Fundraising Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Tendenci Blog

2012-12-292013-06-10

New Options for Open Source Hosting – Fifth Day of Christmas Gifts from Tendenci to You!

Coming in 2013: More Open Source Hosting Options!

ON THE FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS… TENDENCI’S GIFT TO YOU: Real Choices for hosting your open source Tendenci website yourself!

This past year has been exciting and fast paced for the Tendenci team with the release of our open source software. We’re breaking new grounds in nonprofit, open source technology, and we’re focusing more of our efforts in 2013 on ease of use for you and your staff.

One major to-do we’re finally able to check off our list is simplifying the installation process so you can set-up and manage a Tendenci website on the hosting provider of your choosing. We’ve been testing Tendenci open source installations on different hosting providers and documenting the steps for you.

We’ve currently written documentation for Rackspace and Linode cloud hosting installation instructions:

Tendenci Open Source Hosting Requirements

Tendenci Installation Instructions on Rackspace OpenStack Cloud Platform

Tendenci Installation Instructions on Linode.com

We’ll be documenting additional hosting providers in the coming weeks, and we’re interested in finding out what hosting provider you want to use with Tendenci. We’ll test and document the installation process for your preferred hosting vendors. Suggest a vendor as a Comment below or email us to ‘toss’ your cloud host’s name in the ‘hat’.

3 Questions to Ask Before You Select Your Hosting Partner

We believe that website management shouldn’t be a struggle for Associations. Managing both Members and Content on your website is a complex process that Tendenci was specifically designed to help manage, enabling you to focus on your cause. Just like you need a website platform specifically developed for your nonprofit, you also need a hosting partner that understands the unique technology requirements that associations and nonprofits have.

Here’s three questions you definitely should ask potential hosting providers to make sure you get a good fit!

1) What extra services and products does your hosting provider offer?

Often, people think that their association’s staff email addresses come from the same company that they paid for the custom domain URL, or they think that things like back-ups, security updates and monitoring are included in that $6.99 monthly hosting plan. In most cases, the cheapest hosting plans out there aren’t intended to support the kind of traffic and User activity that a nonprofit or association website is going to require.

Make sure that your hosting provider offers a package that includes the type of options your association will require. For example, with Tendenci websites – you’ll need to make sure you find a hosting partner with VPS (virtual private server) root access.

2) What level of support does the hosting company offer?

It’s great if you have an experienced IT staff to manage your website’s critical maintenance tasks like back-ups, security updates, and plugin management. If your association doesn’t have someone on staff to manage your IT and website hosting services, then you’ll want to find a hosting provider with a strong support department who can be your external IT team.

Make an honest evaluation of your association’s ability to provide the time and expertise required to ensure your website receives the ongoing maintenance, back-ups, and security updates required to run smoothly. Find a hosting provider with services that compliment your association’s IT capabilities.

3) How will the hosting provider manage an unpredictable spike in traffic to your site?

Imagine your nonprofit gets a lucky break and your Executive Director is going to be on the Today Show! Suddenly, tens of thousands of people are trying to access your website – and you’ve never had more than a hundred visitors at one time before. Will your site go down because you have limits on your platform?

Probably – most sites who experience a massive spike in traffic experience a short period of downtime. That downtime can range from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the level of support your receiving from your hosting provider. How fast can your hosting provider get your site back up and live when traffic spikes? Can they get you up before your live Today Show interview is over? Or will you be down until later in the evening, when viewers earlier have forgotten and moved on to other priorities with their families and dinner?

These are all important questions to consider and I hope they help you select the right website host for your association!

History of Open Source

Here’s a great infographic that shares some fun history facts about open source software via SourceNinja.com!

Open Source Management by SourceNinja

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM TENDENCI!

We’re celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas with daily previews of the all new Tendenci Features coming to your association website in 2013! Join us each day to “open new gifts” filled with feature updates for your website!

Visit our Twelve Days of Christmas Main Page to find new gifts for each day from now until January 5th!

We love to hear your questions and comments about Tendenci, the open source CMS for Association’s – leave a reply below in our comments section or send us your thoughts via email to support@tendenci.com.

