Get Your Videos Ready!

Do you ever visit YouTube? Well I go there often. There are so many videos from so many topics, you could never get through them all. Well I'm not the only one who goes to YouTube. YouTube is a FREE online server where you can post your own videos in a personalized channel. Non-profits are starting to utilize it for their organizations. At YouTube, you can create a custom channel for your organization and post videos. This is great because if you have a lot of videos, you can store them there for free vs. storing them on your own web server. This saves bandwidth and space. YouTube also gives you custom code so that you can embed the videos into your website but they still reside on their servers. Another value to YouTube is that folks will have easier access to you and would likely see your video there first before they would at your website. Another type of video services is GodTube - same concept but more religious based so if you are a faith-based organization, consider using it as well.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Design Tip: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Do you remember your dad saying that? We'll mine always did and it's true. When a potential donor comes to your website for information or maybe to make a donation, a good visual of your organization can bring positive feedback. Capture your visitors attention with photos. Wouldn't it be nice for people to fully understand the work you do? You can do that by displaying photos of your organization doing what it does best for others, whether it's feeding the homeless, educating children or saving a displaced pet. Photos that tug on the heartstrings can eventually tug on the purse strings. It also helps people see just how far you've come. So the next time you're updating your website, don't forget the photos.

Cool Tool Alert: Kimbia

In an earlier post, I mentioned using Kimbia for your donations and fundraising, here's why:

It's versatile and you can plug it in anywhere!

Kimbia for lack of a better word is a mobile widget. You log into your Kimbia account and create campaigns and forms. You are able to customize and create as many fields as you need for your forms. Kimbia can also be styled using CSS so you can really give it the look and feel it needs to match your website. Once it's created you are given the code you need to paste into your website. The super cool feature about this code is that you can paste it anywhere. Think about networking websites or even personal websites. You can allow others to paste this code, let's say in their personal website and people who are visiting could make donations. A way to market this could be "show your support for our organization by adding this widget to your website." Really the options are endless. Also, another brillient thing is that if no funds are exchanged, there is no fee to use it. So if you just need to create an RSVP for a party, you can create a form in Kimbia and send it out to folks. And since there is no money collected, there's no charge to use it! Kimbia keeps track of the form results as well.

Kimbia is NOT an e-commerce tool per say. It doesn't have a shopping cart or shipping. However, I was trying to think of creative ways to use it. You could use it to pay for memberships since there is no shipping involved. So I would imagine that if you had an item that just had a flat rate, you could find a way to use this.

Again, a tool worth checking out.

Here are the bullet points:

• No start-up or set-up charge
• If you use the tool and no funds are exchanged, it is completely FREE.
• Kimbia charges only 5% which is the processing. Very reasonable seeing all the great stuff you get with this tool.
• This is not an e-commerce tool. I only wish!

While you may think this is a more expensive option, then lets say PayPal, well you are right. But this is more than just a payment processing tool. It's a fundraising tool - processing payments is just part of it. So if you are a heavy fundraising based organization, this tool really is for you. Also, consider that PayPal doesn't give you a lot of options for collecting information or payment, but Kimbia does. Kimbia allows you to create whatever fields you want and as many as you want. You've heard the old saying "You get what you pay for".

I found this point on their FAQ:

Does Kimbia provide me with other capabilities beyond creating online donation forms?
Yes we do. The same functionality that enables you to easily create customized donation forms also enables you create registration forms for any kind of event (e.g., races, golf tournaments, galas, etc.) Race operators and organizers have found our forms especially useful because they can accept and manage registrations for large races directly on their own websites, versus re-directing registration over to a third-party site. Additionally, the forms that Kimbia enables you to create and place throughout the Web can be used as distributed content channels for your organization. Beyond providing an immediate transaction opportunity, your donation forms can include videos, surveys, message boards, petitions or other content that you want to communicate to constituents. Providing such content helps build and maintain interest in your organization or associated causes and increase donor engagement.

Check out their FAQ for more details.

Get creative with your donations

So last week we talked about the many options that are out there for online donations. Now it's time to get creative. Whenever I speak before organizations, I always like to use the example of Heifer. Heifer is an organization whose goal is to end hunger around the world. They have incorporated one of the most creative ways to get people to donate to their organization. In many cases, when folks donate, they want to know where their money is going. So it's always nice to give them some kind of visual on that. Heifer has done just that. If you go to their website, click on their option "Gift Catalog." You can actually browse the type of item you want to purchase. You can purchase ducks, chickens and even trees. When you click on the item you want to donate, it explains why this item is so important to those people. It really helps you appreciate the needs of the people and where the money will go. They also have an area where you could donate to a specific project in another country. They list a country and the project they are working on for them. When you dig deeper, it explains the details about the project. And again, on the same page, they list where they are with their donations and how much more they need to finish the project. A very cool way to set-up your donations. While this may not always work for everyone, you can still try and come up with a creative way to do this. In any case, the option to donate should always be there.

Start accepting donations online

Times have changed and people are looking for easier ways to make donations. Gone are the days of mailing in checks. Consider setting up your website so that folks can pay online instead of filling out some form and mailing it in. Now I do agree there are still some people who are not comfortable paying online and still like the traditional method - so do both. There are many tools or options out there for you. Here are a few:

Volusion: I talked about Volusion briefly last week. While it is an e-commerce tool, it does give you the capability to accept donations or round your purchase up for your donation.

PayPal: This is one of the cheapest options out there. It's very easy to sign up for a PayPal account. They also walk you through the steps of setting up your donation button. They then provide the code that you just paste into your website. Their fees are very minimal.

Network for Good: If you are a non-profit organization, you can use this pretty much for free. It costs nothing to set-up your account with them. What is neat about this is although there is a fee, they give you an option to put on the form where the donor can opt to pay the fee that is used to process the card. It's a neat option. www.networkforgood.org/npo

Kimbia: This is a bit more upscale version and a very versatile tool. You set up your account with them and then you can start customizing and building your own forms. So you could set-up a donation form with whatever fields you want. Then because the tool is somewhat of a widget, you can copy and paste the code anywhere - websites and etc. and a person could donate right there. Definitely worth checking out. http://www.kimbia.com/