In a recent survey, 91% of nonprofits believe that video will become even more important in the next three years, yet nearly ⅔ of organizations say their video budgets will likely stay the same or decline despite their importance. But money shouldn’t be our biggest worry when creating and brainstorming a video for nonprofit marketing—it’s about telling the story of a cause. And that can be done with next to nothing, as long as you have a story worth telling.

Learn more about the challenges, best practices, and benchmarks of nonprofit videos in the report available for download below.

Nonprofit Videos: Best Practices and Benchmarks  [Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog]

Image via: Forbes

Online fundraising through mobile sites and apps has exploded in the past year. And, the best part is, the whole process is still in its infancy. Mobile sites and apps allow for great ease in the donation process, more so than the text to donate feature could offer. Fundraising through these methods allows supporters to not only donate easily, but also to share our mission with friends and family.

Follow the link below for more on the increase in mobile fundraising.

Why Mobile Matters for Nonprofit Fundraising [Socialbrite]

]]> http://www.nonprofithub.org/fundraising/out-with-text-to-donate-in-with-apps-for-mobile-fundraising/feed/ 2 http://www.nonprofithub.org/fundraising/hop-off-the-latest-digital-bandwagon-and-prioritize/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hop-off-the-latest-digital-bandwagon-and-prioritize http://www.nonprofithub.org/fundraising/hop-off-the-latest-digital-bandwagon-and-prioritize/#comments Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:59:37 +0000 Hub Staff http://nonprofit.hubs.digitalcommunityfoundation.org/?p=16041 We all want to be ahead of the curve when it comes to the next big digital trend. But are we spending too much time and energy on the lookout instead of working with what we have? Apparently so.

There’s an uneasy rise of a trend that suggests us being on the lookout is sapping our valuable time. Even worse, these efforts result in little success.

For us, we need to utilize our time and resources wisely. These digital trends need to be weighed in relation to what it can produce for us and the effort it will take. If it’s too much for too little, then we should get back to the basics and carry on.

Follow the link below for more on being wary of new waves of digital influence.

Is Your Online Fundraising Suffering from FOMO? [Giving In A Digital World]

A design tactic to make our emails easily read on mobile devices is to cut down the width. Emails that are wide will make for small-sized text, making it harder to read. Even more, Android phones will often cut off the right side of emails, forcing the viewer to scroll horizontally. Simply cutting down the overall size of the email will become a huge relief to our readers.

But we’ll never engage readers to open our emails if we don’t give them the right persuasion to do so. Mobile inboxes allow for preheaders to be viewed, which gives the reader an insight to the email’s intention. Preheaders give our supporters the reason as to why they should open and engage with our message.

For more tips on being more mobile friendly with emails, follow the link below.

10 Ways Nonprofits Can Send Mobile-Friendlier Email [NPEngage]

]]> http://www.nonprofithub.org/email-marketing/10-tips-for-more-mobile-friendly-emails/feed/ 0 http://www.nonprofithub.org/nonprofit-technology/the-real-price-of-free-nonprofit-technology/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-real-price-of-free-nonprofit-technology http://www.nonprofithub.org/nonprofit-technology/the-real-price-of-free-nonprofit-technology/#comments Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:58:56 +0000 Hub Staff http://nonprofit.hubs.digitalcommunityfoundation.org/?p=15987 Let’s just put it out there: Free stuff is awesome. A free toaster for opening a checking account or a free football phone with magazine subscription. But the word and idea of ‘free’ becomes a blinder to a real price we can pay that affects our mission.

As nonprofits, we generally try to stretch our resources to their fullest extent. In the case of nonprofit technology, we may use pre-installed computer programs to help us sort our every situation. We go about record keeping and analysis by modifying these free programs to save us money, but costing us in other areas.

So it becomes beneficial to invest in programs built for nonprofits. Put MS Excel away and opt for more powerful tools. Programs directed for nonprofits encourage more outreach activity to reach supporters and increase interaction.

For more on the price of free nonprofit technology, follow the link below.

Why Free Isn’t Free: The Unrealized Costs of Free Technology [Inside Philanthropy]

]]> http://www.nonprofithub.org/nonprofit-technology/the-real-price-of-free-nonprofit-technology/feed/ 0 http://www.nonprofithub.org/fundraising/new-google-app-allows-users-to-donate-1-to-their-favorite-charity/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-google-app-allows-users-to-donate-1-to-their-favorite-charity http://www.nonprofithub.org/fundraising/new-google-app-allows-users-to-donate-1-to-their-favorite-charity/#comments Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:43:03 +0000 Hub Staff http://nonprofit.hubs.digitalcommunityfoundation.org/?p=15923 Good news! Google has put their colossal amount of brain power to use for the nonprofit world. One Today is an app that allows users to donate $1 to a nonprofit of their choice. Their slogan “Do a little. Change a lot” will hopefully do just that for nonprofits worldwide.