2012-12-282013-06-10

New JumpStart Package for Small Associations – Fourth Day of Christmas Gifts from Tendenci to You!

Coming in 2013: A new Jumpstart Package with an affordable set-up fee to help set-up and personalize your Tendenci association website in a snap!

ON THE FOURTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS… TENDENCI’S GIFT TO YOU: An affordable way to Jumpstart Your Association’s Online Community!

Beginning in early 2013, we’ll begin offering our new Tendenci Community Jumpstart Package to give new and growing associations an entry-level website built on our open source platform.

The Jumpstart Package helps get your association website set-up fast and gives you an open source platform full of all the tools you need to build an online Community! Best of all, each Jumpstart includes your very own Tendenci expert to handle the technical pieces provide you and your team training with Tendenci best practices.

tendenci jumpstart package — **Tendenci Gives Your Association Website a Push Forward!**

The Jumpstart is intended to help small and mid-sized associations get a professional looking, engaging website that can help manage donations, memberships, and events in about 30 days.

What’s Included?

The Jumpstart package includes a Tendenci site architect from our team who will be your team’s guide throughout the process.

Each Jumpstart Package Comes with Our Help to:

Set up of one of our Tendenci Community Theme Templates for your website
- Customize the colors of your template to match your nonprofit’s branding
- Resize and upload your logo
- Resize and upload up to 3 homepage rotator stories images
Configuration your site’s theme settings and global site settings
Navigation Menu Set-up
Creation of up to 3 User Groups that you can easily import your users into from a CSV file
Creation of a Donations form and Custom Contact form
Support for Integrating Your Merchant account with your website so you can take payments through the site
Training specific to your website for you and your staff

What’s the Cost?

Initially, we’re going to be offering the Jumpstart Package for $2500.00** plus your monthly Tendenci Community hosting and application management fees. You’ll also get the first 30 days of hosting Free** when you pay for your Jumpstart Package.

We’re trying to offer this package as low as possible to provide associations with an affordable choice in open source community management tools. One of the best things about Tendenci is how scalable the software is so that as your association grows, your website will grow with you!

** This is a special, introductory offer and the pricing is subject to change at any given time. Ethically, we need to make sure you know that we sometimes need to raise our prices as costs and economic factors change.

Get Notified When the Jumpstart Package is Available

If you’re interested on receiving an email when we officially begin accepting new Jumpstart clients, signup below and we’ll include a special offer in the email for those of you who decide Tendenci is right for getting your association website the jumpstart it’s needing this year.

Sign-Up and We’ll Notify You When We Launch our Jumpstart Package:

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM TENDENCI!

Visit our Twelve Days of Christmas Main Page to find new gifts for each day from now until January 5th!

2012-12-272013-06-10

New Language Choices – Third Day of Christmas Gifts from Tendenci to You!

Coming in 2013: More International Language Options for Your Website Visitors!

ON THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS… TENDENCI’S GIFT TO YOU: Internationalization for Your Association Website!

Internationalization for your website means you can offer content and online functionality in multiple languages and locales to your website visitors.

3 Reasons Website Internationalization Matters for Associations

Members of your Org’s chapters in other countries will be able to visit and participate with your main website and make it easier for your staff to grow your global community.
Donation forms will translate into the language of your donors, giving your organization global online fundraising tools
Small nonprofits and associations in economically disadvantaged countries can reach Wealthier Foreign Donors and Corporate Sponsors using your website to translate your cause into their language.

International Language Factoid: There are over 2100 different languages spoken in Africa according to Wikipedia!

Tendenci Updates to Automatically Translate Your Website Content

Associations and Nonprofit Organizations that want to reach an International audience need a website that is multilingual, and this year, we’re adding even more international language translation support to your Tendenci open source websites!

Our programming team has been updating the foreign language tools in Tendenci’s software and improving how your website integrates with the language translation function provided by web browsers. Tendenci website content can be translated into each language based on the preferred language designated by your users inside their web browsers, helping you deliver your message in virtually any country so members and donors clearly understand.

