to-Peer Freakonomics will teach you to look at your fundraisers through the lens of consumer behavior. The topic was inspired by the 2005 book Freakonomics, which chronicled how ignoring conventional wisdom often results in better outcomes. Some of what you’ll learn will seem counterintuitive. 

If you’re planning to attend bbcon, learn more about the activities we have planned for the conference, schedule a meeting with our team and find out how you can enter to win a trip to PersoniFest 2020. 

The post What We’re Looking Forward to at bbcon 2019 appeared first on Personify.

It was an invaluable learning experience that not only left our Personify Community team energized, but also provided me, as a product manager, incredible context for the role communities play in the success of these organizations. As I left Orlando, I found myself reflecting on the following three key messages I heard from organizations.

The Power of (Sustained) Emotional Connection

We know storytelling and content experiences create an emotional connection between an organization, their cause and their supporters. Much has been made of how to capture and share these stories: create content that brings your cause and mission to life, and tell the stories to your donors, supporters and volunteers to create emotional buy-in.

But while capturing attention is one thing, keeping the flame alive presents another challenge entirely. How do you sustain that emotional connection? Many leading nonprofits start with community.

• Community delivers a shared digital space for people committed to your cause, creating the positive momentum and commitment to your organization and mission.
• Community gives organizations an ongoing opportunity to share the right content with the right person at the right time.
• Community creates a venue for meaningful, user-generated discussions between your members, volunteers, and donors, allowing them to share everything from best practices around fundraising all the way to discussing the journey that led them to your cause.

Everyone has a story to tell, and community gives them a place to tell it.

Making the Most of Events

We heard a lot about events at bbcon, from large-scale signature activities to more grassroots peer-to-peer efforts. Events represent a huge investment and are often one of an organization’s largest sources of fundraising revenue. Making sure these events not only run smoothly but are also optimized to make the highest impact possible is critical.

Communities play a role here, too, with organizations leveraging community to create digital event spaces to build enthusiasm and share best practices. Communities also provide a more practical benefit, relieving staff and volunteers of some of the administrative burden of event production and management. Community spaces can send reminders, share thank-you notes and provide benefits that free up valuable staff time to focus on in-person engagements that lead to a lasting connection with your cause and your organization.

Start With the End in Mind

Start from the end when you design your community. What’s your goal? It could be more successful fundraising efforts, it could be higher volunteerism. What kinds of experiences resonate with your user base and allow you to carry over the meaningful experiences your organization has in the physical world into the digital space? Communities create spaces for engagement and communication but understanding how they contribute to an organization’s strategic priorities and mission is essential for success.

Additionally, the most successful organizations recognize community is a part of their larger overall technology ecosystem. They take full advantage of opportunities to integrate their community with their CRM or donor management system (DMS). They recognize the importance of pulling information around interests and activities in your digital space back into your CRM, letting you create a full view of a supporter and what drives their passion for your organization. How can you more effectively target them? Knowing what content resonates and creates emotional engagement goes a long way.

As we look towards our Personify Community roadmap for the coming year, these are many of the stories I’ll be sharing with our developers. It was a pleasure to talk to, and learn from, these organizations. I hope it’s the first in a long series of conversations to come.

The post bbcon Recap: Final Thoughts – 3 Takeaways from a bbcon Newbie appeared first on Personify.

But as familiar as we are with their work and their organization, when we found out NTEN CEO Amy Sample Ward was presenting at Blackbaud’s bbcon event on “Tech Leadership: A Requirement for All Nonprofits,” we immediately recognized it as a topic too important to miss. And, we weren’t disappointed.

Understand Your Place in the Technology Adoption Cycle

Before sharing insights from NTEN’s benchmarking research, Sample Ward asked attendees a simple question, where they were in terms of their technology adoption:

• Struggling: Failing infrastructure with technology time and budget going towards creating workarounds and repairing old equipment.
• Functioning: Basic systems in place to meet immediate needs with leadership making technology decisions based on efficiencies.
• Operating: Stable infrastructure, technology policies and practices. Leadership seeks out industry/sector benchmark data and gathers input from staff and consultants before making a final decision.
• Leading: Recognize technology as an investment in their mission and actively explores new tools and approaches to ensure technology is up to date. Technology is a part of the overall strategic planning process.

