Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Volunteering is a significant part of the identity of Generation Y - people in their 20s - because they grew up doing it. Service learning has been fully integrated into many high schools and college-bound teens know that admissions officers love community service.

Volunteering is so well ingrained in the Gen Y culture that a recent Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT survey found that more than half of workers in their 20s prefer employment at companies that provide volunteer opportunities and 70% believe that companies should use volunteering as a professional development tool.

If you are interested in recruiting people in this age group as volunteers for your nonprofit, keep in mind a few tips from Sam Davidson of CoolPeopleCare. Sam will be the guest speaker during the May 7 Nonprofit Marketing Guide webinar on “How to Connect with Generation Y.”

Don’t ask for long-term commitments. For most of Gen Y, life is usually about trying lots of things and then committing to those things that really knock your socks off. “If I want to learn more about your organization and how I can help, and the only option for me is to commit to 8 hours next weekend or an hour a week for the next 12 weeks, I may just skip it,” says Sam. Instead, offer quick but meaningful opportunities to lend a hand.

Let friends volunteer together. Gen Y is a very social set that prefers to shop, eat, date, and hang out in groups of friends. Volunteering is no different. “We’re not afraid to tackle a big project, as long as we can do it together,” say Sam, who notes that his is the first generation to grow up in schools that required working collectively in groups in nearly every subject. (We would have HATED that, wouldn’t we have, my independent Gen X brothers and sisters?)

Spread the word through friends. When reaching out to 20-something volunteers, forget direct mail, and for email to work, it has to be really good. “Tell me quickly why it’s important, because I’ll be scanning/listening to/reading your pitch while I do six other things, so it needs to stick out,” advises Sam. Instead, Sam says to play your local equivalent of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game: If you want to reach a group of 20-somethings, talk to their friends and friends of friends and have them spread the word.

“If you’re soliciting me directly, let me know the connection to the opportunity, whether it’s because my friend volunteers there or the issue affects me in some way,” says Sam. ” Or, better yet, if you’ve created a low-commitment, team-friendly experience, I’ll hear about it naturally from one of my friends anyway, so by offering something I’ll actually think about coming to, it should market itself.”

Learn more about marketing your nonprofit to people in their 20s during next week’s webinar, How to Connect with Generation Y on May 7, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, 11:00 a.m. Pacific. Registration is $35 per connection. Get the details.

Lots of studies of interest to nonprofit marketers have been published lately . . .

Sea Change Strategies and Convio have released a new report on the “wired wealthy” — people who are giving big online. Get the full report here or read a nice summary on Katya’s blog. Only 40% of these donors thought charity websites were inspiring or made them feel connected to the cause they care about.

M+R Strategic Services and NTEN released an updated eNonprofit Benchmarks Study for 2008. Get the full report here or read the press release for a quick summary. The total amount raised online increased by 19 percent from 2006 to 2007, but email open and click-through rates are falling.

Donors’ money isn’t going where they think it is, according to a survey by Stanford Social Innovation Review and Google.org.

MobileActive.org has released a report with 11 case studies on how nonprofits are using cell phones for a variety of outreach and advocacy programs. Full report here and summary here. The global survey found that 86% of non-governmental organization (NGO) employees use mobile technology in their work.

Half of donors think nonprofits should be using social media (e.g. blogs) to keep them up-to-date. In particular, they want to read news and announcements, success stories, and volunteer opportunities. This comes from a Donor Pulse/Harris Interactive poll — get details from Virilion.

Universal McCann has published a study on the growth of social media worldwide. TrendsSpotting has a nice summary. (Thanks to SocialBttrfly on Twitter for the tip.)

I just got a sneak peek at the slides that Jeff Brooks of Donor Power Blog will be sharing during this Thursday’s (5/1/08, 3:00 ET) webinar: What Do Baby Boomer Donors Want from Your Nonprofit?

Jeff says the good news is that Baby Boomers are the wealthiest and largest generation in U.S. history. The bad news is they are much more demanding than their parents’ generation. So what do they want from you? Control over their relationship with your nonprofit, for one thing.