In addition to the incredibly simple user interface, One Today also allows users to match their friends’ dollar donations with a push of a button—making giving a more social activity.

Users can give to the same charity, or explore a myriad of new ones they’ve never heard before, exposing more nonprofits than ever before. Which will hopefully result in more donations than ever before.

Learn more about the app and what it means for your nonprofit in the linked article below.

Want to Donate to a Nonprofit? There’s an App for That [Jolkona]

Image Via: Techno Buffalo

In many ways, you’re over the most important hurdles. But here’s where a lot of folks throw in the towel and give their video to a production house (or give up altogether): the technical side of making videos.

But the technical side isn’t that difficult once you understand the ideas behind the jargon. Watch the video below to learn the basics of video quality, and the two of the most important things to remember when shooting your nonprofit video.

What’s the Best Camera for Making Nonprofit Videos?

Transcript:

So now that you have an idea of what kind of nonprofit videos you can shoot, let’s focus on what you’re going to use to make those videos: Your camera.

There are many things to consider when looking to purchase a video camera for your nonprofit. But the top 5 things you need to think about are:

• Video quality
• Audio
• Utility
• Price

What you’re going to use it for.

That’s a lot to cover, so we’ll be breaking up each point into separate videos, so we’re not here all day. 

Now, as we talk through each point, we’ll be hands-on with three different types of camera, so you can see what you get with each level:

• We have this pocket camera: A Kodak Play Touch Zi10.
• This consumer handheld Canon Vixia HF R100.
• And this Canon T2i DSLR.

So first off, let’s talk through what usually comes to mind when thinking of video cameras: Video Quality. And through this video we’ll be switching off between the three cameras, so you can see the video quality difference between the 3 different levels of cameras.

OK, to begin discussing video quality, you first need to understand the basics of how that video is captured and what creates the video that you see on your screen.

When you’re purchasing a camera, you’re going to get a lot of numbers thrown at you. But the one that you are going to hear the most is the ability to record at 1080p. 1080p is pretty much the standard, and that’s what you want. Not that’s not the indicator of good video quality. That’s the video resolution. You see, when you hear 1080p, they mean the resolution is 1080 by 1920 at a progressive scan. So the video will have 1080 lines of pixels making up the height of the video and 1920 lines of pixels making up the width of the video. The “P” stands for progressive which means that the lines of pixels appear on the screen all at the same time.

Whenever you hear a resolution end with an “I” it stands for Interlaced, which means that the lines of pixels are split into odd and even lines and take turn appearing on the screen. This is very bad for you, because any video that you create is going to be put on the internet and all computer monitors are progressive. So if you shoot in an interlaced video and put it online it will look like this. You can actually see the different lines of pixels. So whenever you can, shoot in Progressive.

All that is important, but not really. Because even though a video is shot in 1080p, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to look as good as the last movie you saw. All these cameras that we have been using for this video are using 1080p, and as you have probably noticed, the footage from the Kodak is not on the same level as video from the DLSR. 

The next thing you’re going to hear a lot about is frames per second. Which means that for each second of video, there is going to be a certain amount of pictures or frames that create that second. There are really only two frame rates that you need to care about and those are 24 and 30.

24fps is what film shoots at, so videos will have have that cinematic look, perfect for a video that you are playing at a fundraiser or that you are displaying in person. 30 frames per second, is the standard for web videos. and gives you a more fluid video because there is 6 more frames in that second. Also, adding more frames will cut down on artifacts in the video, such as motion blur. 

So the two most important things to remember for this video are: 1. Always shoot in progressive. And if you’re putting the video on the web: 2. Use 30 frames per second. 

Alright, now that you know the basics of what a video is on your screen and how it’s recorded, in the next video we’re going to talk about the hardware aspect of video quality. See ya then.

Looking for More Awesome Nonprofit Videos?

Check out these:

Why You Need Video in Your Nonprofit Marketing Plan

3 Videos Your Nonprofit Marketing Plan Needs to Succeed (And Examples)

The headlines? Mobile usage continues to skyrocket. There are 1.5 billion (count ‘em) smartphone subscribers. And those users, on average, reach for their phones around 150 times per day. What does this mean for your nonprofit you ask? That it’s absolutely vital for your website to be mobile friendly.

