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Online Marketing Cheat Sheet for Social Entrepreneurs and Nonprofits

Find short-cuts to leverage the internet and the URLs to sites that can help you drive traffic and build your online community.

Social Edge presents an Online Marketing for Nonprofits Cheat Sheet based on some of things you may want to do on the internet to help your organization grow:

How can you reach the millions of people on the internet?

Currently these nonprofit programs are available to US 501c3 programs but some are expanding globally:

  • Network for Good (partnered with Yahoo!) Charity Badges:
Best Practices for Non-profits in Second Life pdf:  holymeatballs.org/pdfs/BestPracticesforNon-profitsinSecondLife_012008.pdf

 

How can you get donations online?

Besides Network for Good and Facebook causes mentioned above, there are other ways to take donations on your site and other sites:

US with 501c3 organizations:


UK with charity’s Gift Aid tax reference number:

Note:  Charity Pricing Based on application and pre-approval by PayPal. Merchants must provide a brief organisational summary or mission statement and proof of their tax-exempt status or registration with their applicable country-specific regulatory body. Merchants can inquire about approval in accordance with this policy by sending contact details, business URL and a brief business summary to compliance@paypal.com.

(Apparently, you can get free checkout with Google in the UK if you have a Google Adwords account…)

Cross border giving in Europe


Global Giving (international)

 

More online giving resources

GiveZooks

How can you get people involved in your cause?

Besides blogs* which are a great way to make a personal connection with your community, you can:


*blogger.com, wordpress.com, sixapart.com, moveabletype.com, vox.com... and let people subscribe through RSS.

How can you get other people to promote you?

Make it easy for them to share your site by making it easy for people email articles from your site to their friends.  Let them bookmark (www.google.com/bookmarks,  bookmarks.yahoo.com/) and tag (del.icio.us,  reddit.com, digg.com)  the content they find useful.

  • Create your own widgets and let supporters add to their blog, page, or website:
And you can submit your widget to Widgipedia widgipedia.com or Gigya gigya.com or Pageflakes pageflakes.com
  • Involver: involver.com (video campaigns on social networks)
  • Enter your website in contests: if you win, you can get more visibility, and some contests give people the chance to vote for your site which gives your supporters a new reason to promote you:  

webbyawards.com, seomoz.org, SXSW (2008.sxsw.com/interactive/web_awards/),  prixars (www.aec.at/en/prix/), youtube.com/contests_main

How can you hold online charity auctions and fundraising on eBay?

Hold your own charity auction or let other people sell and give you the proceeds!


US with 501c3 organizations:


UK with charity’s Gift Aid tax reference number:

 

How can you share your stories?

Syndicate your videos!

Change oriented video sites...

Share your documentary

 

How can you find a filmmaker to help document your work?

Tell your story in filme and find help online:

 

How can you get the word out about your cause and events?

Release news about your organization and events online:
International

US with 501c3 organizations:

UK with charity’s Gift Aid tax reference number:

Or for something a bit edgier – how about “crowd powered media” Now Public nowpublic.com
For more resources, see also www.Idealist.org/tools/nonprofit-news.html

 

How can you find the best new employees?  

List your jobs online:

 

More resources:

beth.typepad.com, networkforgood.org,  techsoup.org, netsquared.org, and, of course, socialedge.org

"How 2 Create a Listening Dashboard" from NTEN blog

Collaboration Resources for Social Entrepreneurs from NED.com

Start-up Guide for Non-MBA Social Entrepreneurs from Martin Montero

Hashtags for Social Entrepreneurs from Social Earth

Discussions: 

Online Fundraising Tips  Hosted by Dr O
Mission-Aligned Twittering for Social Entrepreneurs  Hosted by Jill Finlayson
Top Social Entrepreneur "Tweeps" to Follow on Twitter  Hosted by Jill Finlayson
Pumping up your Professional Network Hosted by Beth Kanter (October 2008)
Stories of Change  Hosted by Sandy Herz and Cara Mertes (July 2008)
Disaster Recovery and Communications Planning Hosted by Jill Finlayson (May 2008)
To blog or not to blog? Hosted by Bruce Lowry (June 2008)
How to Drive Traffic to Your Site Hosted by Jill Finlayson (April 2008)
Storytelling and Social Change Hosted by Paula Goldman (March 2008)
Tech Solutions on a Shoestring Hosted by Jason Clark (February 2008)
Strategic storytelling and social innovation Hosted by Michael J. Margolis (September 2007)