While there’s a common misconception that smaller nonprofits always lack the sophistication of their larger peers, organizations of all staff and budget sizes (and missions) are in every stage of technology adoption – from struggling through operating to leading.

Recognize It’s Not How Much You Spend – It’s How You Spend It

Everyone, according to Sample Ward, wants to know how much to spend but initiating technology planning with your budget rather than your needs can be a shortsighted approach.

In fact, when looking at the total combined size of technology staffs for organizations who identify as Operating – meaning they have stable systems – is nine percent higher (186) than those organizations who lead the nonprofit sector as technology vanguards (average total technology staff of 169). Very large organizations, who tend to identify themselves as Leading organizations where technology concern, also spend less with only 1.5 percent of their operating budget dedicated to IT, compared to 13.2 percent for small organizations and 4.8 percent for medium.

Appreciate Technology Leadership Matters

But smart spending is only part of the story. Leadership practices matter, and how executives think about technology within their organization has significant implications for how successful they will be. Leading organizations:

• Plan for the technology they need, including it upfront in their organization’s strategic plan with a dedicated budget that lives outside general overhead of supply line-items.
• Include IT or technology-responsible staff in the strategic planning discussions with the executive team.
• Educate their employees on how the organization’s data and IT systems work to support the organization and its mission.
• Regularly reviews the contribution of technology’s contribution to their organization’s administrative efficiency (ROI).

Start the Conversation

For organizations looking to make the leap from good to great, Sample Ward offered some guidance and questions to ask:

• Who is on your team and who isn’t? When you make a decision, who is impacted?
• Do your processes ask questions or focus only on new solutions?
• Do you know how to support allies from across the organization?
• How do you make sure knowledge exchange and training happen every day?

These questions offer a great opportunity to revisit the role of technology in advance of 2019 planning. Looking for additional guidance?

Check out our recent blog post on 3 Tips to Ensure the Financial Health of Your Nonprofit.

The post bbcon Recap: 4 Steps for Technology Leadership appeared first on Personify.

Source: Hydrocephalus Foundation

Peer-to-peer fundraising has exploded in recent years, but many savvy nonprofits are harnessing that momentum and further optimizing their programs to take results that are already growing up another notch.

In her interview of Randi Corey, National Director of Special Events for the Hydrocephalus Association at bbcon earlier this week, Turnkey CEO Katrina VanHuss sought to better understand some of the secrets driving their success. She wanted to know how this organization was able to achieve an incredible 18 percent year-over-year growth in their peer-to-peer fundraising efforts.

About Hydrocephalus

Hydrocephalus is a condition in which there is an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) within the brain, typically causing increased pressure inside the skull. Hydrocephalus affects a wide range of people, from infants and older children to young, middle-aged and older adults.

• Over 1,000,000 people in the United States currently live with hydrocephalus.
• For every 1,000 babies born in this country, one to two will have hydrocephalus.
• Hydrocephalus is the most common reason for brain surgery in children.
• It is estimated that more than 700,000 Americans have Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), but less than 20% receive an appropriate diagnosis.

Events are a critical part of Hydrocephalus Association’s programs, helping them both fund their mission but also drive awareness for the condition. Even modest improvements in performance can make a life-changing difference. As VanHuss put it, “Your averages reflect constituents’ experiences with your event. What we are really talking about today is how a pro creates that experience. Our effort today is to give you a real look inside a real pro’s work life, as if you spent 45 minutes with her at the coffee bar or stuck in an elevator.”

The ‘S’ Factor

When asked what the single most important factor was in driving Hydrocephalus Association’s growth, Corey shared in addition to software, the biggest change the organization’s focus on staff. Adding a single resource to their national office allowed Hydrocephalus Association to almost double the number of walks they were able to provide dedicated support for, from 26 to over 40.

This allowed volunteers to focus on logistics while staff was responsible for recruiting well-connected volunteer chairs and for keeping team captains’ motivation high. At Personify, we’ve seen similar trends, especially among organizations whose staff leverage online communities to inspire and engage their own volunteers!

