Don Akchin

Network for Good’s Katya Andresen notes the importance of bringing your message to your target audience at that precise moment when their minds are open to receiving it. She cites a familiar example: the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s campaign to stencil storm drains with the words,”Do Not Dump – Chesapeake Bay Drainage.”

T.S. Elliott said April was the cruellest month, and this is especially true for trees. April seems to be launch month for a flotilla of surveys, reports and data dumps on the state of all things online. This year we had the 2012 Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index(TM) Study, the 2012 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report,  the Sage Nonprofit Solutions Email Marketing Report, and possibly some also-rans.  Feel free to read them. Or just away these highlights: If your nonprofit does not have a Facebook page, you qualify as a Conscientious Objector; 93% of nonprofits are on Facebook, with an average community size of 8,317 fans. 73% of nonprofits staff their social networking with the equivalent of one  half-time employee. 43% have a social networking budget of zero ($00.00). Online fundraising is growing at a healthy clip. The median growth rate was 15.8%, versus 20% in 2010 – a

If you’re still wondering how powerful social media can be, just turn on the six o’clock news. Occupy Wall Street - no, you don’t have to live in the Middle East anymore to see social media trigger social unrest. A small encampment in one city, cheerfully ignored by media for two weeks, has now sparked (mostly) peaceful protests in dozens of cities, with no end in sight. And the political conversation has changed from national debt to income inequality. Take This Fee and Shove It - Bank of America’s announced $5 monthly fee on debit cards sparked enough outrage, amplified by social media, to force B of A to back down. When did that ever happen before? Herman Cain is My Name - Details of a controversy about charges of sexual harassment emerged faster than Cain could bat them down. Meanwhile Ron Paul, near the bottom of the pack in polls, raised $2.5

In a fascinating essay in the Huffington Post, commentator Matt Dunn ponders the differences between the marketing of toothpaste and nonprofits (hint: toothpaste marketing is more successful) and why nonprofits cannot presume to win support just because they do good work.  Even in a season of hope, there’s nothing gained by relying on wishful thinking.

It is too early to say whether social media platforms like Foursquare, which are based on the user’s physical location, are a great leap or a short-lived fad. But at least one nonprofit has used Foursquare to raise money and bombard Congress with calls.

A Main Street program in Washington State was on the chopping block until legislators, moved by an outpouring of emails from passionate preservationists, saved the program. And guess how those emails were mobilized?