And what does that really mean and what do you do about it? What impact does it have on the way you communicate with your donors? You’ll have to get those answers straight from Jeff. Register for the webinar ($35 for whoever can fit around the monitor and speaker phone) and you can ask all the questions you want about Baby Boomers and your nonprofit. Jeff will answer as many as he can during the hour.

New donors, volunteers and other potential supporters have questions that they want answered before taking the next step with your organization. These five simple but universal questions that people will have about your organization are best answered not with statistics or wonky program statements, but with stories. Your website is the perfect place to answer these questions.

1) What Do Other People Think About This Group?

Answer with Testimonials. When someone is learning about you for the first time, they’ll be curious what other people think about your organization, your staff and your effectiveness. You can talk about how great you are, but that’s not nearly as convincing as testimonials from other people who aren’t on your payroll (or even on your board). Testimonials are short quotes — little mini-stories — that offer insight into why someone is happy to be associated with your organization in one or two sentences. Gilda’s Club Seattle includes testimonials and photos at the top of nearly every page on its site that instantly convey how important the group is to its supporters.

2) Are People Here Like Me?

Answer with Profiles. When someone donates time or money to your organization, they are joining a virtual community of people who believe in the same cause. If someone is not quite sure if your nonprofit is a good fit for them, showing them that they fit in with other supporters can help overcome that barrier. Profiles of clients, donors, volunteers, members, and other supporters are a good way to show the different kinds of people who are involved with your group, making a newcomer feel more comfortable that they are in the right place. Iraq Veterans Against the War lets members write their own profiles as part of the open, online membership directory.

3) Does This Work?

Answer with Success Stories. Do you get the job done? Are you going to make a difference with the money I give you? Success stories show donors (and potential new donors) exactly what it is you do and how you do it. They can be full-length articles or shorter vignettes like those on the National CASA website. The multimedia stories on the home page show the children they serve and their adult court-appointed advocates speaking about the benefits of the CASA program. These stories end with this simple statement: “Children with a CASA volunteer are less likely to reenter Child Protective Services.” Does it work? Yes, it does.

4) What Difference Can a Single Person Make?

Answer with Personalized Giving Options. Big problems are overwhelming. If you swamp people with the enormity of the need, they are likely to tune you out and move on to something that feels more manageable. One way to overcome this problem is to focus on the difference that a single person can make and clearly demonstrate through storytelling that a new donor, as a single individual, can bring about change by supporting your organization. Tying donor actions or gift levels to specific results is a great way to do that.

Kiva and Donors Choose are the shining stars in this category. CARE’s “I Am Powerful” campaign also makes a clear yet less direct connection between individual donors and the people they are helping.

5) Can I Come Along?

Answer with Personal Chronicles. For your supporters to fully engage with your nonprofit, you have to be willing to share what’s really going on. A small but important segment of your donor base won’t be happy with the level of detail they get in your newsletters. They’ll want more and you should give it to them. Blogs are a natural way to provide this kind of ongoing, detailed, behind-the-scenes narrative about your work.

The Humane Society of the United States’ dispatches from the Canadian seal hunt are riveting (although brutally graphic). It’s one thing to ask supporters to put a “Save the Baby Seals!” bumper sticker on their car — it’s another to invite them to tag along virtually with the HSUS’s Rebecca Aldworth as she chronicles the bloody devastation on the ice floes day in and day out. A more heart-warming example can be found on the Interplast blog, where doctors chronicle their efforts around the globe to repair birth defects like cleft lip.

In both cases, these nonprofits are taking their supporters to places they would likely never physically go themselves, showing them in detail both the need for their support and what can be done with their donations and advocacy. By bringing your supporters along day in and day out, you can make them feel like they really are part of your team.

While storytelling is a wonderful tool for nonprofit marketing, it only works with a specific goal in mind. What point are you trying to make? Or in these cases, what question are you trying to answer? Without a goal behind your story, the words may be interesting or amusing, but the point will be lost on your supporters. Know what question you are answering before you start telling your story for maximum impact.

Learn More Here: Nonprofit Storytelling: How to Write Your Nonprofit’s Best Stories