For this month’s post, we’d like to thank ShareTraining faculty member Dan Lowman for sharing his thoughts in advance of his February 29th seminar:

In 2007, Facebook had only been open to the general public for four months.  In hindsight, it is amazing to me that I boasted as being one of only two people at GG+A with a Blackberry as recently as 2004.  In 1999, I joked about having a “steam-powered modem”—it moved 128kbps so as a practical matter, it wasn’t much of a joke.  No need to fast forward—just blink and everything changed.  Star Trek ’s communicators frankly had nothing on the iPhone, except possibly the ability to transmit faster than the speed of light.  But they certainly didn’t allow cheap video-calling to the other side of the planet.  Nor Angry Birds.

The last few years have found companies, non-profits, political campaigns and anyone with a recipe to share uttering phrases to the effect that they need to get online, get on Facebook, get tweeting.  Some people say it without even knowing what they mean: Remember the late Senator Ted Stevens saying, “The Internet isn’t a big truck.  It’s a series of tubes.”  This was in 2006.  If you’re online enough to be reading this post, at least we can all agree that the Internet is not a big truck.

The 2007-08 Presidential campaign season, first with political organizations like MoveOn.org and ActBlue, and quickly followed – indeed, surpassed – by the Obama for America campaign, brought the new media into politics in a big way.  Thirteen million people received more than 2 billion email messages, equivalent to more than 20 percent of the total votes cast for Barack Obama.  Did it get him elected?  Certainly not by itself, but it sure helped.  2012 has arrived and the emails have begun anew, along with all the manner of social media.  It is estimated that Ron Paul’s political advertising has received more views on YouTube than on television.  The Pew Center for People & The Press has found that more Americans get their news online now than any other medium.

Can an organization replicate these phenomena when it comes to communications, engagement, and fundraising?  Maybe  not—but there is an awful lot we can learn about reaching people in new, diverse and dynamic ways.  On Feb 29, join my ShareTraining web seminar, “Segmenting for Success:  What Nonprofits Can Learn from the Donor Analytics of Presidential Campaigns” for a discussion about how modern political campaigns are leveraging new media to raise tremendous sums of money and mobilizing millions to volunteer, vote and affect outcomes.  We’ll talk about using those techniques to create impact for our nonprofits and learn how to avoid mistakes where political fundraising methods simply won’t work outside of that context.

by Beth Bandy

Last December, the consumer research firm Trendwatching predicted 2011 would be the year of “emerging generosity,” when “wealthy individuals from emerging markets” would “increasingly be expected to … donate… not just in their home countries, but on a global scale.”

With increasing numbers of internationally-based high net worth individuals (HNWI) becoming more interested in donating to charities, the transparency and trustworthiness of recipient non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has become a regular news item. I believe it is important for front-line fundraisers and prospect researchers to stay on top of these trends because they form a backdrop for our knowledge about these donors.

As I prepare to present a ShareTraining seminar about researching prospects in the BRIC countries, I thought it would be useful to provide a few English-language resources I use to track philanthropy trends in Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

General Sources
I regularly check two general philanthropy news sources that cover the BRICs, as well as other countries around the world. The first of these resources is Alliance magazine. In fact, the current issue of this subscription-based publication includes an article about philanthropy in Brazil and India. The second general resource is the news section of the Philanthropy UK website. This section regularly includes news items about BRIC countries and has a handy archive search feature, through which you can see how discussions of philanthropy and charitable organizations have changed over the last few years.

Brazil
While there are many Portuguese-language resources specifically focused on Brazilian philanthropy and charitable organizations, few such resources exist in English. Instead, keeping track of these topics often requires turning to general and business news sources for special coverage.

One good example is a collection of articles released by The Financial Times called “Latin America: Social Enterprise and Philanthropy.” Although these articles covered countries throughout the region, they included numerous specific examples from Brazil about charitable giving and tax law, data on recurring gifts, and growth of the country’s third sector, as well as corporate social responsibility and corporate foundations.

Other sources of information about Brazil can be found in Americas Quarterly which often publishes articles in its print magazine and on its website and blog about philanthropy, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and related topics. Likewise, the online archive of Latin Trade magazine can be a useful resource. On that publication’s website try searching for keywords such as “CSR,” “NGO,” and “philanthropy” – and subscribe to their RSS feeds for breaking news on these topics.

Russia
As in Brazil, it is difficult to find English-language news about trends in philanthropy and charitable organizations. One good resource is the English-language The Moscow News, a current-affairs media outlet that regularly provides coverage of nonprofit organizations and philanthropists in Russia. To get familiar with the site, try searching its online archives for the keyword “charity.”

The publishers of Alliance also maintain a philanthropy blog written by numerous experts on philanthropy around the world. This blog recently featured the first in a series of posts that describe the findings of a new report about institutional philanthropy in Russia. This report, prepared by the Russian Donors Forum, is not otherwise available in English.

