Comments for Jon Stahl's Journal http://jstahl.org Engagement organizing, movement building, politics. And stuff. Thu, 16 May 2013 21:16:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Sophia Katt http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407308 Sophia Katt Thu, 16 May 2013 21:16:39 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407308 Oh, my comment was in the spirit of “wouldn’t it be nice”, and not “I really expect people would be willing”. Given the paucity of bucks NPs are dealing with right now, no one would intentionally cut their chances of getting even a penny less than they could by playing experimental chess with funding. The only way to make such a plan actually happen would indeed be to require the overall % lists as a condition of receiving the money. The lists would have to be general percentages and not specific donor names, or a number of NPs would probably be violating their own privacy policies. But, good to know we are all wonks!

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Jon Stahl http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407307 Jon Stahl Thu, 16 May 2013 19:08:49 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407307 Super interesting idea, Sophia!

Patrick: yes, I think that in theory, some of the data would be in 990s, but as you say, it is often reported inconsistently, and of course there is a huge time delay. I think you are right that there would have to be some clear incentive for groups to cough up data–it could actually be a condition of GiveBig participation (for participants) and perhaps there could be some sort of cash reward for non-participating groups.

Carol: I got a similar comment offline as well. While I think that would be interesting, too, it would be really hard to get individual donor data like that. Also, it would be really hard to establish a solid control group–people self-select into GiveBig participation. I’m most interested in the overall question: “Do day of giving events change the overall annual giving results from what they would have been otherwise?” That said, it would be really interesting to try to design an experiment in which a large group promoted GiveBig to a random half (or three quarters) of its members, but deliberately withheld from marketing to the remainder. Sure, there would be some “leakage” (e.g. marketing from other groups, or ambient social media) but there might still be some detectible effect.

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Patrick http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407305 Patrick Thu, 16 May 2013 15:03:33 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407305 Wouldn’t most of that data be in 990 forms already? Of course, the vagaries of the way those are completed may make it hard.

How about this? If the Seattle Foundation (or the United Way) really want to know – how about offering a cash gift – a pretty good sized one – to all Puget Sound nonprofits? The price of entry would be entering data (which would be confidential, natch) into a tool or spreadsheet. And then we’d have the data to determine the overall effectiveness (if “more money” was the goal).

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Sophia Katt http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407304 Sophia Katt Thu, 16 May 2013 14:06:08 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407304 I’d enjoy checking the lists of overall donations. They would split into three lists–the folks who give separately to an NP and don’t use GiveBig, those who use GiveBig as a slide donation, and those who are new to giving to that NP because of GiveBig. Over three to five years watching that trend would be informative. A real wonk would want to compare this data pile to a similar United Way list, because I know several UWay people who smile grittily when GiveBig is mentioned, say something vaguely supportive, and gripe later that donations are just sliding from UWay over to GiveBig. It would be interesting to test that theory.

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by carol hudson http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407302 carol hudson Thu, 16 May 2013 05:59:59 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407302 I’m not sure the measure should be by group. I think there should be some way to poll individuals and see how effective the campaign was. Each group’s outreach can be muddled by the work done by the Seattle Foundation plus what was done on social media. I think the question is to a select group of individuals is “What did you hear/see”, “What made you give or not give?”, “Did you give today as a special gift?” and so on. I think that should be the approach, but I’m not sure how. Also some analysis if this move them up the engagement ladder.

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Jon Stahl http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407301 Jon Stahl Thu, 16 May 2013 04:59:52 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407301 2011: $3.6M total, $500k stretch pool
2012: $7.5M total, $800k stretch pool

Sources:
http://www.seattlefoundation.org/news/Pages/FinalGiveBIGResults.aspx
http://www.seattlefoundation.org/news/Pages/BehindtheScenesGiveBIG2012.aspx

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Sharon Chen http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407300 Sharon Chen Thu, 16 May 2013 04:54:59 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407300 Jon – do you have the stats on how much was raised in 2011 and 2012? Also, what was the “stretch pot” in each of those years?

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Jon Stahl http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407298 Jon Stahl Thu, 16 May 2013 04:40:36 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407298 Great point, Sharon, thanks!

]]> Comment on How to measure the effectiveness of GiveBig and other “day of giving” campaigns? by Sharon Chen http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/05/15/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-givebig-and-other-day-of-giving-campaigns/comment-page-1/#comment-407297 Sharon Chen Thu, 16 May 2013 04:15:55 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2888#comment-407297 The other thing to keep in mind is that even if they did not result in any net gain in fundraising, there is value to nonprofits in shifting revenue to late spring from end of year. Helps both with cash flow and having more budgetary certainty.

]]> Comment on A course I’d like to see for social change organizations by Jon Stahl http://jstahl.org/archives/2013/04/25/a-course-id-like-to-see-for-social-change-organizations/comment-page-1/#comment-407222 Jon Stahl Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:24:38 +0000 http://jstahl.org/?p=2873#comment-407222 We can agree to disagree about Palotta, I suppose. It is unfortunate to see him getting traction, because in my opinion his message, while it has a kernel of truth in it, is mostly toxic to the sector. Ivan Boothe has a nice perspective on it at: http://rootwork.org/blog/2013/04/uncharitable-how-businesses-co-opt-nonprofits-undermine-their-potential. And there’s also some nice, older background at: http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/12/uncharitable/.

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