Next year, you’ll enjoy the gift of an International Website and expand your association’s reach around the world with Tendenci – The Open Source CMS for Associations!

Merry Christmas from Tendenci!

Visit our Twelve Days of Christmas Main Page to find new gifts for each day from now until January 5th!

2012-10-042014-11-02

Netsquared September Events: Boost Online Fundraising with Social Media and Wading into Your Online Community Data

This September, I doubled-up on my dosage of “Do-Good Geekery” with back to back Tuesdays at Netsquared events. First, I helped organize the Houston September meetup and then I added a trip ‘Down Under’ to speak at the Melbourne Netsquared in Australia. Here’s my recap from both events, plus links to extra goodies including presentation decks, a resource guide for getting your social media strategy created and driving fundraising dollars through your website, and of course, tons of “Aussie-ome” photos from Australia!

NET2 Tuesday in Houston

Houston Netsquared

The September Houston Netsquared meetup had guest speakers from the Houston CleanWeb Hackathon and Sustainable Houston. Both of these organizations are newly formed nonprofits and are working to grow their community here in Houston around finding ways to make our city more sustainable and “Green”. Our featured presenters, Rosalind Wyatt and Ahshia Berry, shared best practices and tips to utilizing the online data that nonprofits collect from their websites and social networks to create engaging and useful case studies, reports, and other online content. Roz and Ahshia also shared the hurdles Sustainable Houston has faced with their web technology needs, including the value of a geo-location app that would allow Houstonians easily find member organizations that were nearby.

The Presentation Deck

Wading into the Data – Houston Netsquared September 2012 Presentation

Roz and Ahshia also have shared a great follow-up post on the Netsquared.org blog that gives you some tips and resources for analyzing your online data so head over to http://netsquared.org/blog/wading-data-houston-netsquared-september-recap and keep on reading!

Melbourne Netsquared – Social Media and Fundraising FTW

The morning after Houston Netsquared, I hopped on a plane and headed out to Melbourne, Australia where I had the rare honor of being the Melbourne Netsquared guest speaker. My presentation shared insights into how some nonprofits are successfully increasing their online fundraising through the use of social media networks and how other organizations could translate these success stories into actionable campaigns for their own nonprofit. I’m often asked by both nonprofits and for-profits here in the U.S. how they can generate more revenue and leads from social media marketing. It turns out that Australian nonprofits struggle with many of the same challenges that U.S. nonprofits have, with a couple of key distinctions:

Aussie NPO’s have far more social media profiles than most U.S. NPO’s. In Melbourne, the questions expanded beyond just “how to use Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn” to include a variety of other networks: Pinterest, Google Plus, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, etc.
Aussie NPO’s are currently struggling to follow new government regulations on what to do and not to do while engaging on social networks. These regulations present a management challenge that U.S. NPO’s don’t have.

I found it interesting to hear how Aussie nonprofits had similar questions to what I normally hear from my clients and peers here in the United States about how to use social media including things like: engagement best practices, use cases, and managing all of the real time conversations with a limited staff and budget. The Melbourne nonprofits also asked how to figure out which of the channels they could “cull” and how to know what channels would be most effective. My best answer to identifying the best social networks to engage with depends on a number of factors that your social media strategy helps you determine, with the big three factors consisting of:

Learning where your target audience engages most
Finding out who the influencers for your industry are
Determining your resources, including staff, for managing social media campaigns

Find out more about creating a social media strategy for your nonprofit in our new Social Media Strategy Resource Guide: https://www.tendenci.com/social-strategy and here’s my presentation deck from Melbourne Netsquared.

The Secret to Increasing Your NPO’s Online Donations using Social Media

Melbourne’s Best Kept Secret

I was out in Australia to share the “secrets” of incorporating social media and fundraising programs and came back with one of Melbourne’s secrets. The Australians pronounce Melbourne like: “Mel-bin“. I want to send a huge Thank You to Leanne O’Donnell and Richenda Vermeulen – the Melbourne Netsquared organizers! Leanne and Richenda provided me with so much information and support leading up to the presentation and I had a blast switching roles at a Netsquared from organizer to speaker.

