5 Top Blogs on Social Technologies and Nonprofit Fundraising in 2011

Welcome to the second of five instalments in our “best of 2011” blog series. Yesterday we featured our top 5 Meatless Monday posts and today we put together our top 5 blogs on social technologies and nonprofit fundraising from 2011. Popularity was mainly based on most views on first day/week of posting and most accumulated views so all posts were considered equally.

Image courtesy of simplyzesty.com

We have featured several posts about the impact social technologies have had on professional fundraising, supporter outreach and volunteer management and how to optimize that potential. Suddenly the possible reach of the smaller, less funded nonprofit can compete with the larger, more funded organization with the accessibility of these new technologies.  Social technology opens up a whole new world to charities but the onus is on the nonprofit to use it to their specific advantage. Just because it’s accessible doesn’t mean it’s easy – it requires time, planning and dedication to make it work and the advice in the blogs beneath may come in handy as well.

1st 10 Tips for Maximizing Nonprofit Fundraising Efforts Through Facebook had the most views in a single day in this category and I guess it’s not surprising given the influence of Facebook on….well everything. This article summarized 10 guidelines to keep in mind when launching or establishing your nonprofit Facebook page. Hopefully all nonprofits have a presence on this social networking platform as it consistently rates at the top of social media networking lists although Twitter is catching up.

2nd 5 Tips to Integrate Twitter into Nonprofit Fundraising and Outreach Campaigns was next. As I mentioned above, Twitter is gaining on Facebook by leaps and bounds. This post featured helpful hints on how to make the most of Twitter. At the recent AFP Toronto Congress 2011, Twitter was incorporated into many layers of the event within the conference hall and beyond as they also encouraged the use of the hashtag #afpcongress to interact with other delegates during and post-congress.

3rd 8 Ways to Increase Engagement on Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page was written earlier in the year and focussed on items not covered in the post which occupied the top spot. This post gives nonprofits tips on how to ask questions on your wall to grow engagement. Sometimes the hardest thing is feeling comfortable enough to jump in and this post might help with that.

4th Is Social Media About Crowdraising or Fundraising For Nonprofits? This post featured the results from the release of one of the best benchmarking reports in the industry as the NTen/Blackbaud ‘Nonprofit Social Network Survey’ results had recently been published. The results from the report were fascinating on many levels as it reflected how the industry was embracing social media – succeeding in some areas and failing in others. This post was released in May and it will be interesting to check back to see how future reports on the impact of social media change with each release. An interesting post and well explored.

5th Nonprofit Fundraising Technology Tips – The QR Code. QR codes are an exploding technology and they are a simple way for nonprofits to have supporters connect to their website, blog or video via smartphone. For nonprofits there are a range of applications they can use them for such as direct mail marketing, print adverts or brochures, even business cards. They can also use them to direct supporters to their Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or YouTube page to increase supporter engagement level.
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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.