FIA 2015 State of Donation Plenary

The 2015 'State of Donation' Prezi about big picture stats in Australia is here!

Let me know if useful, and please feel free to fire questions at me.

Surprise helps video sharing

Good learning at Pareto staff conference today.  

Cameron Pratt 'Content Consultant' showing us some neat tactics that can increase chance of your video going viral. 

Good fun, but even when these videos (like the one below) went viral (3m) what did they achieve?  Ice bucket challenge went viral and had a clear call to action.

Here is another good one but with a better call to action.

Public Brand Awareness: Useful for charity?

Jeff Brooks' brilliant book on branding The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand is an essential read for all fundraisers.

But while you wait for it to arrive after you just ordered it on Amazon, check our my little two penneth on 101fundraising.

http://101fundraising.org/2014/09/brand-awareness-king/

Mythbusters and story telling FINZ 360

My second New Zealand conference of the week was in Christchurch, where I presented a short Mythbusters session and a longer session about story telling.

Story telling is here.

And Mythbusting below...

Soi Dog case study: Facebook in action

I have just finished presenting at the MA Conference (Inspire) in Auckland.

Thanks to the chaps at Soi Dog and James Herlihy at Pareto, I pulled together an interesting (I hope) and useful (ditto) case study of how Soi Dog has used Facebook well.
Next year from their regular givers and online donors, they should raise NZ$4m (US$3.3m) from donors.

Here is how.

http://bit.ly/MA14-SeanTriner

Creative from commerical world at MA Inspire conference in Auckland

Notes from Wayne Pick from ColensoBBDO/Proximity and Kim Pick from &Pick; a husband and wife presentation here at the MA:Inspire conference in Auckland.

I love this, the creative process:

This going to be awesome
This is hard
This is shit
I am shit
Its going to work
This is awesome

Some good stuff they shared.  Product truths from Volvo...

And Van Damme doing the splits to show their stability.

Bu it is important that your video actually makes sense if it is get circulated.

Here is another company trying to create a product truth.  Chewing gum and the social stigma associated with it...trying to explain the social benefit of chewing gum.

A Guatemela shoe store (MeatPack(!?) tracks its customers' phones - if they walk into a competitor shop they get offered 99% off shoes at MeatPack.  The discount ticks down 1% per second.  They run to buy from their MeatPack.

I have to say the Picks got the audience with this awesome GoPro cat movie.

And a last one, Target/Missoni fashion cut through - online and offline.

Well done Picks, kept us entertained after lunch.

Why the Ice Bucket Challenge is bad for fundraising

A fundraising event that goes viral internationally, will raise probably $26m and raise awareness for a little known condition ALS.

How can anyone but a killjoy think it is bad fundraising!?

Well, it isn't bad fundraising.  It raised lots of money - which is the point of fundraising.

And the success clearly took MND Australia by surprise - from their CEO taking the challenge thousands of Aussies have taken the challenge...

Yet today when I went to donate, after the initial introduction there is no follow up on the challenge - not even a place to select the challenge as the reason I donated.

The form was standard...

And the thank you doesn't mention the challenge...

You can't blame MND. I imagine they posted it expecting a bit of fun and a bit of cash - they couldn't (and shouldn't) have bet on a massive success. Spending loads loads of money or time lining things up properly is like spending your lottery ticket winnings before you have won the lottery.

Which is my segue as to why the thing could be bad for fundraising.

Pretty much every client I met with this week (and there were many) wants their own Ice Bucket Challenge, Movember or no make-up selfie.  They are all great causes, and I want them to have one too but for every successful one there are countless failures.  You simply can't bet on virality. You'd be better off buying lottery tickets.

The priority for a fundraiser is maximising ongoing net revenue through sustainable means. If MND can follow up the participants well and fast, this event could revolutionise their fundraising.  Their website says they raise around $400,000 at the moment so this could be transformational. But they now need to build ongoing regular giving, one off donor, major donor and legacy streams thanks to this unlikely boost.

PS - I loved the challenge, though regretted being challenged whilst visiting penguins in the Southern Ocean rather than being at home in the sub-tropics.

PPS - Jeff Brooks on Ice Bucket Challenge here.