Sharing the Work, Driving Growth

And how does Hydrocephalus Association split the work between their volunteers and staff? Corey reports that volunteer chairs do almost as much as a chapter staff member in coordinating a walk while dedicated Hydrocephalus Association staff focuses on making a successful event as easy as possible. In addition to sharing a comprehensive manual and resource guide with a host of proven templates and ideas, the staff team:

• Handles the technology by creating the fundraising and Facebook pages
• Designs all materials (brochures, posters, “save the date” cards, etc.)
• Manages the recognition gifts program

Volunteers remain responsible for securing sponsorship, recruiting event participants and volunteers, social media promotion and all of the logistics for the site (permits, tents, tables, chairs, refreshments). This allows volunteers to make the most of their limited time – 98 percent of Hydrocephalus Association chairs maintain full-time jobs outside the home while caring for a family member with the disease or themselves have hydrocephalus.

The result? Hydrocephalus Association was able to not only drive recognition and awareness for this rare condition but they also boosted the average fundraising amount per participant to $140. Their average amount for funds raised online was $105 per participant versus the published Blackbaud benchmark of $83. Moreover, in addition to growth in the number of funds raised per participant, Hydrocephalus Association has been able to grow their number of participants 31 percent year-over-year.

The post bbcon Recap: Volunteers and Staff – Power Partners in Peer-To-Peer Success appeared first on Personify.

Yesterday’s session, hosted by HJC’s Mike Johnston, Care2’s Randy Paytner and Kyla Shawyer from Resource Alliance leveraged survey data and anecdotal stories to multi-channel and multi-generational fundraising, brand building and advocacy programs, social media engagement and young donor acquisition (like Generation Z). Although the study focused on Canadian organizations, the content proved valuable to organizations across geographies.

And while these nonprofits are paying greater attention to the digital details more than ever before, there’s still room for improvement:

• 87 percent of respondents hold email deliverability at a high level of importance.
• 77 percent of respondents report having a responsive or mmobile-optimizedweb presence.
• Only 37 percent of survey respondents track website conversion.

Regardless of how sophisticated a nonprofit’s digital strategy is, the session provided important tips and techniques to help bolster email deliverability, mobile optimization and website conversion.

Email Deliverability

• For those just getting started, it’s important to plant the seed with your team. Schedule time to start the conversation about email deliverability and ensure they understand why it’s important. Then learn the ins-and-outs of your system, exploring what’s possible in terms of metrics and testing.
• Organizations who have their email deliverability basics covered but still want to see improvement should explore dedicating a staff resource to email to create end-to-end visibility for campaigns and their performance. Internal strategies and goals should be documented, and spam rates should be tested to eliminate common filters as a potential deliverability issue.
• Even if a nonprofit has great deliverability there’s always an opportunity to learn more. Segment your list to understand if deliverability is higher (or lower) with specific audiences. Monitor your data and optimize your content to keep engagement strong.

SOS Children’s Villages was lacking a process to convert their email subscribers into supporters. With limited time and resources, they decided on an automated, 14-email welcome series with a mix of soft and direct asks. The result? A consistent 29.27 percent average open rate throughout welcome series and overall conversion rate of 2.7 percent.

Mobile Optimization

Being mobile responsive means more than having a smaller version of your website on a mobile screen. Per the 2018 Digital Outlook Report, only 52 percent of nonprofits have a mobile strategy in place. Those without a formal mobile strategy cite lack of internal capacity, budget, and resources as top barriers.

How to make mobile more of a focus?

• Those starting on their mobile journey should ensure their site is responsive to capture the growing percentage of constituents accessing their website via a mobile device. Understand what constituents are looking for, what devices they’re using and the experience they’re expecting and document a plan to get there.
• For those further along with mobile, monitoring responsiveness remains a key area of focus – when the website changes ensure there’s no negative impact to the mobile experience. Monitoring usage data to proactively identify trends is also helpful as is maintaining a strong pulse on commercial sector changes and tools that may help improve the mobile experience further. In one example, BC Cancer Foundation made specific updates to the design of their form based on user feedback and saw a 1000 percent improvement in their conversion rate from mobile devices.
  • One of the things we have heard a lot about at bbcon is mobile giving and text-to-give technologies as part of the mobile experience and strategy for nonprofits.
• Organizations experienced with mobile optimization should still take the time to ensure platforms are connected and embrace new technologies as they’re available (and make sense for their mission).