India
Dasra is an organization for Indian philanthropists. You can learn a lot about recent philanthropy and NGO developments by subscribing to Dasra’s e-newsletter and reading its blog. Dasra hosts the annual India Philanthropy Forum. One highlight from the most recent Forum was the release of Bain & Company’s India Philanthropy Report 2011. I wrote a piece for my own blog about the report, covering some take-aways for prospect research and fundraising efforts.

One business and finance news source that frequently has articles on philanthropy in India is LiveMint.com. Use the search function to find relevant articles on this topic in the archive or select “Doing Good” from the menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

China
The China Development Brief has long covered NGOs and philanthropy in Chinese. Recently, a new English-language translation of the publication has been released online. The first translated issue (Summer 2011) covered “Philanthropy and Civil Society in China.”

Another good news source from China is Caixin. Although this publication is generally focused on business news from China, its English-language website regularly includes features about philanthropy and charitable organizations in China.

I hope these resources will help you stay on top of relevant trends in the BRIC countries. If you would like more information about how to research individual prospects in these countries, please join us on January 31 for my ShareTraining seminar, “Golden BRICs: Researching Prospects in Brazil, Russia, India & China.”

Beth’s live ShareTraining seminar is on January 31, 2012 at 12:00 Eastern and will last approximately 90 minutes. Click here for more information and to register.

This month Cynthia Hetherington, president of The Hetherington Group will be our speaker for “Protecting Our Organizations from Harm: A Researcher’s Toolbox for Due Diligence.”  Cynthia is an experienced researcher and teacher, and has performed competitive intelligence research globally on companies, for other companies.  We know that her knowledge can be useful for nonprofits, too, to help us be wise in our due diligence research both domestically and abroad.  Cynthia recently published an article in her newsletter about researching in the Middle East that we thought would be a great preview of her seminar:

Researching in the Middle East

reprinted with permission, (c) 2011 Cynthia Hetherington

The Arab Spring sounds like a lovely entrée into a delightful new season filled with romance and surprises. What a beautiful name for such a measure of turmoil happening in the Middle East and North Africa. The entire event is filled with suffering and uncertainty. Yet “Spring” is all about the awakening of a new generation of Arab nations, those who are tired of the oppression and despots their parents and grandparents suffered under. With these new generations, opportunities will abound and a call for research and due diligence work will, no doubt, increase. Keep in mind, each country has their own strict laws governing investigations. For example, private detectives do not exist in Saudi Arabia because the practice is forbidden. You need to hire an attorney to make general inquiries on your behalf. So it is always beneficial to contact an experienced vendor/investigator in the country in which you are investigating in order to learn the limitations. The following are some online English language sources for conducting online due diligence in these territories:

Media

Al-Jazeera English (english.aljazeera.net)

Often heard in American news when referencing the latest Al Qaida video or press releases, there is little actual access to the channel in the United States. Now recognized and respected globally, Al- Jazeera is known for reporting from the Arab perspective but has also enlisted reputable journalists known for unbiased reporting. Based in Qatar, Al-Jazeera is not a government owned media outlet.

Country Briefings (Economist.com/countries)

The Economist is a go-to source for any country-specific information. Their coverage of the Middle East over the past year has been quite brilliant, as they are reporting and keeping up with the rapid changes that the Arab Spring is forcing. In addition to the news reporting, look to the Economist Intelligence Unit (eiu.com/public/) for country-specific reports.

Company Directories

Skyminder.com

This subscription-based service offers well-priced credit reports from around the globe. Much of the instantly purchasable reports are from Dun and Bradstreet; however, GraydonUK, Coface, AsiaCIS, and other credit reporting company reports can be retrieved in 5 to 10 days.

Kompass.com

Kompass offers free searching based on executive, company, or brand name. Reports are very well priced and offer the standard corporate information, such as formation, principals, industry classification, and location details.

Social Networks

Maktoob.com

This site offers research and business content information. Maktoob claims to be Arab world’s largest Web portal and online community. According to their site, Maktoob was founded in the year 2000 as the world’s first free Arabic/English Web- based e-mail service, offering users a platform to send and receive e-mails in either language, regardless of their operating system. In the few years since, Maktoob has strategically grown to become an integrated group of companies and Web sites. The network of sites includes Maktoob.com, the world’s leading Arab portal with a market share of around 13 million unique users, as well as a range of companies and sites specialized in business and e-commerce in the MENA region.

Jeeran.com

Jeeran (the neighborhood) offers you ways to connect with friends, chat amongst each other, and share videos, photos, and other multimedia content. Jeeran.com comes to you in English, Arabic, and French language versions.

In an ever-changing digital world amid a worldwide recession, companies are struggling to find the most economic ways to keep their executives informed. Every company wants to be at the top of their game, but with company budgets decreasing, an increased adoption of Web 2.0 tools, and the fast pace of change these struggles are becoming more difficult.

One cost-saving and effective way to solve this problem is webinars.

Webinars are becoming a preferred method of learning for executives and their colleagues today. Professionals are under pressure to provide learning and development methods that are

• cost-effective
• agile
• and in-line with employee’s preferred methods of learning

Webinars allow for information to be shared simultaneously across geographically dispersed locations in real-time, or asynchronously.