Check out the article below for three more key takeaways on recent online trends and what they mean for your nonprofit.

What the latest online trends mean for your cause [Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog]

]]> http://www.nonprofithub.org/nonprofit-web-design/why-does-your-nonprofit-website-need-to-be-mobile-friendly-weve-got-1-5-billion-reasons-why/feed/ 0 http://www.nonprofithub.org/featured/is-xcheckout-the-x-factor/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-xcheckout-the-x-factor http://www.nonprofithub.org/featured/is-xcheckout-the-x-factor/#comments Fri, 31 May 2013 12:12:09 +0000 Chas Offutt & Andrew Shoaff http://nonprofit.hubs.digitalcommunityfoundation.org/?p=15824 Chas Offutt, senior consultant at Blackbaud, and Andrew Shoaff, Blackbaud’s interactive strategy practice manager, are contributors for Nonprofit Hub. Chas is a digital marketing professional with more than 10 years experience in the nonprofit sector, and Andrew helps deliver innovative solutions for constituent engagement and multichannel marketing across all nonprofit verticals.
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As integrated marketers, we spend a huge amount of time making sure our constituents are provided a range of donation options so they can decide for themselves how to best support our cause. Multi-channel giving 101, right?

In the digital space credit cards are a no brainer, and bank withdrawals have been around for long time, but what about non-credit card based transactions such as Amazon Checkout or PayPal?

In the Luminate Online platform these transactions are known as “XCheckout”. The XCheckout functionality allows donors to connect directly to their third-party payment account (again, PayPal or Amazon) to make their donation.

XCheckout drives a lot of discussion both within Blackbaud and with our many clients. However, very little organizational data exists to determine its value.

To address this void, we reviewed five organizations to better understand the impact of the XCheckout third-party payment method on the Luminate Online platform.

Who Was Selected

Five large national (and international) organizations across multiple nonprofit verticals were selected for this high-level review. The five organizations each raised $1 million or more in 2012 from one-time online donations. Donations that exceeded $500 were removed from the sample set based on what we know of a younger, third-party payment audience. All five of the organizations were also considered “early adopters” of the third-party payment methods.

What We Did

First, the 2012 transactional data was pulled for each organization. Then, all gifts under $500 were removed from the sample set. Lastly, the donations, revenue, and average gift amount were analyzed for the XCheckout payment method. This was then compared to the balance of remaining payment methods, i.e. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and/or Bank Withdrawal.

What We Learned

The XCheckout payment method represented 8.8 percent of the total one-time online donations and 7.7 percent of the total one-time fundraising revenue across the five organizations in 2012. The average gift for XCheckout was $47 compared to $69 for the remaining payment method options.

Conclusion

The results of the above study suggest donor adoption of XCheckout payment options is significant enough to warrant serious consideration by nonprofits.  It’s our opinion that nonprofits will increasingly look to non-credit card based transactions as a viable option to include in their online payment portfolio.

Identifying a baseline for XCheckout is a start, but we’ve only scratched the surface.  A lot of questions remain about these transactions. It’s unclear at this time if XCheckout will increase donor value, is a viable acquisition source, and/or if it will improve conversions rates.  Are these new or repeat donors? Does XCheckout make it easier to give using a Smartphone? What behavioral trends can we glean to drive segmentation?

What we know for sure is that payment option diversity is critical.  Constituents want donation options that suit an ever expanding number of interests, needs and circumstances. If you haven’t done so already, consider if the XCheckout option makes sense for your organization.

Blackbaud released a study called the 2013 Online Marketing Benchmark Study for Nonprofits (a mouthful) that has some potentially sobering stats on web traffic being down 14% among nonprofit organizations.

I haven’t delved deep into the report, but here are some first thoughts:

• While web traffic is down, online fundraising revenue grew by 11.6%. Which of these is more important to your organization? (Fewer visitors and more donations means the people who coming are more of the right kind of people in the first place.)
• All studies are based on the sample size available–so trends (while interesting) aren’t as important as your specific stats. In the case of web traffic, it’s really simple to get connected to Google Analytics and see if your nonprofit website traffic has gone down each year. You don’t (and shouldn’t) have to wait for a study to tell you how your traffic is doing, even only a weekly basis.

But don’t embrace insanity: if your organization’s online traffic is showing a decrease month by month and year by year, the worst thing you can do is the same thing you’ve already been doing.

Instead:

Create remarkable content. Increase outreach. Find out what the people who do come to your site want.

Just don’t cross your fingers and wait for the next online marketing benchmark study.