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September 2009 When I think of fishing, I have vague childhood memories of hooking a worm as bait, dangling my fishing pole over a boardwalk, and then waiting…and waiting. It was a thrill when I actually caught something, but it took hours to catch enough fish to cook up for dinner. Fundraising, in many ways, reminds me of those fishing memories, especially the waiting part. As I thought more about the fishing analogy, a number of fishing tactics came to mind that seem very applicable to fundraising. It could also be that I've been watching too many episodes of Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. In any case, here's what I came up with: Go where the fish are. It's
amazing how hi-tech fishing can actually be. There's fancy sonar
equipment now that fisherman use to help locate the high-population
areas. Similarly, there are plenty of search tools, or even just
news articles that point to the latest trending web destinations.
Perhaps there are large crowds congregating on Facebook, or perhaps
Twitter, or some Fish with a net instead of a pole. With a single fishing pole, you can only catch one fish at a time, but if you fish with a net, you could potentially catch a lot more. So, how exactly does this translate into fundraising? Well, think of a website as a single pole. Most of the site's visitors will be those people swimming in the vicinity. Having presence on multiple sites (e.g., a givezooks page, your own site, a facebook fan page, etc.) at least puts multiple poles in the water. Then, if you start linking across these site, and/or to a single site destination, now you have the beginnings of a "net". (You'll also create some Google juice in the process.) Try different locations…AT THE SAME TIME. This one is definitely from watching Deadliest Catch. Basically, the idea is to establish a presence in many locations and to circle back after some time. So, on the show, the fishermen drop "strings" of cages along different stretches of ocean. The same is true with establishing a web presence. Having a single site is like being land-locked. The more pages you establish on different sites, whether it's on givezooks or Facebook or Twitter, the more fish you will catch. Fishing and raising money for an important cause both require waiting, and they both require strategy: to be as effective as possible reaching donors online learn about where your constituents spend their time online, use a multiple online venues, and establish a meaningful presence in these locations. Read more about social fundraising and the partnership between Telosa Software and givezooks!
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Exceed! users can take advantage of our special Partner package pricing and get:
Want
to learn more about givezooks! and social fundraising?
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industry-specific
page. If you want to catch the attention of those crowds, you have
to go to the crowds. A lot of times, the crowd doesn't find you,
you have to go find the crowds.
© 2009 Telosa Software, Inc.