Social media marketer Paul Colligan hosted an experimental webinar to demonstrate these features.

In order to compare statistics, he also allowed for his webinar to be viewed after the original live session and created files for various sharing devices. He then compared the number of attendees for the live event, recorded event, and what media were used to view with webinar. He found that more than four times as many people consumed the webinar at a later date.

Of course the topic and quality of the topic will greatly influence the success rate. Here at ShareTraining, most of our topics actually come from our participants!

In “Webinar Attendance Rates Revisited” Ken Molay focuses on these statistics of which webinars are most successful. One way to assure high attendance versus sign-ups is to target your webinar to a highly-specific audience. Ken points out that with a highly target audience with a specialized interest, such as software programmers, attendance rates for webinars average around 50%. The narrower your content focus and audience demographic, the more likely they are to listen to your message. The highest rate of attendance comes from events where the audience is charged to attend. These events can produce attendance rates around 95-98%, but attendees expect a stronger deliver of quality, contact, technical operation, and presentation.

Many companies are taking the opportunity to use webinars as an internal event. Ken notes that internal training can climb as high as 80% to 85% attendance. These internalwebinars can help companies cut budgets by allowed a large group to attend and participate together creating a stronger working relationship and new insights.

Whether you are trying to reach a broad audience, niche membership, or internal colleagues, it is important to know the attendance rate and that you can increase consumption with a multi-platform download available after the live event. Webinars are helping companies wade through the ever-changing demands of their companies and the media while allowing them to stay within budget demands.

We have eight new live seminars catered to fit the needs of your organization.

Data Mining A Step At A Time…Using Excel

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Fundraising analytics expert Marianne Pelletier will guide you through the meaningful results you can gain through a simpler analysis using Excel. She will introduce you data quality and hygiene in order to produce a clean set to analyze. Marianne will then lead you
through several attainable but powerful strategies that can help you reveal important trends in your donor data and discover promising prospects. Finally, Marianne will discuss ways to communicate your findings and encourage increased attention on metrics.

Advanced Web Searching

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Helen Brown will explore the mechanics of efficient searching using time-saving tools to expand your web search knowledge. Helen will share the best uses for content curation sites and give you tips for upping your search game. This seminar will explore the importance of using convenient search skills in order to optimize your research time.

Protecting Our Organizations from Harm: A Researcher’s Toolbox for Due Diligence

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Corporate intelligence expert Cynthia Hetherington discusses the increasingly uncertain waters that nonprofit organizations navigate with concern to errors of judgment. Cynthia will highlight the important role prospective researchers play in interpreting the information collected.

Discussions will include the tools and methods needed to help attain due diligence to help protect organizations from risk. Cynthia will cover the essential tips on where and what to look for on the choppy seas of researchers.

Golden BRICs: Researching Prospects In Brazil, Russia, India & China

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The BRIC countries- Brazil, Russia, India, and China- are attracting more attention from fundraising offices today. In this webinar, Beth Bandy offers research strategies and resources for effectively researching BRIC prospects. It will include a real-time demonstration on the use of some of the best BRIC research resources and how to successfully navigate websites in languages other
than English.

Beth will discuss the current philanthropy and wealth trends in connection to the individual, business, and philanthropic information.

Segments Are Dead: Using Analytics to have Conversations with Each of your Constituents

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Dan Lowman, an expert in philanthropic analytics, will lead you through the importance of nonprofit groups using email for more than just communicating. Dan will explore the importance of using email as a way to communicate with donors based on their motivation and affiliation. These strategies are important in transcending demographics and allowing virtually any nonprofit to get to the heart of the prospect’s relationship with the organization.

Dan’s seminar will reveal the simple yet sophisticated ways that organizations can create communications that excite, inspire and influence donor participation.

Researching and Cultivating Hedge Fund Professionals in Uncertain Times

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Michele Whitney will discuss the fast-paced and lightly regulated hedge fund industry. She will answer questions such as:

What should development officers and researchers understand as they attempt to gather information?

How can frontline and research staff work collaboratively to identify and cultivate promising prospects?

All the while Michele will provide context, information sources, and discuss the considerations to support your organization’s efforts.

Making the Most of Your Wealth Screening: Strategies for Planning, Implementation and Beyond

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Join Jennifer Fry for a discussion of proven tactics on wealth and asset screening to ensure your department’s success. Jennifer will display the importance of having a strategy and post-screening action plan, answering questions such as:

• How much time should be budgeted for analysis and verification of the returns?
• How do we ensure that the top prospects reach the major gifts pipeline?
• How can we set clear goals and expectations?
• How can we continue to reap the benefits by incorporating screenings and the
  resulting data into an ongoing prospecting strategy?

The Ongoing Case for Prospect Management

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Karen Isbel discusses the importance of prospect management and how groups should work diligently to embed them into their organizations’ culture and processes. Karen outlines the problems:

• hard to sell to gift officers
• tough to maintain databases
• hard to get whole organization in compliance with policies
• what is essential in measuring the organization’s impact.