It is crucial to know who you are marketing to, and to look at the world from their perspective. It’s marketing 101. I can’t expect my 79 year old Nana to hop online and fill out an electronic survey, make an online donation via a PURL, or get excited over a Christmas e-card. Don’t even think about mentioning EFT. On the other hand, I can’t expect my little sister to go check her college P.O. Box every day for direct mail, or even check her 2 separate SPAM email accounts. She literally has 2 email accounts dedicated to the fluff email she does not want to read (um….so do I).

Time…it’s been on my mind a lot lately. Or should I say the lack of time has been on my mind. I’m finding myself with too little time…and I know that I’m not alone. Many of my colleagues and friends, young and not-so-young, find themselves in the same time crunch. Corporate and non-profit belt-tightening has everyone doing more with less. This means more hours at the office, or at home online. (Who hasn’t used their laptop to multi-task while watching TV and answering email?)

A lot of non-profits think that their supporters will come to them. “I contact them regularly, via email and snail mail…why wouldn’t they want to find me on the internet?” So a hastily created Facebook page is thrown up, some meta tags are tossed off to make a website searchable and voila! I’ve done social marketing, haven’t I?

Prison Fellowship, one of the agency’s non-profit clients celebrated Break the Cycle Day-a promotion to publicize their campaign to end the cycle of generational incarceration for prisoner’s children. Break the Cycle Day has been in the works since February 2010 and includes a variety of creative social media elements integrated with paid media elements.

In the non-profit world, we often rally around holidays, seasons, special events during the year (it’s Arbor Day…yay!) and other exciting calendar hits to rally our donor base. Sometimes we’re asking for a donation and other times we’re just asking that you “join us” in a movement, sign a petition or support us by sharing our cause with your friends and social networks. If executed correctly, these one-day promotions can be a boon to a non-profit; they can show us measurable results and bring in donations.

The art & science of fundraising is changing, and organizations need to be prepared to engage an entirely new generation and meet them where they currently congregate: online.

Fundraising is actively getting a message out to your supporters and potential supporters asking them to give you money in exchange for the services you or your organization provides. Voila. Advertising.