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Tsunami Relief: What should you be doing online?
The biblical proportions of this disaster may give us pause, but we need to swing into action and start raising funds for what has been described as the world's largest rescue and recovery mission since World War II. While the disaster holds everyone's attention right now, you need to prepare your supporters for months of relief effort. This is a marathon effort, which will have a much longer life cycle than a tornado or hurricane. The internet is the fastest way for response to start flowing to the affected areas. Over the coming months, it will also be the most efficient. If you're not comfortable raising lots of money online, it's time to call for help. We're ready to help you. Here's what your nonprofit should be doing online: - Send an email to your general subscriber list:
a. Initial reports from your field staff are most helpful. This disaster is too big for people to imagine; they need to hear individual stories about people to whom they can relate. Christian Children's Fund sent an email that described how a staff member in India lost seven family members. That hits home more than a story about tens of thousands of deaths, because it's about a person with whom they have some connection.
b. Outline how your organization is responding to the disaster. What is your unique skill or focus that you bring to the project? Is it medical care for the injured? Is it family reunification and refugee registration? Show how your actions are indispensable in their own way.
c. Forget your normal email schedule. Our advice on email frequency has always been this: send email when you have something important to say. In this case, if you have new information twice a day, send it. Pay attention to your unsubscribe rates and any complaint emails, but focus more on the mission and the funds you're raising.
d. Ask people for their biggest gift ever. After all, it's in response to the world's biggest natural disaster. Give them a link right to your donation page (hopefully a customized one which can track gifts from each email you send). - Update your home page with a story about your organization's response. It may be very similar to the current email. It needs to be updated as frequently as your email, and it should point people to two pages inside your site: a "more info" page on how the disaster is affecting your programs in your areas, and how you are providing relief, and a customized donation page so they can give easily.
- Develop a customized donation page with a bold heading like "Asian Tsunami Response" so that potential donors know their gifts are going directly to this cause (and so you can track the results). Don't wait for this page to start raising funds, however. Depending on your web software and IT support, this can take awhile.
- Give information to people who want to volunteer, too. While it's neither safe nor reasonable to expect your supporters to head to Sri Lanka, identify ways that they can help the cause. Can they send letters to their local media, or recruit friends, or hold a fundraiser at their house of worship?
- Develop a "virtual" toolkit for supporters as well. Suggest they put a link to your tsunami response section in their email signature. Give them banner ads to post on their own personal web sites. Give them "tell-a-friend" pages so you can increase the size of your email database.
- Respect copyrights of others as you reproduce news from other sources. The last thing you want to get distracted by in the coming months is a legal snafu from a news organization. It could derail your entire online fundraising operation.
NPAdvisors has special expertise in online fundraising for international development and relief organizations. We can help your organization with marketing, copy, strategy and technical assistance in this time of crisis. Please contact us with your concerns and let's find a way to help. It's in the coming days and weeks when you will define your organization as one that "gets it" with respect to online fundraising, or one that still doesn't. The homeless in Asia are hoping you "get it."
December 2004
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