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...
 MJI
e-Briefings are designed to provide you with a quick-read, helpful
compendium of information, articles, suggested reading, useful web-links
and more. Your suggestions for content are always welcome. Simply e-mail us
at the address below. Enjoy!
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Sharing About Your Organisation's
Needs: Vice or Virtue?
- Redina Kolaneci, Senior Consultant MJI UK
'Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who
wants to borrow from you.' Matthew 5:42
As you might know I was born and brought up in Albania. The trademark of a
true Albanian is that we do not want anyone to know about our needs. In
fact, we are so full of pride always wanting others to consider us better
and stronger than we really are.
During these last ten years of working with Christian
charities I have noticed that many of them tend to behave like Albanians
do. They find it hard to reveal their needs to their donors. Some
organisations would cringe at the thought of telling supporters that 'new
initiatives are not going as well as planned' or that 'they are short of
funds' or 'some staff members are hurting from exposure to traumatic
situations.'
Recently, I have come to realise that not revealing our needs, be it at
personal or organisational level, is a deadly and discouraging route to
travel.
If we do not reveal our needs we are likely to suffer the
side-effects of un-met needs! But, if we are willing to make ourselves and
our organisations - open, honest and vulnerable - we are likely to witness
God's provision.
Think about it! The spiritual exercise of sharing about one's needs is
wonderfully intertwined with the spiritual activity of giving. God has
created us to be giving creatures and in His economy of the Kingdom He uses
us to meet other's needs through our giving. (2 Corinthians 8-9)
Giving cultivates relationships and relationships create
community. One of God's goals for us Christians is that we will 'be one'
(John 17:20, 21). Giving is one way that such biblical communities are
created and relationships strengthened.
So, supporter's giving in response to our ministry's needs, is not only
good for us, but also for them. When we share about our organisation's
needs, we don't have to be worried about our supporters. It is good for
them to give! God has designed each of us to develop our character and
humility as we reveal our needs and to grow spiritually as we give to
organisations in need.
Life would be great if there were no struggles or setbacks.
But it wouldn't be real! Financial shortfalls, ministry challenges will
come your way - and they can become blessings rather than burdens. Sure
they will not gratify our pride or boost our self-esteem. But, they can be
a blessing to donors who want to pray, to give or to respond in other ways.
So next time you are putting together your newsletters, prayer diaries or
appeals say what is actually happening - good and bad - and see how God
inspires people to step up. You may actually be pleasantly surprised by the
outcome!
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Using New Media: Can You Afford
Not To?
- Jon Wright, Associate of MJI UK
A LOT of communication ? BETTER communication.
The key purpose of all your communications with donors is that they respond.
They do something. They write a cheque, write a letter to their MP or
schedule in their diary your next event. Good intentions never made the
difference.
As Bananarama once wisely said, "it's not what you
do but the way that you do it... and that's what gets results".
These days surfing the web appears to be one of the most popular forms of
communication and sure enough all self-respecting charities have jumped on
the Internet bandwagon. And that is the right thing to do.
Statistics show that people spend at least as much time on the internet as
watching television, over 2 hours a day. On average people spend 6 minutes
and 40 seconds on each website. The question is: How can you maximise the
effectiveness of your website by providing enough information to keep
people interested and ways for them to engage with your organisation?
Here are some simple suggestions you might want to consider:
- Be interesting & engaging! Many websites of different charities read like
their printed publications and on the whole they are uninteresting and
focus too much on telling people what they are doing rather than
demonstrating, showing in some ways the difference they are making.
So, if you want to stand out think about presenting the mission,
vision and activities of your organisations through lots of snappy
photos and short paragraphs of text that tell interesting stories and
lead the viewer to keep clicking and discovering more about your work.
- Get discovered!
Although the internet provides unlimited opportunities for
communicating with potential donors, the reality is that they are not
out there looking for your charity. On the contrary, you should be out
there looking for them. One way to do this is by registering key words
that describe your work with prominent search engines like Google or
Yahoo and others.
Another way is to place your advertising banners with key messages in
websites often visited by Christians (e.g. booksellers, music
promoters, Christian holiday providers, online Christian dating
services, etc) In addition, you might want to advertise in the
Christian press about free offers of resources, thus introducing your
website to potential supporters and prayer partners.
- Get new people to give! Possibly the most important feature in your
website should be a Donate Now button right there on the front
page.
The golden rule is "2 clicks". If a potential donor can't
make a donation within 2 clicks of reaching your site, it's taking too
long. After that, of course, be sure to send an appropriate welcome
package.
- Add some sound to your website! Podcasting is one of the latest tools for bringing
your message and your impact stories alive so use it. It is cheap and
easy to do and the benefits can be enormous. Your message can be
delivered to potential and present donors in a more personalised way.
People can choose how and when they listen and they can come back
again and again to your website if you have fresh information and
stories on offer. You can use podcasting effectively for raising funds
too by delivering an appeal to donors in their mailboxes.
- Use e-mail to increase the impact of 'snail' mail! E-mail is a wonderful way of communicating with
many people quickly and cheaply. Apart from news, products offers and
giving opportunities, you could also make advance announcements of
appeals which will be arriving soon in the post. It's been shown that
advanced notice before direct mail actually uplifts donated income.
- SMS fundraising!
Another way of donating which worked well for Live 8, Comic Relief and
Oxfam was by sms. Recently, a new player has entered the non-profit
arena www.luup.com who is vowing to
make making sms 'cash' simple and intuitive. The way it works is that
your mobile phone acts as a kind of cash wallet. You can transfer
money from your bank to your luup mobile phone account and send text
messages to pay for services or give to charities with luup accounts.
For a review of your website and individually tailored
approaches to increasing its effectiveness as a promotional and
communications tool get in touch by e-mailing: redina_kolaneci@mcconkey-
johnston.com
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