How Nonprofits Are Segmenting Their Communications

by Steven Shattuck

April 24, 2014 at 5:00 PM

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Nonprofits have a lot to communicate. From gift solicitations to gift acknowledgements, there's no shortage of touch-points to prospective and current supporters. When you factor in communication preference -- email, print, and digital -- along with past interaction data, the intricacies of a robust fundraising campaign can rival that of any major marketing initiative in the for-profit sector.

But are nonprofits harnessing the power of communication segmentation?

In conjunction with Nonprofit Marketing Guide, we at Bloomerang recently surveyed a group of small-to-medium-sized nonprofits ($5 million in revenue or below) in the United States and Canada to see if and how they are segmenting their emails, newsletters, and gift acknowledgements.

Survey Highlights

• Most nonprofits are familiar with communication segmenting.
• Little middle-ground exists; segmenting is either prolific or non-existent.
• Past donor interactions, not demographics, are the most common segments.
• Data uncertainty prevents nonprofits from segmenting.

http://goo.gl/e8fgf7

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The Facebook Fraud and What It Means for Nonprofits

2014 has been off to a good start for Facebook so far. Last week, it was announced that founder Mark Zuckerberg was the top philanthropist in 2013, having donated almost $1 billion. Their fourth-quarter earnings beat expectations, with revenue increasing from $1.59 billion to $2.59 billion. They even shook off a Princeton study that estimated usage would drop by 80% by 2017.

However, users (specifically brand marketers) are becoming increasingly vocal about the frustration they’re experiencing. Report after report shows that organic post visibility is dropping precipitously, forcing marketers to invest in paid advertisements and promoted posts. This is problematic for nonprofits and associations, whose budgets are already tight.

Now it seems that even those promoted posts may not be reaching the intended audience. A post from video blogger Derek Muller of Veritasium is making the rounds on social media with a damning study on Facebook’s advertising model. It’s well worth the 9 minute playtime:

http://socialmediatoday.com/sashattuck/2170526/facebook-fraud-and-what-it-means-nonprofits