Kyle Andrei's blog

New Month, New Article!

By Kyle Andrei, April 1, 2011

 It’s a new month, and we have a new article! We’re really proud of this one. Be sure to read A Few Good Donation Assurance Tools.

We’re betting you’ve never even heard of Donation Assurance software, but every fundraiser dreams of an easy way to meet their goals. Here’s an excerpt:

“Do people pledge money to your organization, but not follow-up with donations? Are some repeat donors difficult to contact? Does your staff spend more time on cold-calls and funding drives than on your organization’s mission?” 

Read more to find the best tool to help you reap the benefits of Donation Assurance.

Another Look at Jumo and Other "Charity Portals"

By Kyle Andrei, February 17, 2011

 Since we’re now a few months out from the beta launch of Jumo, the new social network for nonprofit organizations from Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, it seems like a good time to talk about what it is, and what other options are already out there.

Jumo is, by design, deeply integrated with Facebook. There’s been a lot of complaints over the requirement to have a Facebook profile in order to join Jumo, and it’s a significant pain for organizations.

Other, better established “social middleware” sites already integrate with Facebook, like Causes.com. Causes already has over 140 million members, and allows them to follow causes that they create, donate to nonprofit organizations through the site, or have friends and family donate to a cause as a “birthday wish.”

But if working with Facebook really isn’t your thing, Idealist just relaunched its website, retooled to function more like a social network, as well as enhancing its existing search features. GreatNonprofits is several years old, and well-established, with over 1.2 million nonprofits in the system. The reviews on GreatNonprofits are all user-submitted, helping potential volunteers and donors not only find an organization, but find out what working with them is like, from the people who already have. To possibly net a greater reach in audience, nonprofits can certainly create articles on Wikipedia, with the added benefit of Wikipedia’s high hits on search engines.

One important complaint with Jumo is that when someone makes a donation, Jumo automatically takes 15% as operating fees, meaning they get a noticeable piece of every donation. Other, better established sites also use this donation model; GlobalGiving.org also takes 15% from each donation made through their service. If you aren’t quite comfortable with this model, Causes.com doesn’t take any money for itself, but their donation service provider, Network for Good, takes only 4.75% to cover processing fees.

So why is Jumo needed at all? Is it all just hype?

Really, the hype is exactly why we need Jumo. Chris Hughes is bringing the kind of publicity that only a founder of Facebook and the Obama campaign’s social media guru can generate. The buzz can only help bring more interested, civic-minded individuals to nonprofits, and isn’t that the point?

Do you use any of these sites?
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