Website Conversion

It’s one thing to get people to your website, but another to know what they do once they get there. Keeping up with trends is one tactic – but what works best for your org? The results can be incredible for organizations willing to follow some simple best practices.

• For those just getting started, the panel recommended a straightforward, 3-step approach. Research to understand your web traffic – where it’s coming from, where it’s going. Commit to a plan for improving conversion in specific areas by writing a formal plan and then focus on a clear call to action.
• Those making strides in improving their website conversion but still not seeing the results they expected should focus on the data to identify specific, incremental opportunities for content optimization and dedicate someone internal to oversee your analytics. Knowing the system, as we mentioned previously, is so crucial to reaping the benefits of what you have implemented. Provide training if need – it will go a long way
• The 37 percent already prioritizing improving website conversion can still take what they know and make it better. Fresh content is critical in keeping returning users satisfied. And take data to the next level but understanding attribution to drive clear actions and next steps.
  • Fresh content and natural language conversations fuel SEO rankings and support higher conversion. Tools like blogs, forums and discussion boards support higher engagement, decreased bounce rates, a higher number of returning users and a stronger community.

The post bbcon Recap: 3 Steps for Bringing Digital into Focus appeared first on Personify.

I previously shared how industry conferences are a way for me to recharge and reboot, and gain inspiration and ideas for programs, technologies and concepts that I can bring to my organization and to our clients.

This is our third year at bbcon and you can visit the Personify team at booth #410 to learn more about the power of Community to empower your organization to create connections, deepen relationships and grow your reach. Be sure to stop by the booth before the end of the conference for a chance to win a trip to Savannah, GA.

We’re proud to partner with Blackbaud to help our clients gain a complete picture of their constituent engagement to meet their goals—whether that’s improving volunteer involvement, increasing donations or seeing better member retention rates. (Learn how you can amplify the power of Blackbaud with Personify Community.)

I’ll admit that the bbcon agenda was a bit overwhelming with so many breakout sessions and opportunities to learn from and engage with my peers. So, here are some of the sessions that I’m looking most forward to at bbcon:

How to Run a Successful Online Membership Drive (Tue, Oct. 9):

When your nonprofit doesn’t provide a tangible service as a membership benefit, how can you grow your member base? The World Wildlife Fund and Blackbaud will share best practices for running a successful online membership drive that attracts a loyal community of supporters who share your organization’s values and believe in your cause.

Data Data Everywhere: Consolidating It, Managing It and Learning from It (Wed, Oct. 10):

You likely have constituent data across multiple systems and spreadsheets. How do you begin to consolidate this data to better understand constituents and engage with them in more meaningful ways? The Alzheimer’s Association will discuss its multi-year efforts around data consolidation and analysis, and how technology, expertise and analytics can support that journey.

Managing Disaster Relief: Interactive Panel Discussion (Wed, Oct. 10):

Natural disasters are a reminder that some areas of philanthropy can be unpredictable. To be prepared for these times of incredible need, you can take steps now. A panel of speakers from Center for Disaster Philanthropy, HCA Healthcare and Two Ten Footwear Foundation will share how they manage disaster relief, from immediate response to coordinating collaborative efforts. This will be followed by an interactive conversation where we work to identify next steps you can take in your organization so that you’re prepared for maximum impact, no matter when you’re faced with the challenge of disaster response, relief and recovery.

Data-Driven Storytelling (Thu, Oct. 11):

Modern nonprofit organizations leverage their constituent data to inform their strategies and drive engagement with stakeholders. Blackbaud, the Ocean Conservancy and Two Ten Foundation will discuss the power of data-based storytelling and share ways you can take this approach on your website and in email communications to drive higher engagement.

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