It’s easy to see building websites and designing forms as an onerous cost for an organization, especially when there are any number of social media channels that are free to use. But it’s important to ask if those free options are serving the purpose that your organization needs them to serve, and to remember that forms and websites built specifically to help your donors find and support your organization may have a cost, but they also have a value.
Today’s episode was recorded at the Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School, held in Dublin, Ireland. Tune in to hear an interview with Beate Sørum, an international public speaker and a fundraising consultant based in Norway who brings some unique perspectives on form design and UX optimization. Listen to the interview to hear what Beate has to say about why forms are a good investment, how to engage with your donors through follow-up questions, and how social media is affecting fundraising efforts now.
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The Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School 2018
“My task is kind of to get people to stop looking at websites and forms as a cost and start seeing it as an investment.”
“Not everyone is going to fill out all your follow-up questions, but that’s OK. You’d rather actually have them as a donor than know everything about them.”
“A form is just a piece of code. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to put it within the emotional story that you’re telling.”
You’ve probably heard the phrase “behavioral economics” before. Not only is it the subject of several best-selling books, there have also been two Nobel prizes awarded that centered on the topic of behavioral economics. But what is behavioral economics, and how does it apply in the social good community?
Today’s guest is Bernard Ross, Director of The Management Centre. He’s the co-author of the book Change for Good, written with UNICEF’s Omar Mahmoud. In today’s episode, he’ll discuss behavioral economics in the context of fundraising and social good organization. Listen to the episode to hear Bernard talk about why humans make seemingly irrational decisions, how behavioral economics is at work all around society, and how to use the lessons of behavioral economics ethically.
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Stop Listening to Your Supporters
“Behavioral economics says, “what if people are not like that? What if experience and the data tells us that we are all irrational?””
“There’s a whole science of restaurant menu design.”
“We are engaged in a moral business. There’s a moral responsibility to think about “am I using this technique fairly, properly, ethically?””
In this age of social media, activism is becoming more accessible to the masses. But, it's essential that the social media activism is connected to change makers working on the ground. How can philanthropic organizations harness social media activism to create change locally? This episode of Raise & Engage features an interview between Rachel Hutchisson, vice president of Corporate Citizenship and Philanthropy at Blackbaud and Darrin Goss, president and CEO of the Coastal Community Foundation, about social media activism, community engagement and more. Listen to hear how movements are being created by social media channels providing information and engaging people around causes they might not be directly impacted by are coming together with deep local involvement on the ground working to impact lasting change. Topics discussed in this episode:
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"I think the biggest threat facing philanthropic organizations is a lack of understanding of how real social change takes place in the age of social media." "Philanthropic organizations have far more at their disposal than just the financial capital that we all know and understand." "When funders resolve that they need to work with communities, then they can have the courage to go out and do what the promise of philanthropy is all about."