Six Things I learned This Week at Fonsi: The Future of Nonprofit Summit (Israel)

This past week, I attended Fonsi, a summit to bring "together some of the best professional, innovators, lay leaders, organizations, brands, and other passionate people to explore tools and ideas to move the vital third sector forward."  The summit was organized by Causil and Reach3k (thank you, guys, for bringing this to Israel!).

Held at the Nalagaat Center (picture below) at the Jaffa Port in Tel Aviv for nonprofits in Israel, Fonsi was a great experience.  It was fun, it was educational, and it was eye-opening to see the breadth of nonprofit activity that is going here in Israel.

The following are six points that I took away from the summit.

1)  Engage Your Audience

The point of a nonprofit's social media and web presence is for one purpose only: to engage.  The person who visits a nonprofit's site, or reads the nonprofit's facebook status or tweet, should feel moved somehow, more connected to the nonprofit's mission and work.

And how can you engage your audience?  Simple.  Follow Simi Hinden from PresenTense's advice: "Nothing engages your audience like a lively photo or video."  Take pictures at your events and at your programs, and then post them.   This will help someone who wants to know more about your organization's work be able to visualize what exactly your nonprofit does.

 "Nothing engages your audience like a lively photo or video." - Simi Hinden from PresenTense

It will also help donors and potential donors connect with your cause.  As Joe Hyams (CEO of Honest Reporting) put it, web content and visuals on your organization's activities is a nice, "Thank You" to your donors, showing them where their contributions go to.

2)  Email is the Killer App

In a session titled "Engaging Your Community," Tomer Marshall from Leadel jokingly remarked that "email is the killer app." Later, in a 10-minute Quick Fire Session, Miriam Schwab from Illuminea reinforced this: "Nothing brings a better ROI than email."

It's very easy to get distracted and mislead these days into thinking that new tools, like social media, is the greatest way to connect to donors and other stakeholders of your nonprofit.  But this is simply not true.  Yes, despite it being so 2005, emails delivered to your stakeholders via their email inbox remains the most effective way to engage them!

"Sending out a periodical e-newsletter is like keeping an open channel between your organization and those who feel connected to it," said Tomer.  (He recommends Mad Mimi as a great tool for sending out quality newsletters.)

3)  Journalists Need You

One session at Fonsi was a panel of journalists and PR professionals who discussed how to "Get Your Organization Some Press."

David Regev from Yediot Achronot shared a candid secret to the audience: "We Journalists need you."  He went on to explain that journalists are always looking for the human angle to their stories, and that nonprofits are usually at a key advantage to provide them with that human perspective.

He added that nonprofits are therefore entitled to make reasonable requests to reporters, like "please add that our organization does X" or "please don't mention Y."

Ruth Eglash from the Jerusalem Post added, "Nonprofits don't need to be scared of us journalists."

Nontheless, Jeremy Wimpfheimer from DJW Consulting stressed that timing is important when it comes to approaching a reporter: "It may not be the best idea to call a reporter about your nonprofit on the same day of a Flottila crisis."

When it comes to timing, Dena Kraft from JTA mentioned that mornings are often a good time to call a reporter.  Later in the day, journalists are closer to their deadlines and more pressed for time.  "Also, please ask up beforehand whether we are in the middle of something," she remarked, because the reporter maybe in the middle of something else, and it wouldn't be the best time to pitch the story idea.

She also suggested that nonprofits don't just send an email, but also followup with a phone call.  She once almost missed a really important story because a nonprofit only emailed her the information, without following up with a phone call to explain why the news piece was important.

4)  Simply Your Donation Form

Oded Zehavi, from PayPal in Israel, had one suggestion for all of the summit's attendees: make the donation form on your site simple.  A complicated form, with lots of fields, will just give potential donors extra time to change their minds.

"It's so inexpensive to have the capability to accept donations on your site, there is no reason you shouldn't have it," added Tova Semkin from Beit Galgalim.

5)  Coordinate Online and Offline Campaigns

A lot of buzz has developed recently over e-philanthropy.

While it's true that many donors these days use the internet to give financial support for their causes, every session at the summit brought up the fact that in no way are online campaigns and e-philanthropy taking over as the mainstay of fundraising.

Per Tova Semkin, e-philanthropy "is a way to supplement your fundraising, but most fundraising is still done offline."   She added that "it takes times to grow online campaigns and any online campaign needs to be integrated with offline campaigns."  Many people still feel most comfortable sending in a check, especially Israelis.

6)  Make the Ask

Last but not least, it's important to keep in mind one thing Yonatan Ben-Dor mentioned from Israel Toremet: "No one ever donates money, unless they are asked first, so don't forget to make the ask."

"No one ever donates money, unless they are asked first, so don't forget to make the ask." - Yonatan Ben-Dor from Israel Toremet

So yes, it's important to engage your audience and yes, it's great if you can get them in "the loop" (Miriam Schwab's term, referring to getting stakeholders and potential donors to start receiving your email, seeing you on Facebook, reading your blog, and watching your YouTube videos).  However, at the end of the day, a nonprofit can only do its great work if it has enough money (hence the old adage, money = the lifeblood of a nonprofit).  Hence, make sure that you also ask for donations as part of your online strategy.

The Fonsi summit next year will be in Jerusalem.  See you there.