Photos and More!

Join us at the Houston Netsquared October 9th event and learn more about making digital videos for your nonprofit: http://meetup.com/NET2Houston and come over to the Houston Netsquared’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NET2Houston to share your ideas and ask questions. Here’s the photos to the Houston Netsquared September Meetup: https://www.tendenci.com/photos/set/41/ Check out photos from Sarah M Worthy’s Melbourne Netsquared Presentation: https://www.tendenci.com/photos/set/43/ Find more photos from Melbourne Australia: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjC7ZXme Find the latest webinar recording and presentation on Lessons on Website Management online: https://www.tendenci.com/website-management

2012-08-302013-06-10

Make Your NonProfit Website a Donor Magnet Part 1

Tendenci websites include all the tools your nonprofit organization needs to create a website that will attract donors, volunteers and members and make it easy for them to get involved.

According to a study published in the NonProfit Trends, 34.8% of last year’s online donations occurred after October, November and December. For most nonprofit organizations, the Holiday Season are when you generate the majority of your annual online revenue from donations, holiday gala fundraisers, and membership renewals coming due.

Is Your Website Ready for the Holiday Rush?

If your nonprofit’s online fundraising isn’t performing as well as you’d like, you aren’t alone. A recent Usability Study of nonprofit websites found that it is 7% harder, on average, for someone to make a donation than it is for them to make an e-commerce purchase.

In this two part blog post, I’m going to share the research on which elements are frustrating and driving away potential donors who come to your site and can’t find what they were looking for. The second post will give you 5 minor changes you can quickly make that will get your website ready well to attract new donors just in time for the holidays.

Nonprofit Site User Experience is Falling Behind

missing and outdated content — Over half of all NonProfit Websites have missing or outdated content.

The usability study, led by noted web usabilty expert Jakob Nielsen, tested common activities that a visitor to a nonprofit website might do and found some surprising results:

Making first-time and repeat monetary donations on nonprofit websites – on average, online donations tooks 7% longer than a typical e-commerce site’s shopping cart check-out. 17% of the nonprofit websites made it extremely difficult for visitors to even find the online donation option.
Donating tangible items like furniture, canned foods, and used clothing online – this received the lowest user experience rating of all the tested activities and in nearly all cases, site visitors went to multiple nonprofit websites before finally finding an organization with clear and complete information on how to go about donating.
Researching how to volunteer online – communicating Volunteer information was the one thing most nonprofit websites are getting right. The study gave this the highest user satisfaction ranking and reported that the one item most nonprofits forget on the volunteer pages is way to contact the organization.
Researching nonprofits on Facebook – the study found that people don’t like to donate on Facebook and that visitors except a nonprofit’s website to have far more content than your Facebook page does. The report explains that potential donors go to a nonprofit’s Facebook page to read the stories of the people who benefit from the nonprofit’s work.

The study showed that over 53% of the nonprofit websites had missing and outdated content and 47% of the websites were not designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. The report states that you could increase your online donations by 10% or more just by making some minor changes to your site’s usability and improving your content.

A 10% increase is almost $14,000 if you fall within the median online revenue earned from first time gifts*.

*The average online revenue earned from first time gifts in 2011 was about $136,625 according to Nonprofit Marketing Guide *

If your nonprofit site is chasing new donors away, this means you’re missing out on thousands of dollars in online donations.

Is Your Website a Donor Magnet?

If your nonprofit organization’s website is one of the roughly 50% that is unknowingly chasing off site visitors, then we’re going to fix that starting right now. You can use the study’s recommended best usability practices with your Tendenci website to give your site visitors a great online experience and increase your donations, memberships, and volunteer applications.

The key is to have content on your site that potential donors are looking for that is easy for visitors to find and tells the visitors how to donate and why they want to donate to your organization.

Crafting the elements within your site that will attract new donors requires time, research, and lots of creativity!

In Part Two of this series, I’ll give you 5 seemingly minor things that you can change on your site that will increase your online fundraising efforts and get you ready for the holiday fundraising rush.