Keep Asking for the Gift? No, Ask More Often

Philanthropy and the Economy from CCS Fundraising (downloadable at www.ccsfundraising.com) reports that confidence among professional fundraisers is at its lowest level in a decade. Some company’s stock holdings have lost 90% of their value, and many of the most aggressive philanthropists – AIG, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns – are financially troubled. Though High Net Worth Individuals (those with liquid assests of $1M+) represent only three percent of the population, 60 percent of all U.S. philanthropy comes from these few. Some wealthy folks are upping their giving (George Soros, for example), while many others are reducing support. Apparently, many large gifts to educational institutions are likely to be affected, though Georgetown got a cool $75 million on January 15. Suggested strategies? Develop an immediate short-term action plan; reaffirm your organization’s mission and impact and keep that mission front and center with donors; increase activity—more visits, more briefings, more communication; motivate development staff, administrative leadership, and trustees with reminders that philanthropy thrives in tough times; encourage trustees and volunteers to help open doors and introduce the organization to new potential supporters; consider challenge or matching gifts to stimulate giving; share the latest philanthropic information with your leadership; introduce payment flexibility and deferred giving options; and explore practical ways to diversify fundraising. Good luck.

But Can It Make Money?

An hour ago, a friend of mine googled “Korean Taco Truck + Twitter” and reported 5,000 hits. I just googled again and got 74,100. Either there’s a lot of hot tamales out there, or something is up with this Twitter thing (see Newsweek’s report of February 28). So, if you’re among the legions out there wondering what’s useful about Twitter (aka, “Can it make money?”) consider this: At the essence, it's all been done before.

Yesterday it was…. The Good Humor Truck
Today is is … The Korean Taco Truck

For all intents and purposes, both sport bells and/or whistles to sell food. See?

Big Brother Goes Home

DMG Consulting has released Call Center At-Home Agent Best Practices, a white paper that says call center folks who work at home deliver significant cost savings, greater flexibility, a deep, diverse and qualified labor pool, and reduced staff churn for call centers. Other cited benefits include less absenteeism, increased productivity, and enhanced customer satisfaction. It’s not easy managing the unseen, says the report, which suggests detailed operating policies for at-home agents, a three-month trial for the remote location, daily communication between supervisors and at-home personnel, chat for handling most agent inquiries, remote agent participation in team meetings and training, special incentives and team building activities, and lots of online training and coaching. Data security, of course, is a concern. Premise-based call centers routinely prohibit agents access to pen and paper, for example—obviously more difficult to control at home. A growing number of companies are using unplanned site visits to monitor at-home behavior. Other centers record 100 percent of at-home agent calls and screens and/or assign a remote supervisor to live-monitor the agent. Working at home is a dream for many people—retirees, parents with children, the disabled, people in remote locations, etc.—and, thus, one solution to changing times. Expect trade-offs.

Mail Biz in the Stim

Ellen Paul owns PaulandPartners, a mailshop located in the Dulles corridor of the Washington, DC, Metro area. Ellen writes for Marketing AdVents, which I edit. Her May column came accompanied by this bleak note: “Another sad commentary on the plight of the USPS. But that's all that's in the USPS news of late: Letter carriers run over and killed by their own trucks...carriers (and the public!) stealing the mail to get the prescription drugs therein... carriers hoarding so much mail that their homes catch on fire...it's funny (in a really bleak ‘film noire’ way). There's no ‘news’ in the USPS news right now. It's about survival. Even the intelligent barcode has been practically abandoned as over-hyped and too expensive to introduce in this market.” That's an insider view of The Mailing Business 2009. Who would argue?

Website Test Finds Too Much Copy

In an interview with James Murray of Interwoven, the February 26 edition of The Wise Marketer suggests that e-Retailers should be testing the format, layout, and content of web pages – and not just a little, but in “vast numbers of combinations.” Since eTailers have only nine seconds to make their point, the idea is to make sure website visitors immediately perceive that the retailer has exactly what they are looking for, at the right price, and in the form of a very secure transaction. Murray recommends multi-variable testing of a website, with the web page changing in real time, depending on information the individual imparts as they browse along. UK’s favorite retailer John Lewis was cited as a case in point. Their website featured a test of some 86 content options, leading to over 30,000 combinations. Results proved that removing some of the existing text that was meant to “add value,” actually boosted sales by £2.7 million in a 12 month period.

Tweets for the Rest of Us

I’ve finally read an article about Twitter that makes sense. David Pogue, writing for The New York Times (natch) was just as skeptical as I about why anybody would Tweet. He even got a sympathetic ear from the CEO and co-founder of Twitter (well, after all, he does write for THE Times) about all the annoying “insider” dos and don’ts he encountered. Of Twitter, Pogue concludes, “Make of it what you will.” To journalist Pogue, that means querying “the multitudes” for feedback when working on a story. Makes sense to me.

Twitter for Brainiacs?

Reportedly, there’s a new microblogging tool that college students and professors have been quick to adopt (bye bye Twitter?). Wiggio says its for academic groups, clubs and committees, sports teams, small businesses, families, non-profit groups, roommates, and social groups. They’ve reported that 80% of sign-ups since they launched in January 2008 are college students and faculty. Wiggio says it takes under a minute to setup a new Wiggio group and there’s no nagging group members to sign in, because as soon as they’re added, they’re in (they never have to register). Web 2.0 collaborative software developer, Zoho, is an existing partner, so Wiggio also features a shared calendar, group text and voice messaging, free conference calling and web meetings, filesharing, and collaborative viewing/editing for documents. The biggest winner here may be Zoho.